LiveRocket Week 17 - Up 1%

All in all a decent week. About what the market did. We would have beaten the market solidly but the UCTT drop cost almost 2% in portfolio value.

HIGH TECH

AMX – Up 5% following solid earnings. Another 52 week high. Almost 2X normal volume. Technically, AMX looks a bit overbought.

CTSH – Up 2.7%. No real news. Pre-earnings IMHO. Interestingly enough, they announced plans to hire another 18,000 people. Business must be booming. Technically, CTSH looks oversold and has retreated to between its 50 DMA and 100DMA – I like that. Retreats to the 100 DMA create bottoms from which stocks move up.

NUAN – Down 3.3%. Down every day this week but on low volumes (Friday was 40% of normal). Technically, NUAN looks good – neither oversold nor overbought. And if it pulls back to its 50 DMA, that’s ~$15.50

PWR – Up 4%. They also hit a new 52 week high. They look hot and overbought – far above the 50/100/200 DMA.

TRID– An exciting week. TRID soared ~10% only to give it all back. But they gave back only this week’s pre-earnings run up, and I see that as a positive for future growth. Technically, figures show that there is not much interest in this stock, but that’s better than the active disinterest of a few months ago.
UCTT – Down 21%. Big ouch. However, I am not too worried. Business is solid and the drop was really just down to their 100 DMA. They do that and then bounce back. I don’t like it, but I think that they are a buy at this price.

OIL SERVICES/EQUIPMENT
Technically, all of these stocks are trading hot: MACD/RSI indicate over buying and they are far above the 50/100/200 DMAs. On the othe rhand, because they are so cheap measured by P/E /G, I think the prices are finally catching up.

ATW – Up 8%. A new 52 week high. No news, just pre-earnings excitement.
CLB – Up 9.5% after strong earnings.

ESV – Up 5.9% after solid earnings

MDR – Up 5%. I think that this is part of the wave of oil related earnings releases as well as nuclear power excitement.

BIOTECH

DIGE – Up 4.6%. No news but pre-earnings excitement. Technicals show interest has returned with a vengeance. We bought back in after the MACD bottomed out and turned up and it hasn’t stopped rising since.
HOLX – Down 1%. Third down week in a row. This was also a very volatile week. So I turn to the technicals and I see that HOLX is touching its 50 DMA and that the sentiment is turning weak. This happened last quarter right before earnings release: MACD around 0 and price at 50 DMA. Lets hope for a repeat because HOLX surged 20%+ last quarter after earnings.

The thing is, I think that they are fairly valued. So I am thinking that the upside is limited unless I see more than 50% earnings growth this quarter.

IMA – Down 0.7% because of the lingering Biosite bid. Technicals show a recent return of positive sentiment. The Biosite move heralded a big selloff: MACD collapsed from a positive level to -1. RSI plummeted to 20. The price even dropped to below the 100 DMA. This week, however, RSI and MACD trended back up.

OTHER

KSU – Down 1.3%. I think that this is post earnings and post Buffet. It could ease further. One thing I noticed was Friday’s big drop to $37.4 before re-bounding. So the technicals mirror a potential pullback to $36. Everything says overbought.

OCN – Up 3%. The market is starting to understand that not only is OCN shielded from a subprime meltdown and actually making money off of it. Interest in OCN has been rising for a few weeks. This could get interesting.

PCP – Up 3.2%. believe it or not, PCP actually looks oversold.

TIE – Flat. Which is better than the competition. ATI and RTI are down ~3% for the week. I take no pity because TIE has been flat for a month while they rose 10% until this week. All signs are positive: ATI announced 90% growth in earnings and beat expectations by 5%. They have a P/E of 17.
Nevertheless, the technicals are neutral on TIE. Which is ok given that it has established a bottom of $35. That means $40 is possible soon.