William O'Neil's CANSLIM Method The CANSLIM approach to stock-picking was developed by William J. O’Neil, the founder of market-oriented publication Investors Business Daily. Designed primarily to find undervalued growth stocks, this multi-faceted strategy is simply the strict use of seven criteria; "CANSLIM" is an acronym for those seven rules. C: Current earnings performance. Is the company in question doing well...
The Basics Of Bollinger Bands Bollinger Bands are a technical analysis tool that envelop a chart of a stock or an index as a means of defining a plausible volatility boundary for the instrument in question. Plotted above and below the chart of the index or stock in question, Bollinger Bands are more responsive than a moving average envelope, but...
Q4 Earnings Season Outlook It's here again… earnings season. Alcoa (AA) kicked things off on Monday evening, posting mixed results. That is, the per-share income of four cents it earned topped estimates of two cents per share, though last quarter's revenue of $5.25 billion fell roughly $40 million short of expectations. Regardless of Alcoa's numbers, the advent of earnings season...
Unemployment Rate May Have Bottomed, But Job Growth is Still in the Cards Last month's job growth wasn't enough to push the official unemployment rate any lower than the reading of 5.0% it's been hovering at since October, but the 292,000 new jobs added in December was the second best month all year (and second only to the 307,000 newly-created...
U.S. Service Industries Confidence, Job Growth Differs from U.S. Manufacturing Business Call it a tale of two cities. Service-related business in the United States are doing well, and the nation's businesses know it. Conversely, factories are struggling, and the nation knows that too. Both sides of that coin will need to do well if the economy — and the stock...
Equity Collars An equity collar is the simultaneous use of two simple and commonly-used equity option trades as means of defending against a loss on an existing stock position. It's called a collar because, though an equity collar trade using options can limit the potential downside of a stock holding, it also limits the potential upside of an existing stock...
Consumer Confidence Back on the Mend, But Not Yet Soaring Again It's still a bit soon to say the ongoing improvement in consumer confidence is back in place, but at least it can be said that the developing downtrend in consumer confidence has been quelled. That's the message delivered by December's consumer confidence score from the Conference Board anyway, which...
Technical Analysis: Head & Shoulders Pattern The head & shoulders pattern occasionally found on some stock and index charts can and often does suggest a trade-worthy move is underway. They can be bearish as well as bullish, and have a strong success rate compared to some other technical analysis tools. A head & shoulders signal is called such due to its...
Sales of New and Existing Homes Slide in November, But… A month ago, a strong surge in sales of new as well as existing homes suggested the real estate (IYR) market (which never really began back-pedaling, but was stalling) was on the upswing again. In light of November's numbers, though, questions are once again raised. On the other hand, though the...
Candlestick Chart Analysis: Island Reversals Island reversals are a pattern on technical analysis chart that frequently — due to their abrupt and decisive nature — successfully mark a turning point for that stock or index. Generally speaking, they are marked by a small cluster of bars that are completely isolated from the bars leading up to the first bar and...
