AOD Watch

The Alpine Total Dynamic Dividend Fund (AOD) continues its climb (so appropriate, given the name) for a third straight day, but with declining volume and little technical improvement.

	trend	adx	psar	pps	macd	macd trend	sto	sto trend
AOD $6.85

At 1:00 p.m. Eastern

I've got skin in the game on this one. Despite the risk to principal of high-dividend funds and stocks, the yield is very attractive, especially with a money payer like AOD.

The yield is 1.75% per month (21.08% annualized). That can help overcome some down days. although it pales to insignificance in the face of a decline such as the most recent, From a swing high $9.36 on April 21 to a swing low of $6.04 on May 25.

On the bull side,

The macd is rising toward the zero line, although it remains in bear territory.

The stochastic, which is something of a grasshopper, has moved into the neutral zone and is rising.

On the bear side,

The psar and pps remain bearish.

The macd remains below the zero-line.

The macd 9-ema is declining.

Declining volume.

In a broader view, AOD has been setting higher highs and higher lows since March 6, 2009, when it set a low of $4.22, at the nadir of the recent collapse of capitalist finance. It moved into a sideways correction on Sept. 15, and ever since has been oscillating between about $9.30 and $8.30.

Reversal Levels

• $9.36, +36.6%
• $9.24, +34.9%
• $6.85 <== You are here.



• $6.04, +11.8%

As is common with lower-priced stocks, the steps are fairly steep, exaggerating both profits and losses. A significant, persistant breakout above $9.36 would suggest the sideways correction is ending. Otherwise, it's a case of trading swing highs and swing lows. Or, just hanging on and letting the dividends flow, confident that ultimately there would be a profitable point to sell and collect capital gains. Technical analysis, if its advice had been followed, would have allowed on investor to avoid the pain entirely. The macd would have gotten the trader out on April 23 at $9.18; the parabolic sar and Person's Proprietary Signal, on April 26, at $9.20; and the macd 9-day exponential moving average, on May 5, at $8.78. So if I'm feeling pain, I have no one to blame but myself. Bad Tim!

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Abbreviations:

• psar - Parabolic Stop and Reverse
• adx - Average Directional Index
• pps - Person's Proprietary Signal
• ma20 - 20-day simple moving average
• ema9 - 9-day exponential moving average
• macd - Moving Average Convergence-Divergence
• sto - Fast Stochastic

About the glance: The colors indicate the state of each signal.

• trend: Determined by the 5-day moving average, green for up, red for down, yellow for sideways
• adx: orange for above 30-up, blue for 20-down, purple for in the middle. Red is most prone to whipsaws
• psar, pps, macd: green for bull mode, red for bear
• sto: green for overbought, red for oversold, yellow for the neutral zone.

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