Thursday's Finalist: XLP

The consumer staples exchange-traded fund XLP is the lone finalist, and indeed the one symbol that survived my first round of analysis. (See "Thursday's Prospects".) It gave a bull signal on Wednesday and confirmed it in early trading on Thursday.

XLP is one of the Select Sector SPDR ETFs -- the "XL spiders", since they all have "XL-" as the first two letters of their ticker symbols.

The XL spiders are the sort of fund that I would use to track the course of the business cycle if I were a longer-term trader. Even for a shorter-term trader like me, they can make for a decent speculation because of their liquidity and focus.

XLP has options with sufficient open interest, although it's spotty, that can be used to build a leveraged trade. Average volume runs around 600,000 shares a day, so it's not the most liquid of the sector funds. Still, it will suffice.

The chart is bullish at first glance, with XLP pushing up to higher highs.

I'll post a full analysis of XLP as a potential bull play prior to the closing bell.

-- Tim Bovee, Portland, Oregon, Oct. 9, 2014

References

My shorter-term trading rules can be read here. My longer-term trading rules can be read here. And the classic Turtle Trading rules on which my rules are based can be read here.

Disclaimer

Tim Bovee, Private Trader tracks the analysis and trades of a private trader for his own accounts. Nothing in this blog constitutes a recommendation to buy or sell stocks, options or any other financial instrument. The only purpose of this blog is to provide education and entertainment.

No trader is ever 100 percent successful in his or her trades. Trading in the stock and option markets is risky and uncertain. Each trader must make trading decisions for his or her own account, and take responsibility for the consequences.

License



All content on Tim Bovee, Private Trader by Timothy K. Bovee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at www.timbovee.com.