By Chip Anderson, StockCharts.com

Mar. 3: Vroom! Autozone Jumps the Gap



After gapping down during December and January, AutoZone (AZO) gapped up significantly in mid February and zoomed upwards today hitting a high of 157 at one point. So why is the Chaikin Money Flow not zooming upwards as well?

The CMF gave a big "sell" signal today [Mar. 3] because the stock closed well below the mid-point of today's candle and thus the CMF considers most of today's huge volume spike to be "selling" volume. Will this become another case of "all gaps must be filled?"

Feb. 28: What Did the VIX Know and When Did It Know It?



The VIX is the Volatility Index published by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). It measures the "implied volatility" of a hypothetical SPX option created from a weighted average of several actual SPX options. Typically, the VIX is interpreted as an "inverse" market indicator (i.e., down is bullish and up is bearish). In the chart above, I've plotted the reciprocal of the VIX with the ratio symbol "$ONE:$VIX" (Note: $ONE is always equal to, you guessed it, one.) That allows me to then compare it to a chart of the actual market. Looking back at the past couple of years, you can see that the VIX did an uncanny job of indicating "trouble ahead" for stocks. Just like when it started moving up before the market did in 2002, the VIX started moving down in 2007 and the market followed dramatically in 2008. Definitely, don't ignore this chart!

Feb. 25: The Battle for Apple

Apple (AAPL) has been bouncing around $90 since October. Is that support going to hold? One way to gauge the strength of a support level is to use the "Vol by Price" overlay -- the horizontal histogram on the left side of this chart. It adds up all the volume for any days on the chart that close within the bars price range. The bars in two colors -- one for volume when the stock closed up and the other for when the stock closed down. In the case of AAPL, the long horizontal bar shows that lots of volume has occurred in the $90 -$100 range and that is the most important support level on the chart right now. It also shows that the volume on "up" days (gray) is almost equal to the volume on "down" days (light blue). The Vol by Price overlay clearly shows that 90 is the battleground for AAPL right now. With AAPL oscillating around $90 (possibly in a triangle pattern), the battle is getting very heated and is worth watching closely in the coming days.



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