Google, Inc (GOOG) is set to release its earnings announcement after the close of the market today. We’re pretty excited to hear this earnings report, and we’ve got a hunch that it might be a lead-in to other tech giants releasing later this week. Right now GOOG is sitting on it’s 50-day simple moving average, right around $700.

That’s a pretty good base for bulls… there’s certainly a lot of room to run upwards, but there’s also at least $20-$30 on the downside that could be filled in without breaking any important technical barriers. 

The move predicted by implied volatility is around $35, which puts the upper end of the earnings range comfortably within GOOG’s recent range, and the lower end of the earnings range above a previous support line. It’s a toss-up, and we’re ready to see where the ball lands in a few hours.   

Tech leader IBM responded to the beginning of the year like stocks across all sectors - with a gap up, followed by a little pull-back. We’re looking hard at the technical indicators to see if this is an aberration, driven by increased market volume and new-year’s glee, or if it’s a sustainable increase in price that we expect to continue. 

IBM has been in a range between a long-term support line and its 200-day simple moving average since a big drop after its last earnings announcement. There’s been a lot of channeling happening since then, which doesn’t provide an enormous opportunity for any directional trading. We’re going to continue to stay away until one of two things happens - either the channel is broken in either direction, or there’s a significant bump in implied volatility, that would allow us to sell credit spreads or an iron condor with real premium. 

If you’re looking for a low dollar short position MU may be the ticket. It has consistently had trouble in the 6.80-7.00 area.  It’s sitting right in the trouble zone as we speak.

A Short entry here with a stop @ 7.15 and target @ 6.00 would make for a 2.3:1 reward to risk…not bad.

Nice Consolidation Pattern (sideways trend) in place in WYNN.  At the moment, it looks to be chipping away at that 115 resistance level. We would not be surprised to see a break through 115 resistance, which should push the stock to the 125-127.50 area.  Worth keeping an eye on.

MSFT looks like a “close your eyes and buy” situation to us here at TickerTank. After a downside earnings gap (purple oval), the stock managed to stabilize in the 26.50 area.  Now MSFT looks to be gearing up for an Inverse Head & Shoulders neckline resistance break.

A neckline break would likely lead to a quick gap fill, and ultimately a measured move to the 28.75-29.00 range. Looks like a nice place to consider selling some Feb13 27 Puts.

Major market ETF SPY is sitting almost exactly in the middle of a long-term upward-trending channel. On top of that, it’s just recently bounced off it’s 200-day simple moving average, and is now running up against the bottom of its 50-day simple moving average. We’re setting up for a potentially smaller near-term range while inside a longer-term range, which creates some interesting trading opportunities. 

More to come soon - we may be looking into double diagonals early next week. Until then, enjoy the weekend!

The 200 day Simple Moving Average has proven quite relevant per this one year UUP chart.

Early 2012 it acted as support (green ovals).

Early September it broke through (yellow oval) and experienced a swift drop as a result.

Now after a Triple Bottom in the 21.60 area, UUP is testing 200 day SMA support turned resistance.

So far resistance is winning the battle, making the next move up to the 200 day SMA a good bearish entry opportunity from a pot odds perspective.

Finally, 20 on 20 covers everybody’s favorite stock: AAPL. Today’s been a weird day - when we looked this morning we were ready to talk about the 200-day simple moving average as a source of resistance, and it’s been proved more quickly than we anticipated. It seems like $595 is a legitimate resistance point in the short term (or so today’s sellers would have us believe) and we’ve already identified $520 as a support level (see chart above). 

So what does this mean? Well, it may mean that the best trade here is an iron condor, using $520 and $595 as the short strikes. It’s always possible that AAPL could move 100 points in either direction at a moment’s notice, but we’ve got to trade something, and this action is too strong to ignore. We’re definitely interested in finding a trade, and the IC is as good a place to begin analysis as any. 

Beyond that, we could use today’s drop to enter some more bullish trades, if we really feel confident that this drop is temporary. There are more than a few people out there doing exactly this - loading up at lower prices and getting ready to exit after a nice spike. It already happened once, as that’s probably what the selling at $595 was today - people exiting profitable trades (or getting out of old positions at breakeven).

As our subscribers will tell you, AAPL is a frequent target of our attention… you might even call it the “apple of our eye”. If you sign up for our Options Strategy Alerts, you’ll get all the trades (and, unfortunately, all of the puns). Enjoy! 

