The market opened to a slight downside gap but recovered into the close, trading lower volume overall.

Today’s fun facts + links:

• Apple impacts S&P 500′s earnings to the tune of 20 – 30% (Market Montage)
• Barry explains the current market in a language everyone can understand (Yahoo Tech Ticker Video)
• Today’s volume was the lowest non-holiday trading day in over a decade (ZeroHedge)
• Super Bowl sets record with 111.3 Million Viewers (Bloomberg)

Congratulations to the New York Giants on the big Super Bowl victory yesterday. See you back here tomorrow!

The market is on one mission, and that is to break through 2011 highs. Today we saw it crawl ever closer as the NASDAQ finished within 1% of 2887.75 (.0972% to be exact).

Interesting today:

• The average daily market changes falls back under 1% (Bespoke) – “At one point in early December 2008, the S&P 500 had averaged a daily change of +/-4.02% over the prior 50 days, which is the highest level ever seen in the index’s history.”
• From StockCharts.com, “According to the Wall Street Journal, ‘Caterpillar’s 20% stock surge this month contributed nearly 34% of the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 415-point advance.’ As a price weighted ‘average’ the highest priced issues in the Dow carry the most weight. This is also true for the Dow Transports and Dow Utilities.”
• Facebook’s S-1 reveals Zynga (ZNGA) supplies 12% of Facebook’s revenue, shares soar (IBD)

Tomorrow we have the all important jobs report due out which will possibly maybe probably not have an effect on this market. full details.

No recap tomorrow as usual so have a FANTASTIC weekend and I will see you next week!

A positive push forward for the market today lead by the NASDAQ has brought us within 2% of 2011 highs. With Europe as a “no need to worry” zone and a hardly mediocre US economy being pushed aside, the trend remains up.

Interested reads today:

• Facebook has over 800 million users, filed today to raise $5 Billion in an IPO (Bloomberg)
• A REAL look at the housing market with Barry Ritholtz (Yahoo Video)
• Greece is heading to a “condition of absolute poverty” (ZeroHedge)
• Is 2012 set to be a copy performance of 2011? (Bespoke)

And the best are these 8 Facebook fun facts from its IPO prospectus (hat tip ZeroHedge):

1. Facebook’s stock ticker will be “FB“
2. Facebook’s IPO will raise $5 Billion
3. Facebook currently has 845 million monthly active users (MAU)
4. Facebook currently has 483 million daily active users (DAU)
5. Facebook has over 2.7 Billion likes and comments per day
6. There are 100 Billion friendships on Facebook
7. Facebook sees 250 million photos uploaded daily
8. Facebook had $3.7 Billion in revenue for 2011, 85% growth year over year (YOY)

Mind boggling! Will you be buying Facebook when it goes public?

Market speed summary from investors.com:

Stocks wavered to a narrowly mixed finish Tuesday following a round of worst-than-expected economic reports, but the major indexes ended January with big gains.

Fun fact of the day, SentimenTrader (one of my favorite newsletters) reports,

For the first time in history, the S&P 500 never suffered any more than 0.6% drop during the entire month of January.

Pretty impressive I’d say. Jason goes on to note however that when looking at this occurrence for other months during the year there seems to be no meaningful buy or sell signal for moving forward.

In earnings, AMZN stock is down over 8% in after hours trade after reporting earnings that missed sales and gave a unimpressive outlook for Q1 revenue. Full breakdown at MarketWatch. The stock is sitting at about $177.50 currently.

Updated Gold chart analysis included tonight, see you back here tomorrow!

A higher volume reversal after opening the day higher is a point of concern heading into tomorrow. Like anything though until support is broken the trend remains intact.

Right now we are focusing on the very tight rising channel that has formed over the last month alongside the 10 MA. Both are shown below.

On the earnings front, the highlight today after the close is Starbucks (SBUX) which, “reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street’s forecasts on Thursday and raised its full-year guidance although its outlook remains below analysts’ expectations.” The stock is down just over 2% in after hours trading. Chart below.

Tonight’s charts have a bit more commentary included so I hope they are still easy to digest. And with that said, as usual there will be no recap tomorrow so stay frosty out there and I will see you back here on Monday.

