The world is uneasy about the state of Greek politics and the ever increasing odds of Greece leaving or getting booted from the Euro.

The situation has taken its toll on US stocks as traders have been greeted to one up day in the last two weeks. While the indexes are reaching oversold levels, the action has put the NASDAQ, Dow, and S&P in a terrible technical analysis place.

Each member of the trio is now under key support levels; maybe they’ve even broken a head-and-shoulders neckline, which would mean more, perhaps a lot more downside to come. Top Equity News believes the index 200-day averages is the next chart destination Wall Street doesn’t straighten out its act.

The current environment leaves investors in a difficult spot. There have been some pluses, especially in the first quarter earnings results. With more than 90% of the results tabulated, nearly 67% of S&P member have exceeded their consensus earnings estimates. Meanwhile, profits and sales have grown by nearly 7% and margins remain high at 9% versus the historical norm of 7%.

If Q2 is a solid as Q1, then stocks are on sale.

On the other hand, the recent run of mostly disappointing economic news from a lower than expected GDP to horrible jobs numbers has economists and brokers revising their outlook for the economy lower.

If the forecasters are correct and the economy grinds to a halt, then Q2 earnings are likely to fall and so are stocks. The combination of good earnings news versus the volatile EU debt crisis and underwhelming US news on the economic front muddles the waters. Toss in a technical picture that shows the indexes drowning and it becomes downright confusing.

So what’s an investor to do in uncertain times like these? Three ideas come to mind.

The first and most obvious is to move some money to cash. Never, ever make the mistake of thinking it can’t go any lower than this. It can and probably will as new lows are typically followed by new, lower lows. Eventually the bleeding stops, but this mind frame turns small losses into big ones and adds dead weight to your portfolio.  Everybody knows of theses anchor stocks, when I just get back to breakeven, then I’ll sell it. Only it takes years, and in the meantime, better stocks zip right on by your dead holdings.

The second idea that could help stem the tide is to write covered calls against some of the stocks you already own. It is the practice of selling another investor the right to buy your stock at a set or specific strike price. Say you own ABC stock, and it’s trading at $43, and the option to buy ABC at $45 within the 90 days is trading at $3. You can sell the option and receive $300 for every 100 shares of ABC you own. As long as ABC stays below $45, you keep the money and the stock. If ABC trades at or more than $45 when the option expires, you sell the stock at $45 and keep the money.

The third option is to short stocks. Most people don’t like to get involved with margin as it can lead to bad habits and shorting stocks can be intimidation. The unknown is always scary. TEN’s preferred choice is to buy an inverse ETF that acts like a short. Something like ProShares Short S&P500 (SH) makes it easy to bet against the market. The funds objective is to seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, that correspond to the inverse (-1x) of the daily performance of the index. In other words, if the S&P falls 1%, then SH gains 1%.

These are three easy ideas you can implement right now. When the bulls come charging out of the gates once again, you could be better positioned to take advantage of the next run.

3 Easy Things You can do to Protect Your Portfolio When the Stock Market Sucks is an article from:

Top Equity News wouldn’t be surprised to see the NASDAQ, Dow, and S&P 500 fall to their 50-day moving averages. Roughly the next level of support is at 2980 for the NASDAQ, 12.976 for the Dow, and 1370 for the S&P before today’s close.

So now the debate will officially begin, will the Fed launch QE3, another twist, or some other tricky monetary policy to boost “asset prices”? TEN says Wall Street better be careful for what they wish for. Adding gas to the already simmering inflation fire, and food and gas prices could leave the average consumer with nothing left to buy iPads.

Or, the consumer could break out the credit card as confidence is starting to rise. Hopefully, it’s not false confidence that leaves the average Joe and Jane deeper underwater than pre-2008 crisis levels.

Earnings will be the deciding factor. As usual, Alcoa will cut the ribbon with their earnings on Tuesday. There are some ominous signs that the aluminum company will fare worse than expected. Then Google Inc. (GOOG) steps the plate on Thursday. While the tech and NASDAQ leader is likely to top expectations of $9.64 per share, they have missed two of the last four quarters and in 2011’s first quarter.

Either way for AA or GOOG, investors are probably going to me more focused on future earnings guidance than first quarter profits. Analysts believe 2012’s first quarter earnings will be flat relative to 2011’s, and that six of 10 sectors will actually produce smaller profits than the same period last year.

It has been said many time that earnings are the mother’s milk of profits. It’s hard to imaging falling earnings and a rising stock market without the aid robust forward guidance.

It’s TEN’s view that at investors should start to initiate some defensive measures. A few ideas include covered calls against some of your profitable stocks, and  maybe even putting a few dollars in an inverse ETF like ProShares Short S&P500 (SH). SH essentially deliver the opposite performance of the S&P 500. If the index drops 5% in the next few weeks, SH should gain roughly 5%.

