SourceFire - Stock Charts - September 20, 2011

Thought it would be interesting to have a look at SourceFire.

From Wikipedia:

Sourcefire was founded in 2001 by Martin Roesch, the creator of Snort. The company created a commercial version of the popular Snort software: the Sourcefire 3D System, an intrusion prevention solution. Sourcefire states that it is committed to advancing open source technology and continues to maintain close ties with the Snort user community.

Company mission from their website:

Focused on its mission to be the leader in intelligent cybersecurity solutions, Sourcefire® is transforming the way Global 2000 organizations and government agencies manage and minimize network security risks. With solutions from the network to the endpoint, Sourcefire provides customers with Agile Security™ that is as dynamic as the real world it protects and the attackers against which it defends

 Weekly chart

The company has shown relative strength company to the broad S&P500 / Nasdaq Indices.
As seen below, FIRE has appreciated faster than the general indices.

Another notable divergence is more recently.  August was a terrible month for NASDAQ and S&P500, however SourceFire emerged unscathed which shows relative strength. 

Time to short S&P 500 ? Depends on Fed Meeting Wednesday

We are coming to a definitive point in the markets.  The Fed will be announcing its meeting Wednesday, which will really set the pace of the next 3-6 months.  The chart below shows also a short signal.... Slow stochastic is getting into overbought territory and the 50 day MA resistance is right above the current price.  A touch of this level at 1226 could be an optimial short entry with a tight stop above this level.  If the Fed disappoints the market, look out below, however there has been talks the FED announcing some form of stimulus which is not priced into the market (ie surprise).

Brookfield Properties Corp Technical Analysis | Stock Chart |

I picked up a recent short play (put option expiring in October) with a property management company Named Brookfield. The company is listed in the US and in Canada under the stock ticker BPO.
 

Despite being oversold, this stock from a technical perspective is in deep trouble.  Breaking below all moving averages, as well as break out to the downside from a triangle correction.  I have a preliminary target of around $13.11, based on today's closing price is about a 15% decline.   It is worth noting that the MACD just crossed over the signal line on a daily and the last 4 days have had increasing volume.

A major level to watch is 15.06, which is the 200 week moving average.  If this level gets broke on high volume look for a rapid decline in the price.  As the world realizes the global economy is slowing, commercial property prices will be affected, but mostly Office rental properties as more companies go under.

This as well as other property management and construction companies have had a large run up without a sustainable pullback to assert their fair value. I would expect over the next 3-6 months many companies pulling back 10-30%.


Another great analysis on this chart is done by
Seeking Alpha :  10 Cheap Stocks With Bearish Trends Despite Growth Profitability



Wikipedia: Brookfield Office Properties

Brookfield Office Properties Inc. (TSX: BPO, NYSE: BPO) is a North American commercial real estate company. Brookfield Asset Management owns 50% of its outstanding common shares. The company has its headquarter operations in New York City and Toronto.^[2] Its New York City head office is on the 11th floor of the Three World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan, New York City, while their Toronto head office is located downtown in the Brookfield Place office complex, which encompasses an entire 5.2 acre city block and offers over 2,600,000 square feet (242,000 m²) of office space^[3]

Brookfield owns, manages and develops office properties in the downtown core of New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa, and Vancouver. Brookfield's properties include One Liberty Plaza and the World Financial Center in New York City; Brookfield Place (formerly BCE Place), First Canadian Place, and Queen's Quay Terminal in Toronto; Place de Ville and the John Edmunds Towers in Ottawa, Canadian Western Bank Place and Enbridge Tower in Edmonton; Suncor Energy Centre, Fifth Avenue Place, Altius Centre, Herald Building, and Bankers Hall in Calgary; and Royal Centre in Vancouver. It also operates real estate service businesses and has a land-development business primarily based in Canada.

Minera Andes Inc. - TSX: MAI - Technical Analysis Review - 6/9/2011

Minera Andes Inc. - TSX: MAI

From Homepage:

Minera Andes is a producer of gold and silver and an explorer of gold, silver and copper in Argentina. Minera Andes trades on the TSX under the symbol MAI and OTC in the US under the symbol MNEAF. Rob McEwen is the company's CEO and largest shareholder (owns 30% of the company).

