It looked like a nice bullish day for the stocks, until about the last hour of trading when the market began selling off. The indexes managed to close higher, but near their lows of the day. Things seemed very bullish in morning trading, and whenever things look “too” bullish in the morning, you can almost be sure a significant sell-off will occur in the afternoon as sellers take profits.

The Nasdaq was looking especially strong today until the close. The QQQQ is now showing a topping tail, which could mean lower prices to come.

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There were three stocks that triggered on Wednesday, but they barely budged, only giving a few pennies until selling off. This is the first time that this many stocks triggered from the momentum-trader.com Watchlist and moved so little. Most triggers offer at least a max daily gain of 1%, and usually much more. But today’s triggers didn’t come close to that.

MTL was one of those triggers. It wasn’t a great chart pattern, but it looked like ti was preparing for a significant move higher. Instead, it barley touch the entry point, then sold off hard in the afternoon.

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Another trigger was XEC, which also sold off, closing below the entry point.

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It wasn’t all bad news for the portfolio. Some stocks continued to move higher, netting gains even after the selloff. Yesterdays trigger KSU followed through, albeit a modest gain today.

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Today’s market action can be seen as bearish, at least in the short term, but the current market rally is well intact. With Options Expiration on Friday, things could get crazy here. Therefore, I don’t plan to take any new positions until next week.

Trade Ideas for 04/15/08:

I am keeping RRC and BRY on the Watchlist, but don’t plan to trade them unless we they trigger on a substantial bounce. My plan for tomorrow is to manage my current positions.

Good luck and good trading!