Stocks I'm Watching, Aug. 22, 2011

You can view the charts here.

First up is AKRX.  I found this one on a short-term uptrend, but when I scaled out the chart (see AKRX_weekly) I see a very deep bowl...or cup.  There's 3 scenarios that could come out of this:

1. It's a 3-yr old, deep cup pattern about to form a handle and then tear off.
2. It will just pass on through resistance and keep going.
3. It's a double-top, that will head-fake above resistance and pull in the early bulls down to the Sarlacc Pit.

Looking at the daily charts for AKRX shows volume interest at resistance, and also around the 6.75-7.00 mark where it consolidated from April through June.  I like the volume interest here, and I have hope for this one.

Next is LABL. This one has been riding up nicely since February, although as the trend has progressed, it seems to be losing stability.  Indeed, the highs from July and August (so far) look like a left shoulder and a head.  We could already be into the right shoulder of this pattern, but LABL shot up on good volume almost 10% while the S&P 500 struggled to gain 0.34%.  I'll be looking for entries near support.

NATH also shows potential, attempting to break above resistance at 19.50.  This could also be a double-top, but look at what happened with the 17.52 level.  The volume is a little low, so be careful with this one.

And what is going on with OPMG? This one had some serious volume buying at the penny level, and shows promise to be in the beginnings of a new Stage 2 trend.  If it keeps above the rising trend and MA, I might try my hand on this one.  Another word of caution, this one also has low volume on the retrace, and is cheap enough to be subject to manipulation.  But I wonder if someone knows about a buyout or something...

I follow both RJI and RJA, and RJA has broken above its recent downtrend on some volume.  Too bad this fund doesn't pay dividends, but I'll be a buyer on continued upward momentum.  It's my play on world Armageddon.

Stepping aside from gold for a moment, let's look at SLV.  It just broke above its recent channel AND a significant Fibonacci retracement.  This price looks headed back to the high of 49.35, and I suspect onward from there.

Which brings me to the all-mighty Dollar.  Does the Buck stop here, at 21.00?  UUP does NOT like to go below that level, and has been fussing and fighting it since May.  Everything about this chart just yells, "down!", but UUP keeps fighting it.  What I find interesting is how the Dollar has struggled in a trading range, but U.S. indices took a severe hit at the same time.  The coupling of printing money causing the Dollar to fall and our stocks to rise has gone out of sync, and I'm curious how this will play out.  I'm cautiously optimistic that the Dollar might try to break out of the orange resistance trendline in my chart and attempt to rebound as much as the 50% retrace of 23.35.

I'd like to finish off by coming back to Mr. Rogers' neighborhood.  Jim Rogers mentioned in a Bloomberg interview last week that he believes that the Fed has already started QE3.  Even though Chairman Ben only announced that he would be keeping interest rates down through 2013, Mr. Rogers believes that it is through this that the Fed will be adding more stimulus to the economy.

I'll have more on the Fed in my next post.

Cheers!