Stop number three on this 20 on 20 merry-go-round is $XLF, the famous Financial Sector ETF. XLF has a reputation for being “volatile in a range”, meaning that it rarely breaks out of an upper or lower bound, but within those borders anything goes. 

We’ve got a nice range drawn on this chart that has been useful in the past, with $16 being a meaningful resistance level. Below that, the 200-day simple moving average (traditionally an effective measure of the market’s value of the security) is floating upwards, at about $15 and change. This creates a dollar-wide range for expected prices in December, and gives us a starting place when looking for a trade. 

We’ve seen a nice pop up early this week, which is in line with a ton of other stocks. What we’re not seeing is a decent options trade to go with it, which is a function of a low stock price (comparatively) and low implied volatility. Well, if you want to put a trade on XLF then you’ll have to get a little creative. We see the 15 put butterfly and 16 call butterfly as equally decent options - it just depends on which direction you think the stock will move before December expiration (hint: it could be both). 

We’re kicking off a new tradition at tickertank.com today, and we’re calling it 20 on 20. Today tickertank.com’s staff will push out 20 stock/etf/futures analysis blog posts, free for everyone to see, in an effort to get you great insight into the markets. 

First up, Netflix. More than just our favorite way to watch “Dr. Who”, NFLX is a quirky retail stock that traditionally has big earnings swings and lots of volatility. The image above gives you a look at the last 6 months of trading, and it’s pretty clear that NFLX is on the upper end of its range. 

Normally we’d see the 200-day simple moving average (the red line on the chart) as a significant source of resistance, but the stock is already $2 higher than that level and looks like it has more room to run. We’re looking at July’s highs around $86 to be a more firm stopping point for this bullish run. 

As far as trades, if you’re looking to sell spreads, you may want to avoid any short calls below the $86 strike price. Aggressive traders may enjoy selling Dec12 80 puts, just below the 200-day SMA and around an interesting support level. If the stock peters out before hitting $86, it’s still pretty likely that it will hover above $80 for a few weeks. Any put strategy could be a nice play if that support level holds. 

If you like the analysis, you’ll get plenty more by signing up for our Options Strategy Alerts here. Let 20 on 20 begin! 

First Solar (FSLR) looks to be near the top of a 3-month rising triangle pattern, and could break out of this soon. We think it’s a little more likely that $26 acts as resistance again, and we see a return in the stock’s price to $24 at least once more time before breaking upward, possible all the way to $32 or $35, based on the size of the triangle. 

The image shows the stock creeping upward over the last 90+ days, and it doesn’t look to be stopping, so we’re tentatively going to look at bullish strategies later this week, to see if a nice breakout emerges from this medium-term pattern. We’ll shoot out the trade to our members if we see something worth entering! If you want to hear more and you’re not a member, click here to join!  

It’s been a little while since we blogged about SPY, so here goes: we’re sitting right on a long-term upward-trending support level, and we’re bumping up against a less-important resistance line (see chart). What does this mean? We’re thinking it’s bad news for bulls, as we’ll probably see sustained sideways movement, or maybe a little break upward followed by a pull-back. We’re definitely thinking this line will get violated sometime soon… particularly with elections coming up, the market may not be willing to take a bullish stand. 

If you’re an iron condor trader, this might be a nice time to jump in and hope actual volatility is lower than implied volatility, and take a little premium home before Thanksgiving break. Good luck! 

30-Year Treasury Bond Futures (/ZB) are testing down trend resistance. This level at approx 150 is a level at which we like bearish options spreads in TLT and/or bullish spread in TBT.

Noteworthy action taking place on this DIA 1-year chart (click to enlarge). DIA is currently testing accelerated uptrend support coupled with double top support at 133.25.  The double top resides at 136, translating to a 2.75 pattern height (136-133.25). If DIA does in fact break 133.25 support, we expect continued downside to the 130-130.50 range.

It is important to note that DIA must break 133.25 support in the next few business days in order for this assumption to be at all valid.

TLT, the popular 20-year bond ETF, is sitting right back on resistance turned support after bouncing off the $121 level last month. This is the third test of the level, which is usually a pretty important one. We believed in put-selling last time this happened, and we’re in favor of it again - we’ll be looking to the put spreads between $115 and $118 in October for trade ideas today and tomorrow.

If you’re a premier member, keep your eyes open. If not, you can sign up now right here!