CRR, RES, VAR & XOM

All of these have been recent short ideas, all with the exception of VAR (Medical Appliances/Equipment) are in Energy, CRR and RES are in the same sub-industry group (services) so you want to keep that in mind as you don't want too much exposure to any 1 group. However you can trade all 3 in the Energy group, but they should be treated as 1 trade for risk management purposes. All are offering a slightly better entry today for those of you who may be looking at phasing in to these trades, which is the approach I favor.

Let me know if you need the specific trade idea date, all of these are recent and can be found in the 2012 archives, all I believe in February, but if you need the exact date, just shoot me an email.

 CRR's long term trend on a 5 day chart and its volatile top.

 Friday CRR broke below the last major support area, whether it can produce the commonly seen volatility bounce or not, is hard to say. Usually I would say yes, but we are in a different environment now. I favor 1/3rd positions, maybe 1/3rd in this area, leaving enough room in your risk management to add on a volatility bounce/shakeout and finally the last 1/3rd on a break below the recent lows. Of course there are many different ways to phase in to a trade, but this appears to be one that will trend well in a stage 4 decline over the coming months.

 Viewing CRR a little differently, you can see, while volatile, it is already trending lower.

 RES is right at it's final major support area, RES is in the same industry group / sub-industry group as CRR, which is good for confirmation of the group' weakness, but for risk management purposes, if you are trading both, they should be treated as 1 position as they will likely move together.

 VAR is breaking it's sub intermediate up trend and has bounced a bit off support I mentioned Friday, I would leave some room as I favor wider initial stops which can later be tightened in case VAR sees a shakeout, again this is another trade that can be phased in to so long as you set up your risk management in anticipation of phasing in to the trade.

XOM is near  small top which appears to be within a larger topping formation seen on a 5-day chart. I would leave some room if you phase in to XOM for it to fill the recent gap from Friday's gap down. You can also wait for a gap fill rather then phasing in or wait for a break of the trendline.