What I Use for Stock Screens and a Trading Watchlist

Everyday after the market has closed I try to run though atleast 80 to 100 charts with my custom scans on Stockfetcher.com. I just use pure technical and statistical screens. I don't screen any fundamentals on Stockfetcher. For fundamentals these days I just us Graham Investor and look at NCAV stocks.

A perfect scenario when I'm scanning is to find a good looking chart first on Stockfetcher that also is a net current asset stock or deep value around net tangible assets. There continues to be a lot of stocks moving in the alternative energy industry. I've had Plug Power PLUG keep popping up in scans but I missed the last big run. I'm still watching it though. Fuel Cell FCEL has a good chart going too. If I were going to be daytrading tomorrow I would have ETRM on watch with a long bias. This is a very clean flag right here.

For possible position trades

I really like Vapor Corp VPCO. They sell electronic cigarettes. Electronic cigs are a winning industry of the future. It looks poised to breakout here again.

Delcath Systems DCTH is hovering right around net current asset value. On the balance sheet there was about $25 million in net current assets. The market cap is right around there here at $.24 a share. It's in breakdown mode so more lows look like they are coming.

Star Scientific STSI has had some bad news lately. I see it as a contrarian play in the low $1 a share area. This stock in the 10 years I pulled up price history in yahoo has always bottomed around $1 a share.

Wandering in Deep Value Land

As many of you know Benjamin Graham had a famous style of investing that sought to purchase deep value stocks selling for large discounts to their net current asset value. It's also called the cigar butt approach. You find these cigar butts laying around and sometimes they are good for one last puff. There are different kinds of deep asset value stocks. There are the cheap for a good reason and then there are the cheap with good potential. The deep value companies in industries that typically turn into deep value traps are biotech and semi-conductors. So many of these have traded for huge discounts to net current assets and even had some profitability but the stocks never come around.
Some of the best net current asset stocks I've seen tend to be in businesses with simply better business fundamentals. A lot of these will even have a "brand moat" they can in-circle around their little castles while working to bring the company back from the gutter. An example of one of these former net current asset stocks that turned around was sports retailer Finish Line years back.
The first stock I am going to look at today is SkyPeople Fruit Juice (SPU). It is in China so I proceed with caution. SPU trades on the Nasdaq and has a market cap of $51 million. It is in net current asset deep value territory because the company has $66 million in net current asset value. I simply took the $200 million in current assets and subtracted the 36 million in total liabilities. So, we are at a discount to NCAV. I bring this one up because cash has been extremely stable.
The next one is Books a Million (BAMM). BAMM has a market cap of $36 million and net current asset value of $21 million. We are not in NCAV land yet but this is something to watch. The stock currently trades at $2.46 per share and NCAV is $1.4 a share. Net tangible asset value is $6.50 a share.
Disclosure: no position in SkyPeople Fruit Juice SPU or Books a Million BAMM at time of writing.

Thoughts on Markets During This Political Event

With all the talk of a possible currency semi-crisis from a default I really don't see any markets taking that threat seriously. The US dollar index is still pretty far from its two year lows. This even considering all the quantitative easing that has been going on since those lows. The news media of course blows any movement in the major indices like the Dow Jones out of proportion. It really hasn't been that volatile. 100 point swings! Ohh my! Today saw one of the bigger spikes in the VIX up about 16%.

There are still a lot of stocks in play out there hitting some highs. Something entertaining happened the first week of October. A lot of people thought Twitter's IPO ticker symbol was TWTRQ. TWTRQ in fact was a pink sheet company called Tweeter Home Entertainment. The stock ran up 1,000% on huge volume.

I've noticed a lot Chinese stocks are in play lately. This company called Vision China Media is up so much here. To much I think. It's going supernova now and I believe there is going to be a lot to short once it starts to break a previous days low of the day.

Disclosure: No position in VISN, long TVIX

Follow Up on the Baltic Dry Index and Shippers

I made a post on the Baltic dry Index early this year as it looked like it was possibly forming a bottom. Some people believe the index to be an economic leading indicator. I did some subsequent posts on some shipping stocks. Well, the bottom finally came on the Baltic Dry Index and it looks like a bullsih consolidation. It has just so slightly broken out of the trading range it has been in all year. I put up a chart that shows the breakout of the range and retest. We've just retested and it's still moving strong here. Shippers like ESEA, PRGN, DRYS have some very nice momentum charts. A lot of them are coming off high flags like GNK, BALT and SBLK. My favorites are Euroseas ESEA and Dryships DRYS.