This stock has made a tremendous move over the past 8 days.  Today was the most bullish day of all - Gold fell $50 from peak quickly, and MAI held its own.   The stock is over bought, so a pull back is not out of the question but I suspect we might have a little more upside before a decent correct to consolidate about previous resistance 2.40 - 2.60.  

Looking to sell 1/2 position if 2.88 gets touched.

Friday's 10% pop was due to the following news item : Update on Proposed Merger of US Gold and Minera Andes


Minera Andes is situated in Argentina and is exploring / mining the following properties.

Gold $1920 - all time high - September 6th, 2011 - Gold breaks $1900

Gold makes its move over the all time high recently set, to close to or at $1920.  This rise in gold is impacted significantly by the recent and continuing turbulence in the world.

See previous post: Geo Poltical Risk - International economic slowdown - Markets poised to open sharply lower:

Geo Poltical Risk - International economic slowdown - Markets poised to open sharply lower

It is September 6th, 2011, around 1 am and it is easy to tell this week will be extremely volatile and risk aversion might be in full swing.  The above table  from Bloomberg shows the futures of the three major US indexes.  DJIA is down 2.48%, S&P 500 is down 2.75%, and NASDAQ 100 is down 2.36%.

Why is this happened?  Well one of the reasons can be simply found by looking at the EUR/USD.

The Euro broke, stemming from a critical German vote on the legality of bailing out Eurozone members such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc.

An excellent summary can be found in this recent article from the Telegraph:

• German stock markets plunge 5pc ahead of crucial vote on crisis
• "The German stock market plunged to its lowest level for two years - shedding 5pc of its total value in one day - amid fears of the apparent impotence of European leaders in the face of the debt crisis."

 Not to mention that Greek 2 year bonds are Yeilding over 50% -  From Bloomberg: GGGB2YR:IND


Middle east is also heating up, Turkey will be challenging the Gaza blockade in the UN while in the same week working with NATO to build a missile defense system for Europe. 

Along with the Eygpt/Israel row and Syria's continuing uprising.

The fundamental and technical picture looks horrible for the markets and it is expected that without further stimulus the market will pull back substantially over 6 months.  However, more easing will contribute significantly to a seemingly parabolic move gold and silver.  Gold is close or at its all time high as I conclude this blog post:

Wow looks like it did or almost touched 1920... that is an all time high folks.

Is it Wheat's Time? DAG ETN Analysis | Agriculture Sector poised to make a move | QE3 likely to push the agricultural sector higher

Read an interesting article name: A recipe for CWB failure
CWB referring to the Canadian Wheat Board, and the mention of failure relates to the Vote on September 9th, 2011.

From the Article:

The CWB's board of directors will respect the results of this plebiscite. If a majority of farmers wants to end the single desk for barley or wheat, we will actively support the transition to an open market. I am calling on Minister Gerry Ritz and the Government of Canada to also respect farmers' wishes. 

Another piece of interesting news in the agricultural space: Crop year a difficult one says CWB president by Glen Hallick.

From the Article:

"The 2010 growing season saw record rainfall levels that left millions of unseeded acres, leaving a small crop with one of the lowest quality profiles we've ever faced," White said. "This was frustrating for farmers and posed difficult marketing challenges, made worse by grain-movement issues that stalled farmer deliveries and affected the supply chain for much of the year."

...

Overall all-wheat production grown in the 2010-2011 crop year was down by 3.3 MT to 21 MT. Meanwhile all-barley production declined by 1.9 MT to seven MT.

The CWB forecast for 2011-2012 calls for 17.4 MT of wheat, 3.9 MT of durum and 8 MT of barley. The prediction includes the estimated six million acres that went unseeded this year because of spring flooding.

DAG - 2x Bull ETN - Agriculture - Wheat, Corn, Sugar, Soybean

I am looking at the next pull back as an entry opportunity.  The three standard correction are on the chart above.  Most likely the 38.2% retracement level is what we will see within the next couple of weeks if the top is truly in. If not, these levels will need to be recalculated.  The MACD looks to be rounding off signally a slight pull back.

A very bullish chart is the Weekly DAG

Hence why any pull back will be an excellent low risk high reward trade entry.  If this is the beginning of a new up-leg much higher prices in the agricultural sector will be expected.