Out Front Of HD's Price Reversal
by Mike Paulenoff
May 23, 2021 • 10:54 AM EDT
After Home Depot (HD) announced earnings on Tuesday that beat the Street on most of the important metrics, goosing the stock to the 327.25 area, Mike Paulenoff cautioned MPTrader members.
He briefly discussed HD's near-term technical set up, which looked promising as long as HD held support above 315.21, but then added:
"From a Bigger Picture perspective, my work presents some less promising prospects for HD's potential upside price path. Let's notice on my attached Daily Chart that the last time HD's Price AND Momentum hit confirming new highs was on April 16th. The subsequent new ATH in price at 345.69 on May 10th was NOT CONFIRMED by Daily Momentum, and as such, represents a glaring non-confirmation that serves as a warning signal to anyone who is camped-out in an entrenched long position -- that the power driving HD higher has dissipated, and continues to dissipate as price moves higher."
Later that day, HD reversed sharply, closing lower on the session, injecting serious negativity into Mike's near and intermediate technical work.
The poor performance of HD's stock did not go unnoticed by HD management. On Thursday afternoon after the close (at 315.90), HD "surprised" The Street by authorizing a new $20 billion share repurchase program.
On Friday, after popping higher to 319.28, HD closed the session lower, at 315.77, despite the influence of Tuesday's strong earnings report and Thursday's stock buyback announcement.
HD's poor stock performance certainly appears to be reflecting Mike's problematic "bigger picture" technical set-up.
What's next for the price of HD? Will it continue to hold above its 50 DMA (now at 313.80)? If not, to what target zones does Mike's work project weakness? Will HD weakness weigh on overall market direction?
Join Mike and MPTrader members for discussions about HD, as well as many individual stocks, ETFs, macro indices, cryptos, and commodities.
Mike Paulenoff is the author of MPTrader.com, a real-time diary of his technical analysis & trade alerts on
ETFs for precious metals, energy, currencies, and an array of equity indices and sectors, including international
markets, plus key ETF component stocks in sectors like technology, mining, and banking.
Sign up for a Free 7-day Trial!
More Top Calls From Mike
On May 27, Mike Paulenoff posted the following bullish commentary about iron ore producer Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF):
"CLF is up 6.7% today precipitated by the company's announcement that it intends to pay off a slug of debt of holders of Senior Notes due in March 2025! There is nothing Wall Street loves more than profits, but a close second is reduction in debt. Technically, CLF's U-Turn off of Monday's low at 17.
On the morning of May 27th, just hours after Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) reported earnings, Mike Paulenoff gave this bullish assessment to MPTrader members:
"In the absence of damaging weakness beneath last eve's algo, knee-jerk spike low at 611.02, and subsequent follow-through beneath 600, my technical work remains 'friendly,' and points higher, to test the ATH at 648.57, in route to 675-680 thereafter."
The stock, which was trading at 628.
Back on July 16, 2020, Mike Paulenoff alerted MPTrader members to a potential turn in the long-term downtrend in the grains markets, reflected in his trend analysis of DBA (Invesco DB Agriculture Fund), an ETF consisting of agricultural commodities (grains, softs, and livestock).
In that changes in inflationary expectations are at the forefront of investor's considerations for the first time in decades, Mike's focus on a potential sharp climb in grains prices certainly was well-timed and well-received.
This past Friday, 30 minutes before the release of Retail Sales data for April, Mike Paulenoff posted his analysis of XRT, the SPDR S&P Retail Sector ETF.
After explaining in detail his analysis, which you can read here, Mike concluded: "All of the action from the Jan. 28th high at 99.24 through Tuesday's (May 12th) higher pullback low, represents a larger, bullish digestion period and pattern atop the dominant 15 month uptrend.
Back in early February, with CVS trading at 73.19, Mike Paulenoff alerted MPTrader members to a bullish technical setup in the stock, writing:
"CVS exhibits a potentially very powerful multi-month set up, and as a matter of fact, looks like it just ended a correction from 77.23 (1/12) to 71.04 (1/29, and right at its up-sloping 50 DMA)."
He added, "If reasonably accurate, [this] means that CVS is entering a new upleg that should challenge and take out 77.