VIX Setup and Market Direction

After one heck of a run in the major indices this year it's time for a pull-back. At the least a healthy consolidation. I drew up the charts for this post about a day ago and the VIX spiked 12% since then. Briefly, the VIX I believe should spike and the vehicle I like for it is ticker symbol (TVIX) Velocity Shares Daily 2 X long VIX. We are still around the bottom of the trading range for VIX as the chart below shows. Also, there is a lot of room for a pull-back in the S&P 500 as the trend line below shows. So, a correction should ensue. Another major turn of events that very well could and should prompt a pull-back is the FED decreasing its bond buying which they have hinted at lately.

Solar and Alternative Energy Stocks

The alternative energy sector is continuing to perform well. I found a couple small companies with good charts that I like. Primarily I like the charts. Jinko Solar (JKS) is one of the solars I posted on Twitter awhile back and it ran 17% today on good volume.

The first new one is Ballard Power Systems (BLDP) with a market cap of around 200 million. BLDP sells fuel cells which is a very promising alternative energy. The stock price just broke out of a triangle consolidation.

The second one I like is Suntech Power (STP). STP is a 250 million dollar company that also just broke out of a long triangle. Both of these stocks look ready to keep running.

MEET Flag Setup

I've had MeetMe Inc. ticker MEET on my watchlist since it made that big run about a week ago. It's started a flag on Fridays run with light sell volume on the flag and looks poised to continue to run again. I am going to put a buy stop order in at 1.87 a share. I also added LEE XXII JKS to the watchlist.

Trading Range Breakout For Crude Oil

This is a followup to the post I did on crude oil in June. The triangular consolidation on crude had been forming for a long time. Crude finally broke out of the ascending triangle. This is a very bullish chart still and I wouldn't be surprised to see a 110 retest. Triangles are very powerful chart signals. I drew up a new chart and I posted it below. The trend line breakdown I circled was very telling of what direction it was heading. That was definitely a failed signal.

I sold my KWT solar etf position for a slight loss at $46. I didn't get an ideal entry and didn't like the price action so a stop loss is a stop loss. I'm thinking of uploading some video posts in the near future here. I'm looking for a good desktop video software so I can show what I'm talking about simultaneously.

Net Net SORL

I recently looked through a lot of NCAV net-net's. These are stocks with market caps below net current assets. The most compelling recent net-net I noticed is a company called SORL Auto Parts.

SORL Auto Parts (SORL) is a Chinese company that develops, manufactures and distributes automotive brake systems and other key safety related auto parts to automotive original equipment manufacturers, and the related aftermarket both in China and aboard. The Company’s products are used in different types of commercial vehicles, such as trucks and buses. SORL is trading below net current asset value and is profitable. It even has earnings growth.

Crunching numbers straight from their annual 10-K filing the market cap is $51 million and net current assets are 124 million. At the current stock price of 2.65 it is trading 41% below net current asset value. Cash has also been stable over the past couple years which is good. Moving from the balance sheet to the income statement we find earnings and a current PE ratio of 4. The PEG ratio (price to estimated earnings growth) is incredibly nice at .89 over the next 5 years. In 2012 the company had free cash flow of around 29 million for the year.

The stock had a big run from 1.80 a share in Sept of last year all the way to 4.00 in February of this year.

Crude Oil Chart and Position Update

I'm long KWT the solar ETF from a $49 entry. I have a mental stop loss of $46 a share. Around $38 a share is more of an ideal stop area because it is below the old resistance from Fall of 2012. I run a lot of Stockfetcher scans throughout the week and there are a lot of long setups that keep popping up as the market is still in bull mode. I only scan for stocks priced from pennies to $10 a share. This pull-back in the major indices looks like just a consolidation right now after that huge run-up.

I try and follow crude oil regularly. I've posted up a chart that shows the resistance level that crude has failed to break through over the past 12 months. Along the way from where the price is from the summer of 2012 there has been some triangular consolidation that you can see in the chart.

The short-term chart technicals clearly say to get short right here. If I actively traded CL futures the stance here is definitely short biased. We will have to see what becomes of the triangular consolidation over the coming weeks. It may be very telling.