Stock Market Close Charts 3/23/09

The Nasdaq is up nearly 4% for the year and the financials have erased half of their YTD losses with this months 24.74% rally and they are now down "only" 24% in 2009! I had a great powder day today, but I cannot help but wonder how I would have done if, instead of floating on fresh snow, I was trading. The market will be here after my week off, but today's upside move was enough for me to temporarily wonder...



Today's trading saw a wobbly start after the large gap higher, but quickly reclaimed VWAP and never looked back. These charts are a great example of why daytrades should generally be done in the direction of the VWAP for the day.


We have been observing the Volume Weighted Average Price since the gap higher on March 10 and you can see why the average price since "the bottom" remains a key benchmark to observe.

Stock Market Education

I receive a lot of questions about sources of learning for market information and the video below takes you on a brief tour of what is one of the best deals out there. You can sign up for a free trial by clicking the banner below and then it is just $100 for a full year of 24/7 access.

Education

Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.
~William Butler Yeats

Stock Market Video Analysis 3/22/09

Here is the video of this evening's live analysis.


Stock Market Analysis 3/22/09 from brian shannon on Vimeo.

Stock Market Video Trend Analysis 3/22/09

I will be doing a live event again this Sunday March 22 at 8PM Eastern you can REGISTER HERE Last Sunday's event did fill up so be sure to register early. Once again, NO EMAILS if there is a stock (ONLY ONE PER PERSON) you would like me to look at, twitter requests ONLY, thanks.

We will follow the same format as last week
1- Market Analysis
2- General Questions (only accepted through one twitter post, 140 characters ((-:, be concise)
3- Stocks I am looking at
4- Reader stocks

Volume Weighted Average Price

It is too early to make the call that the bullishness is over with the markets remain above the Volume Weighted Average Prices (VWAP) since the rally began on the 10th (blue horizontal lines), but there are clear reasons to be cautious. Breaking those VWAP levels (which are constantly changing with new data points) would put the average buyer at a loss and give control back to sellers. The uptrend lines, pointed out yesterday, have been broken int he SPY and the XLF and it is looking like the QQQQ and IWM have put in lower highs. Keep a close eye on the XLF, it has lead the market for the last 18 months and its relative weakness is reason to be concerned.

Self Control

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.
~Dale Carnegie

Stock Market Close 3/19/09

No video this evening.

30 Minute Trendlines

The 30 minute charts below show the magnitude of the recent rallies. A break of the uptrend lines could lead to a more meaningful pullback towards the prior resistance levels.