The Kirk Report

Rumblings And Mumblings

• A flight to quality?


• Economic volatility is back with a vengeance


• Emerging-market stocks are in a free fall


• A watched pot never boils. Kind of like this market where everyone is expecting a bounce


• Crude oil prices rise on option covering


• Questionable options patterns have been around for a very long time


• More Fed rate hikes may be needed according to the IMF


• All eyes and ears will be on this week's core personal-consumption expenditure price index


• Lowry’s Lament Redux is a must read


• "We're seeing very little of the stubborn bullishness that is typically seen at market tops." - Mark Hulbert


• The bears are in control?


• I've seen little panic selling in the U.S, but apparently fear is on the rise


• "The recent decline just appears to be another pullback." - Ken Tower


• Stubborn bull? Jim Rogers says he will not sell any commodities even if they correct 30% to 40%


• Pat Dorsey provides 20 reasons to love this selloff


• Gold bugs take note, but do not panic


• 10 reasons for a bear trap!


• Why the market bears are back


• More stocks are trading under their moving averages, but I'd actually like to see even more


• Hussman's weekly market comment


• More 1987 crash chatter


• Will the Nasdaq hold its trend channel?


• Margin debt!


• At least one hedge fund bites the dust


• One of my personal favorite sentiment indicators is simply the SOX


• "An oversold bounce can be expected, but there is plenty of room (and need) for a continued decline longer-term." - Carl Swenlin


• Mission Impossible?


• Wall Street tries to figure out a better way to trade off the news


• Forbes' preview of the week ahead


• NOAA foresees active hurricane season


• Algorithms put to use in oil hunt


• As an astute observer of the obvious, Greenspan says housing boom is over


• Well-known real-estate bear speaks up


• Owner-carry loans or take-back loans stage a comeback


• An interesting look at median house prices in Silicon Valley


• Housing troubles? Bank on it!


• Black magic charts


• In Gold We Trust ($)


• The fever for exotic stocks


• Indian stocks plunge 10%


• Investing in Indian stocks should now carry the Surgeon General's warning


• Are you taking so much risk that you could find yourself in this same position? If so, it is time to take your foot off the gas pedal


• The Hugo Chávez show is bad burlesque


• Trading in the right to pollute has become a profitable investment niche


• Big internet stocks look attractively valued


• WSJ's master stock pickers ($)


• M2Z starts to get some press


• TicketMaster uses auctions to fight online scalpers


• The NYSE (NYX) battles to regain its supremacy


• Motorola (MOT) releases blackberry killer


• With recent market leader Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) in a downward spiral, investors ask questions


• Wal-Mart (WMT) gets out of South Korea


• Microsoft's Vista will likely run on your old computer?


• MasterCard's IPO is a priceless opportunity?


• Don't blame me for the fallout in shares of Golf Galaxy (GGXY) today - I spent a ton of money there over the weekend


• Yahoo spin


• Google (GOOG) insiders sell


• I'll say it again - Google needs to hire Ted Turner


• GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) could challenge biotech titans


• "Capital isn't scarce; vision is." - Sam Walton


• The 10 best and worst performing industries over the past month


• Standard & Poor's weekly stock screen


• Here are some stocks that caught my trading radar today: AGYS, CMTL, HOM, CTAC, IFO, COGO, EXAS, MKTX, AMZN, YHOO, GKIS, MED, CRZO, CHRW, JSDA, VITL, DVN, IFO, PCU, TTI, and MAIN


• Harry Domash's turnaround screen


• XTXI, CELL, MED, ADS, AQNT, MTU, FMD, ODFL, SNDK, SUPX, ZUMZ, PKE, CLZR, HUBG, UFPI, CXG, VLO, LUFK, RSTI, HBHC, SLB, ORA, SCHK and INT were added to the IBD 100. The following companies were removed RRC, GGB, PBR, BOOM, NWRE, CRESY, EXP, NGPS, GBX, BRG, ASF, PCU, RS, RIO, GRP, OXPS, CRED, UPL, NSSC, TZOO, USG, GG, RES and JOYG


• IBD's 10-highest rated stocks investors love to own


• Experienced traders don't follow the crowd. They lead it!


• "A busy, volatile market will provide more tradable swings than a slow, non-volatile one." - Brett Steenbarger


• Munger's musings


• First gold-miners ETF begins trading


• ETF pioneer pins industry growth on actively run portfolios


• Six rules to keep bad mutual funds from dogging your portfolio


• Duh! Tax reductions mean less money for the Treasury


• Why the rich get the most tax goodies


• Just in time for hurricane season - doubt arises over New Orleans' levees


• The Bush administration finds a new way to blow another $1.6 billion dollars


• Can you afford to retire?


• Seven hot 401(k) trends


• Should you pay off your mortgage? Mark Trumbull offers some thoughts


• I wish more schools focused on financial education


• Are you money smart? Take this test to find out


• Fighting identify theft is not easy, but here are a few steps you can take


• Links to stock exchange websites around the world


• From my limited preview, there is a lot to like about BlogBridge


• Funny economist cartoons


• WeatherMole!


• I seriously doubt my blog is worth $84,681!


• No joke - it took me 112 strokes to get around 18 holes of golf yesterday. Talk about needing some practice!


• I'm glad so many of you enjoyed last week's Q&A


• "What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?" - Robert Schuller

Searching For Strength

Another round of selling to start off the trading week.

My intraday scans are turning up very little (just more pain) but I am keeping my eyes on the tape while juggling a few other tasks (i.e. catching up on my reading, answering email, running a couple of longer-term screens, etc.) After market corrections, I always like to keep my eye on stocks that are setting 10-day highs (i.e. searching for strength amid weakness). As you can see below, the list is a fairly small one:

If turnaround Tuesday lives up to its reputation, it should be one to offer lots of rebound trading setups. How stocks perform in the final trading hour today will provide us with some clue to whether there is any conviction left in the buy-the-dip crowd.

A Monkey Wrench

Good morning. Weakness in overseas markets has produced a negative bias in premarket futures particularly since traders have no fresh economic data to ponder this morning. While that won't be the case later this week with the durable goods orders on Wednesday and GDP on Thursday, today traders have little to chew on other than last week's decline.

Premarket winners include VPHM, TLAB, CMTL, RSAS, TTWO, YHOO, ATVI, DYN, SBUX, SCSS, PACT, KBH, TMTA, NYER, and TASR. Premarket losers include TRID, GOLD, KRY, OPWV, PWAV, PEIX, TIE, NXG, SFE, GTE, EZM, XMSR, STKL, NTRI, PAAS, BIDU, HANS, BRCD, and RMBS.

We are oversold and with everyone looking for a bounce, sooner or later it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The questions that remain are 1) at what levels will this occur and 2) whether any snap-back rally will be sustained. I could make a strong argument for a snapback at these levels, but as far as the second question, that's where I'm quite uncertain. With the memorial holiday next Monday we also have a holiday trading environment coming up soon which certainly adds a monkey wrench into the mix. The market can and most likely will be manipulated by the elephants in any direction they want during this time frame as the majority focuses themselves on other things.

Between looking and hopefully finding a few small day trades this morning, I'll also be working on another random links post that I hope to have posted this afternoon. Have a good Monday!