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During the internet bull market of the 90s I sold Yahoo around $400 per share  (pre -split) because my internal voice said making money was too easy. I had seen the stock go up $50 in one week when I was holding a large position. I tell my students that whenever my voice cautions me that way, I sell. (It rarely happens!) It happened a few days ago, however,  when I had a small position in INMD. I watched it rising fast and then on Monday morning, 11/18, INMD was trading up almost $9 from Friday’s close.   It was also trading outside of its upper daily 15.2 Bollinger Band on very heavy volume and had gone vertical. My voice went off and I sold around $57. I had a 40%+ gain in just 9 days. I was lucky. INMD closed Friday at $41.55. When I make money too fast, I sell. As they say,: Bulls make money, Bears make money and Pigs get slaughtered. (Wy did I buy this stock? The consummate trader, Mark Minervini, @Marmminervini, had tweeted about INMD.The stock was a strong recent IPO and at all-time highs. I merely bought some on November 6, with the intention to sell it if it traded lower than the prior day’s low. I get great trade-able ideas by following the tweets of a couple of very smart traders: @markminervini and @TMLTrader, whom I met at Mark’s annual invaluable trader workshop.

The GMI is at 4 (of 6) and many of the very short term indicators in the GMI2 are negative. This is a reduced trading week and probably not the time for me to add or increase positions.

AAPL hit an all-time high of $233.47 on October 3, 2018. After that high was not exceeded for 3 months, I drew in a green line, designating a green line top. I could then set an alert on TC2000 to alert me when AAPL traded above the green line. It had a green line break-out (GLB) one year later on October 11, 2019. Note the above average trading volume that day confirming the break-out.  AAPL has now advanced +12.5% since the GLB. Note that after the GLB, AAPL re-tested the green line for a few days, a common occurrence. If it had CLOSED back below the green line, I would have sold my position.  I would then have repurchased it if it retook the green line. I have found that the GLB strategy works really well for me in a strong market. The idea is to buy a stock that has advanced to an all-time high, then rested for 3 months or more and subsequently closes above the green line on above average trading volume. The fabulously successful trader,  Nicolas Darvas, concentrated on buying stocks breaking to all-time highs during a rising market. Every person should read his book, How I made…listed below. (It is the first book I require my students to read.)

Note that during the time of the GLB and for weeks before, AAPL had been in a nice daily RWB up-trend.

GMI remains at 6 (of 6).

One of the set-ups I am teaching my students this semester is to buy growth stocks above their last green line top (ATH not exceeded for at least 3 months)  that has bounced up off of (or close to) their 10 week average. The 10 week average (blue dotted line) must  be rising above its 30 week average (solid red line). Once buying the stock on this set-up, they must place their initial hard or mental stop loss below the low of the week of the bounce.  The idea is to buy a strong stock and hold it until the 10 week average is violated at a weekly close. Twelve stocks hitting an ATH (all-time high) on Friday met these criteria as of Friday’s close. Here are three of their weekly charts. The first two have recent earnings increases above 100% and all have already at least doubled over the past year–a sign of strength.

A few other stocks that did not reach an ATH on Friday but have doubled the past year and bounced their 10 week average last week include:  TRHC, NSP, ZEN, BJRI, EVBG, LPSN, RNG, SPSC. SPSC hit all of my favorite set-ups, including a green dot, last week. Here is its daily chart:

We came through the typically weakest month of the market, September,  unscathed. There are some warning signs, though. There were  more new lows than highs on Wednesday through Friday and the strong tech stocks are masking the weakness in much of the rest of the market. The health stocks are also surging (CURE (3x ETF), HUM, HIIQ, UNH, MOH, CNC, WCG). But the financial stocks look weak.  In fact, this weekly chart of the financial ETF, XLF,  shows it may be entering a Stage 4 decline–very ominous and worth monitoring. If the hikes in interest rates don’t help the banks to prosper, it may be telegraphing tough times to come.

But the GMI remains on a Green signal–for now.