Tuesday, May 10, 2011

MCP's earning miss provides a good example of the false breakout

They just missed in AH, pretty badly too.

 on a daily chart, note the big volume breakout above resistance, this sets up a type of bull trap. any shares that need to be unloaded or shorted are done here into demand and what creates the demand? The breakout above a known resistance level on decent volume. The next day we have a slightly higher open and then it all falls apart.

On an hourly chart,  the negative divergence into the breakout tells us this is not likely a true breakout, but rather the often seen false breakout before a reversal.

And that's an example for those of you who haven't seen it before. I'm not saying every breakout i a false breakout, but I will say that most reversals start with a false breakout. How do we know if a breakout is real or false, volume , price action (there was no follow through) and 3C helps as a true breakout would have moved 3C higher with price.

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