Join me for the once a year, ultra limited seating Dan Zanger seminar. The seminar will be held at the Renaissance Airport Hotel in Los Angeles, California on Saturday April 28th, 2012.

Dan Zanger holds the World Record for the largest portfolio return in a single year (29,233%). His claim to fame is turning roughly $11,000 portfolio into $45 million over two years. Not bad at all I’d say .

Through his website, chartpattern.com, Dan has a nightly newsletter where he posts his latest research, analysis, and stock picks (read my full Dan Zanger review). His newsletter is one of my favorites and is a part of my daily routine.

Go Here for all the seminar info. Summary facts:

• Dan Zanger (ChartPattern) yearly seminar
• Saturday April 28th, 2012 at the Renaissance Los Angeles Airport Hotel
• Cost is $1,695 per person
• Limited seating (I hear around 100 participants max)
• Full agenda

This is obviously not a cheap seminar but what you pay for is what you get. The testimonials Dan has and the millionaires he’s made make it quite a unique opportunity to learn from Dan live.

In full disclosure I am a very lucky guy because Dan and his team have decided to give me my ticket for free this year as a thank you for all the referrals I have sent their way. All I can say is that it is easy promoting a product you believe in and utilize yourself!

So, if you decide to head to the seminar this year please let me know so we can meet up. I hope to see you there!

Earnings season is in full force as we all know and today had Apple (AAPL) reporting after the bell. All I can say is wow…

Apple Earnings summary:

• Q1 revenue of $46.33 Billion vs analyst expectations of $38.9 bln
• EPS was $13.87, vs. expectations of $10.10 per share
• 37.04 million iPhones sold, 128% growth yoy (year over year)
• 15.43 million iPads old, 111% growth yoy
• 15.4 million iPods sold, -21% decrease yoy
• 5.2 million Macs sold, 26% growth yoy

Shares resumed trading at 4:50 PM and as of 4:53 PM are up over 8% trading around $455 per share. This gives Apple an effective market cap of over $420 Billion, passing Exxon Mobil (XOM) as the largest company in the world. Here’s a 1 min chart of after-hours trading showing the gap to $450+ via my thinkorswim by TD Ameritrade screen,

So ya… in other news… here’s an updated look at the S&P 500. Stay frosty out there!

Nothing major from the market today as the indices closed flat on lower volume. The word floating around is that there is extreme complacency with the market currently, suggesting a pull back is looming in the very near future. For further analysis read these quality posts from today’s StockCharts.com and ZeroHedge. Some key points from ZeroHedge:

• “Most measures of market sentiment are back to where they were last May just when the S&P 500 was peaking.
• Short interest has dried up to three year lows.
• The VIX closed the week below 20 for the first time since last July.
• As Mike Santoli points out in Barron’s, volume in leveraged ETF’s versus bearish ones has risen to levels that in the past touched off interim market pullbacks.
• Credit market indicators have lagged well behind the improvement in equity performance.
• The S&P 500 is three standard deviation points above its 20-day moving average.
• Again, as Barron’s points out, the ratio of the 15-day volume puts on the S&P 100 Index to bullish call volume hit 2-to-1 last week – this happened in the February 2007, February 2011 and April 2011.”

On the earnings front there are a few notables reporting tomorrow. Get ready for earnings reports from Apple (AAPL), McDonald’s (MCD) and Coach (COH). Also on the economic front, Wednesday will have the latest Pending Home Sales data released.

I also wanted to mention a pretty cool website I stumbled across today while doing testing for the StockBrokers.com 2012 Broker Review set to be published next month. The site is Trefis.com and for visual investors it is interesting to say the least. The site breaks down each company visually to see what product lines make up the stock price value. Here’s Apple’s from the site below. Anyone use this before? I’d be curious to know if these are actually accurate metrics.

Notes aside, hope this market is treating you well and I will see you back here tomorrow! Try not to be too complacent out there

With a brand new year among us it’s time for another epic edition of Tools of the Trade. 2011 was a year to remember (or to be blocked from memory) as somehow amongst $1 trillion+ in new US Debt and a whole heck of a lot of drama in Europe the S&P 500 managed to squeeze out a $.04 gain. What’s up with that?

