Oil stocks are strong

Even as the biotech and social media sectors are imploding, energy stocks are performing brilliantly in spite of current weaknesses.

Conoco Philips (COP) and Cenovus (CVE) are now recovering from recent lows, and are displaying trend reversal signs from down to up. Looking to buy on market dips.

Bearish on Dow, but bullish on STI

Chart-wise, I see STI breaking out to the upside from its base. For this reason, I will be cutting loss or take profit on my "short" position when the index turns down from current overbought.

The stock counters I am looking to buy include Breadtalk, Goodpack and Noble. 

I am finding lots of sell signals in US market

Despite continued analysts' recommendations on purchasing US equities, I am finding plenty sell signals in US stocks. I think insiders/ fund managers are beginning to sell out of US equities owing to rich valuations. My top 2 to short now:

Cabot Oil & Gas (COG)

Herbalife (HLF)

Death cross and bearish candlestick patterns galore. As I have said in Sun 4 Aug article last year (see my post "Are we in last stages of bull run?"), I will be preparing to short these stocks. Other candidates on my list include: Amgen (AMGN), Biogen (BIIB), Celgene (CELG), Gilead Science (GILD).

My dogged performance in 2014 and the way forward

It has been a slow and frustrating 2014....

I was short Twitter, it rose, hit my adjusted stoploss, and fell back again.... I should have been in profits...

I was short Symantec and i took profit 2 days before the price crashed 10%...

I was short Krispy Kreme and the price rose to hit my stop loss, which I forgot to raise.... I managed to put back my postion but it had gapped down.

I was short STI, it fell back slightly, and now rose back up to way above my short price and its 200-d MA (a bullish sign)... I think this one will reverse to upside soon.. I will be adding more positions on its way up and then, when it corrects (inevitably), I will get out...

Moral of story: Need to hold on to my convictions. If I think a stock is going to fall, do not adjust stop loss nor take profit too early. Always check that I have entered buy/sell prices correctly. And, always have guts to put in more positions even as stock prices going against me.
I am usually right in the stock market, just need to hold my nerves.

Royal Gold my pot of Gold?

Royal Gold made a golden cross as of Feb this year.

With the increased volatility in stock prices, gold could finally bottom. And this spells upside for gold mining stocks. I am getting in soon!

Shorting candidate #1: Hang Seng Index

Felix Zulauf (CEO, Zulauf Asset Management) has viewed the Chinese banking system as about to implode. If this happens, there could be a bamking crisis in Hong Kong. He expects 2014 to be the year of the demise of the Chinese banking system. Hence, shorting the Hang Seng stock market is recommended.

Technically, Hang Seng has just broken below its 200-Day MA, confirming its downtrend. However,  I am not shorting yet. Will wait for it to tick slightly higher.

Should I short now?

Marc Faber has said that the stock have made a high, and stocks are overvalued. I am finally a buyer of his theory.

For the past 5 years, I did not heed his doomsday advice as I felt they were made too early. As such, I

am a buyer on every dip in the stock market. This year, I am bearish on the stock market. The reasons have been discussed before (Fed tapering, overvalued stocks, etc...) 

Unfortunately, I did not make money from shorting Twiiter as its price has not changed much. I have got out of it, and will be looking at other stocks/ indices to short.

Between US, HK and Singapore stocks, I think Singapore and HK are better shorting targets as they have been the weakest. However, now that they have been so oversold, I will be looking to short only once they have made a temporary recovery.