Nucor Corporation and its subsidiaries engage in the manufacture and sale of steel and steel products in North America. NUE is a tough stock to analyze in my opinion.  It is in one of the leading industries in a horrible market, i.e. steel, yet its broken its longer term uptrend.  The company recently announced another common stock offering for $74/share which may have contributed to recent action and high volume trading.  Trading  purely on technicals, I would say stay away.  Then again this could be a decent pullback in a leading stock. Nothing is absolute, so I think if NUE goes 5-10% lower, I think I would dip my toe in the water and see what shakes out.   What are your thoughts on NUE?

Well, how about shorting cheesecake factory, symbol : CAKE.  The stock has been weakeaned by the overall economic downturn.  Less people going out to eat due to higher gas prices and those chosing to dine out not going upscale restaurants is presumably the theory.  Technically, the stock looks like its going lower.  It recently gapped down on relatively high volume.  The ADX which measures the strength of a trend is very strong.  MACD trending downward.  Overall, I think shorting CAKE may be a decent trade in the coming weeks.  Here is the six month charts:

I am going on record and buying a bunch of X puts. I think todays run up to $173 is it for a while. I have been having bad luck on the downside of some stocks (VISA) so i wont be surprised if this bites me in the rear. I will post some charts later in the week that have been going well for me.

I could not help but read the comments on Brett’s call for shorting Visa and the other conversations around shorting Apple.  I have to disagree with both calls.  Visa is not a short because everyone thinks its going to be the next Mastercard.  Visa actually makes more money than Mastercard.   I’m wondering what the catalyst would be for Visa to drop?  I really don’t see any.  They reporting GOOD, not great numbers but the bottom line is that you really can’t fight the tape and expect to win.  I would BUY visa on a pullback.   The stock is may reach $100 in 6 months.

 Shorting Apple now may make a little more sense given the move from 120 to where we are today, but  I still contend that that is risky as well.  I think the stock will ramp to $200 until the 3G iPhone release and maybe pause there.   Fundamentally, how could you justify shorting apple now anyhow?  The company is minting money and hoarding crazy amounts of cash.  They have the best tech CEO in the Biz in Steve Jobs and everyone knows its a matter of time before the iPhone becomes the 800 pound gorilla in the cellular business.  Their PC business is taking share from other competitors at an accelerating rate.   I just do not get the short call on Apple, especially not the long-term.    

Last week I mentioned Walters industries.  The stock was in the low 70’s/high 60’s at that time.    Today, the stock broke out on huge volume of over 5 Million shares.  WLT closed out at 81.58 up 8.65 on the day.  The stock has been on fire for the past year.  I’m not one to chase a breakout but I think this might be an exception.  

 Other stocks that look ready to run higher:

United States Steel (X) - New 52 week high today.  Volume however was unimpressive.

Potash ( POT) - Stock resuming uptrend after very brief pause.

Intrepid Potash (IPI) - I took small position today.  I think it moves much higher.  Could be similar to Visa in terms of IPO’s on the mover.

Google (GOOG) - Money managers are coming back into GOOG after blowout quarter.  One year from now GOOG could be making new highs again.  I think anyone who bought GOOG before the last earnings and the subsequent 90 point day may a great decision.  This was a classic risk/reward situation where the risk was certainly worth it.  I don’t think it too late to own the stock.

JPM is my favorite financial bar none.  I’ve liked the stock for several months now, but I took a small position recently.  I like it as a long-term investment.  They have the best CEO in the business in Jamie Dimon.  They basically stole Bear Stearns.  Think about it:  they didn’t even flinch when they paid 5X their original purchase offer for Bear Stearns.   The deal is going to add serious earnings power to JPM.  They also have the least amont of exposure to the subprime mess.   I think this stock can trade in the $60’s next year.  Here is the chart:

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