I am not sure about you readers, but for me the market atmosphere was anything but ideal in 2011. I invest entirely as a hobby and only when free time permits (StockBrokers.com receives most of my undivided attention now a days). As a result, I spent most of 2011 sitting in cash amassing a thrilling return of .0000001%. But, for the times I did dip into the market in 2011, I almost always was stopped out for a quick loss as the market gyrated like the witches wheel ride at your local carnival.

Remaining optimistic however, perhaps this year will be different. I mean really who knows how far this “more debt, no problems” philosophy will take us in 2012. I for one am eager to see what happens. If worse comes to worse, I figure that atleast by the time my wife and I have a family and our kids are grown up everything will be back to normal. Here’s a toast to the future.

Stock market aside, I hope you enjoy this years Tools of the Trade post. After you finish reading please feel free to leave a comment and spread the love via Twitter and Facebook. I’d love to hear from you!

2011 Blog Highlights

• Acquired TraderMike.net in January from the infamous “Trader Mike”. In November all stock market recaps were switched to being posted here at StockTradingToGo and the two blogs feeds were merged. This boosted the RSS count past 17,000 .
• Was interviewed on WIOX Radio NY “Money Train” with Chris Gaddis in April (Audio). StockTradingToGo was also featured in Money Magazine that same month.
• Had my first nationally published article in Futures Magazine, July 2011 (tip, blogging is much easier than writing a print piece!).

Computer Setup

Three 24″ LED monitors on a Windows 7 PC with a 128GB SATA 6 GB/s SSD Hard Drive, Core i7 3.07 GHz processor, 6GBs DDR3 Memory, and two XFX 6870 video cards running in Crossfire mode. I also have a 50 MBps internet connection (5 MBps upload) to ensure that the internet is always flowing like cool-aide on a hot summer day.

Here is a screenshot with thinkorswim by TD Ameritrade maxed across all three screens (note this is definitely not my standard setup. Instead, I usually run MarketSmith on the far left screen with the center screen housing my web browser and the far right screen occupying thinkorswim):

Brokers

My retirement account is with OptionsHouse and my regular trading account is with TD Ameritrade. Truth be told I have brokerage accounts with over a dozen online brokers because we test them all throughout the year at StockBrokers.com. Every broker has its pros and cons and it really all depends on what matters to you most as an investor. If you are considering switching brokers, read my stock broker guide here on StockTradingToGo then head over to StockBrokers.com.

Investment Sites, Services & Subscriptions

Here is a list of the non-paid and paid services and subscriptions I currently utilize in no particular order. In full disclosure, because of the blog and the relationships I have built over the years, many of these services are provided to me for free. There are also many other services I am given subscriptions to but I do not use them regularly.

With that said, the services & subscriptions below are a part of my daily routine and the ones I personally recommend. There is no artificial marketing hype here; this is true love:

• Investors.com – $259 per year – I am a big Will O’Neil fan. I use Investors.com, MarketSmith, and my favorite stock book of all time is How to Make Money in Stocks. As far as Investors.com goes though, I like tracking the IBD 50, reading the featured articles of the day, and if time permits I do enjoy browsing through the latest issue of Investors Business Daily (IBD) web edition.
• MarketSmith -  MarketSmith ($999 per year) + eSignal real-time quotes ($34.95 p/m) + Pattern Recognition add on ($14.95 p/m) - MarketSmith is outstanding charting software that makes performing basic technical analysis very easy. There were many enhancements added in 2011 including an iPhone and iPad app (great to use before bed), the pattern recognition tool, and the inclusion of much more historical data which makes studying decade old charts possible.
• SentimenTrader – $25 per month – Through SentimenTrader.com Jason provides daily market sentiment reports every morning which are a great way to start any morning email session. Jason analyzes every trade indicator known to man including seasonal trends and over 80 years of historical data to produce a daily report on the market. The reports are easy to read and highly educational.
• ChartPattern.com – $89 per month – ChartPattern.com is home to Dan Zanger (Read my full Dan Zanger review) who is the world record holder for the largest portfolio return in one year. His claim to fame is turning $11,000 into $42 million during the late 90s. Dan sends out a nightly newsletter several times a week with technical analysis and personal notes. He also has a chat room for subscribers. Overall if you enjoy my easy to read charts, you’ll really like Dan’s newsletter.
• StockCharts.com – Basic package $14.95 p/m – StockCharts.com is the site I use to produce all the stock charts for the nightly market recaps here on StockTradingToGo. The primary reason I have the basic package is so I can have access to more than three years of chart data and save my chart layouts. The free version is the exact same as any paid package less a handful of technically non-critical features.
• FINVIZ Stock Screener – Free – FINVIZ’s Stock Screener is the best stock screener available on the web. Having it be free is like getting your birthday drink free each year at Starbucks. It makes it that much more awesome. Once you get the hang of using this screener you will bookmark and return in dedicated fashion. Really.

MarketSmith Screenshot

Top 5 Favorite Stock Blogs

Improving upon last years Tools of the Trade post, I want to include a list of my favorite stock blogs this year. There are many fantastic writers on the web today. Here are my favorites in order:

1. ZeroHedge
2. The Big Picture
3. MarketMontage (Previously FundMyMutualFund)
4. Bespoke Investment Group
5. StockCharts.com Blog

I could probably push this list to ten, but I want to keep it to my absolute favorites. ZeroHedge reigns supreme because it is the only blog that can actually make me “giddy” before reading each day. The writers, in particular Tyler Durden, are unbelievably talented and so ridiculously smart it blows me away. I also love the subtle humor tied in with most posts that only a super star blogger can achieve. Not to be excluded though, Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture is also an all star. So is Mark of MarketMontage alongside the Bespoke and StockCharts.com teams.

Screening & Watch List

The majority of stocks that make it to my watch list are discovered within blog posts or on websites like investors.com. If I am screening though, it is done with FINVIZ or through the MarketSmith screener (great because you can include IBD ratings criteria).

Overall my watch list total on MarketSmith fluctuates. Right now I have 150 securities in my watch list. For most of 2011 though the number hovered around 100 or below as the market offered little opportunity.

Investment Philosophy

I am a CANSLIM investor at heart. I have learned to respect both fundamental and technical analysis equally, and I leave the fundamental research predominantly to the investors.com team. Success revolves around going long when the market is moving up and buying the absolute best stocks (fundamentally and technically), adding to my positions as they prove themselves correct.

I always use stop losses and typically I shoot for a profit to loss ratio of 1:3. This means I can be wrong three times in a row, have one winner, and still be profitable. Any success beyond that is just icing on the cake.

Allocation wise I run a concentrated portfolio. When the market is favorable I have no problem investing 50% of my portfolio in one stock (buying in increments as it moves up in price and presents follow up buy points). If I go on a losing streak I try and cut back my initial position size until I get a winner. This prevents me from losing more money if I start making undisciplined decisions. Overall I very rarely hold more than five positions at a time.

Looking at the market as a whole, I see it as a life long game and a source of quality education that can usually be applied to life. Every trade is another lesson to be learned and even though I have over a decade of “experience”, I am anything but perfect and am often making repeat mistakes. Staying disciplined is probably the toughest aspect for me, but each year I get better.

So that’s that. I hope you and enjoyed and please feel free to share your own tools of the trade via comment below. I’d love to hear from you. Stay frosty out there and I hope 2012 brings all of your portfolios great success. Thanks for reading!

**IMPORTANT: Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs (including me here at StockTradingToGo) already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

Google, Wikipedia, and thousands of other sites made their opposition very clear today. Wikipedia blacked out its entire site for the day (screenshots). Learn more at Google’s action site and please consider signing the petition against this legislation.**

Today’s speed summary comes to us via Yahoo Finance,

Stocks jumped to their highest since July on Wednesday as the International Monetary Fund sought to help countries hit by the European debt crisis, while forecast-beating earnings from Goldman Sachs dispelled some worries over bank profits.

Bloomberg highlighted today that less than 50% of S&P 500 companies posting earnings are exceeding expectations. However, as Mark noted today on MarketMontage, the market doesn’t care. The trend is pointing up, and until that changes it is a tough spot for bears.

Also interesting today, Apple (AAPL) shares closed at fresh all-time highs of $428.94. Apple is valued at $398.96 Billion as of today’s close. Not too bad at all. Stay frosty out there and I will see you back here tomorrow.

And last but not least an updated look at the Home Builders ETF (XHB) which continues to be on the move and now is just under its 52 week high of $19.21.