This week has the potential to get ugly as there is no significant news scheduled and only a relatively small amount of companies reporting profits. Minus stellar earnings, there is very little to stand in the way of momentum.

Stock Market Trends: Ghosts of Dandy Don’s Singing is an article from:

The fistful of yesterday’s best performing exchange traded funds includes:

• iShares FTSE NAREIT Residential (REZ)
• Wilshire US REIT (WREI)
• iShares FTSE NAREIT Mortgage REIT (REM)
• Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)
• First Trust S&P REIT Index Fund (FRI)

In our review of common holdings, TEN found seven stocks that are in at least three of the ETF portfolios.

• Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc. (ELS)
• Camden Property Trust (CPT)
• Colonial Properties Trust (CLP)
• Home Properties, Inc. (HME)
• Apartment Investment and Management (AIV)
• AvalonBay Communities, Inc. (AVB)
• American Assets Trust, Inc. (AAT)

All of the equities above offer nice dividends for investors, but, in an extremely close call, our favorite stock chart belongs to Colonial Properties Trust (CLP). The REIT primarily invests in multifamily, office, retail, for-sale properties and currently pays a 3.50% dividend.

From our technical analysis perspective, Colonial lit up a volume-weighted MACD crossover yesterday. The volume-weighted version of moving average velocity is a better predictor than just the price related variety. According to what TEN has read, studies show there is less risk and better returns when volume is taken into consideration.

CLP has experienced five previous volume-weighted crossovers in the past year. The predictor is batting 100% as every case has seen CLP rise following the technical buy signal. With that track-record, it’s hard to ignore the 6^th occurrence.

TEN believes Colonial Properties Trust (CLP) could be a proper fit for conservative investors. A 10%-15% capital gain is about what we expect. Add in the 3.50% dividend, and a total return of 13.50%-18.50% for long-term investors is possible.

ETF X-Ray: A New Home for Wall Street’s Money is an article from:

A trio of semiconductor ETFs floated near the top yesterday.

• iShares PHLX SOX Semiconductor (SOXX)
• Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH)
• SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD)

From there, Top Equity peels back the lids of the ETF cans to see the stocks inside. By finding the equities the funds have in common, investors can pinpoint the hottest stocks in the hottest corner of the market.

The three highlighted exchange traded funds share seven stocks.

• Cree, Inc. (CREE)
• Micron Technology, Inc. (MU)
• Lam Research Corporation (LRCX)
• Broadcom Corporation (BRCM)
• Cirrus Logic, Inc. (CRUS)
• Linear Technology Corporation (LLTC)
• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufactur (TSM)

TEN’s favorite chart belongs to Micron Technology, Inc. (MU), with Cirrus Logic, Inc. (CRUS) a close second.

Micron is busting loose on massive volume. To us, these means institutions are filling up their portfolios with the computer chip maker’s stock. After shaking weak hand out of MU on slow volume, shares U-turned on the company’s 26-day average and finished at a 2012 high last night.

We can see the stock continuing north into $10-$10.50 a share before running into the next block of resistance. At $10, that would be a 12.6% gain from Tuesday’s uniform close of $8.88.

On the downside, a close below Micron’s climbing 26-day line is about as low as TEN’s willing to go.

ETF X-Ray: Semiconductor ETFs Chipping In Winners is an article from:

If you recall, technology is on our emerging buys list. With the pronunciation of Reagan, well, tech ETFs peppered the performance leaderboard today.

The technology sector is broad; so, TEN was happy to see the day’s gainers refine the list for us. Two of the top five hottest ETFs were semiconductor ETFs.

• iShares PHLX SOX Semiconductor (SOXX)
• SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD)

Investors who are more comfortable with a diversified portfolio should just stick with either on the exchange traded funds above. However, if individual stocks are more your style, then read on.

As Top Equity always does, we popped open the hood to determine which squirrels were spinning the wheel the fastest. We found seven hot stocks that both funds have in common.

• Micron Technology, Inc. (MU)
• NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)
• Power Integrations, Inc. (POWI)
• Hittite Microwave Corporation (HITT)
• Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD)
• Broadcom Corporation (BRCM)
• Texas Instruments Incorporated (TXN)

TEN’s favorite stock chart – by far – belongs to NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA). The interactive graphics chip maker’s stock price just exited the topside of a seven month consolidation pattern – a.k.a. a rectangle.

The longer the price is trapped in the box, the more powerful the move tends to be post-breakout. With NVDA’s moving averages accelerating upwards, and volume characteristics that suggest institutions are piling in, TEN envisions NVIDIA trading near $20 within the next 3 to 6 months.

To protect downside, we would consider a stop a hair below $13.

ETF X-Ray: A Graphic Display of Performance is an article from: