A Chart a Day #3: United Breaks Charts (UAUA)

If you're like me then anytime you hear news about a company (or watch a cheesy viral youtube video about it) you wonder what the chart looks like. The "fundamentals" or the news is always secondary to the chart. Obviously, United breaking some dude's guitar is not exactly bankrupting news but just the mention of United makes me think "I wonder what that pos stock chart looks like." And sure enough, there always something interesting in the charts of crap companies like United (bankrupted just 5yrs ago). The first thing that catches my eye is the scale of the three year chart. Last year UAUA staged a 470% rally in less than two months! Of course it gave that all up, but it was a nice looking "v-bottom" while it lasted. So thats what "v-bottoms" look like, cool, I'll have to write that one down. I don't really have a clue what UAUA will do in the short run, it could collapse through multi-year lows or rally back up into the triangle. Long term this stock has bankruptcy written all over it, compare it to any competitor.

Saturday Rock Blog: United Breaks Guitars

Nightmare on Wall Street 3: Enter Sandman

With Halloween approaching and blood all over markets I thought that it was time for another installment of Nightmare on Wall Street, part three. The eight below are hourly plots of some of the worst blugeoned stocks over the past two weeks. I want to stress that these are not just some no-name penny stocks that are dropping like stones in freshwater, we saw Washington Mutual drop more than 50% before rebounding a little yesterday afternoon:

And of course we all know about the governemnt sponsored entity (GSE) that manages half the US mortgage market, Fannie Mae (FNM). Thats some serious market value (about $8B) that just got decapitated:

I don't know about youbut when I look at these charts, Metallica just comes to mind. The destruction, the horror, the scale of it all, enter sandman:



Lehman Brothers (LEH), one of the biggest US financial institutions in the US, founded in 1850, is at the center of the most recent panic. LEH appears to be about to file for bankruptcy as evidenced by reports of their inability to raise capital at any cost and their rapidly declining market value (currently $3B (and falling)):

Taking a step back to look at the broader picture, the S&P 500 hasn't really declined all that much in magnitude yet but the chart is anything but bullish. The benchmark index still lies below major resistance at 1265 and the declining short and long term trendlines. Any rallies are sharp and quick to get sold, I doubt the S&P can move much higher before heading back down to test the recent lows:


So there's evidence that this relentless selling is not isolated to the financials. Take a look at Apple, ouch. Some important longer term trends and support levels have been diced on AAPL this week, I have puts:

Not even our good renewable friend JASO is immune to the power selling:


Oh, and how could I forget about AIG, it one of the dow components and the 18th largest company in the world. AIG has lost almost 30% (about $30B in market cap) since Monday morning:


This last one is more for fun since it doesn't demonstrate a significant downtrend in the short term. To keep with the theme, United Airlines (UAUA) did get bludgeoned pretty bad earlier this week when Bloomberg incorrectly reported that United had filed for bankruptcy. The stock lost nearly all of its value in a few minutes before recovering:


These must be long sleepless nights for the dudes on Wall Street. Unfortunately, the waking life does not escape the nightmares in the headlines. It seems we will be hearing news of market gore for some time to come.

In other news, the bears are getting aggressive.