http://www.stockrake.com

Long GOOG and short via QQQ puts. Both are small positions and I’m waiting for some sign of either direction. The market continues to straddle precarious versions of a breakout and breakdown, although it leans more towards breakout on shorter term, while the bearish case continues to look ok on the longer term chart.

Recently we got some golden crosses on the Dow, but I don’t put much credence into that.

My signals, after 3 weeks of a potential up signal in the weekly, its going to be official on Friday if this market holds up ALBEIT below the 50 week that is now curling down. So fuckery abound.

The daily has its two gaps out of 4-5 month wedge. I never like gaps, but really strong moves start with gaps so this could be the beginning of a strong move. The weekly should confirm it and I’m not seeing that yet at all. Nothing major happens without the weekly telling the story. Still in a tough place to figure out imo.

One chart that looks great on the daily and is known for snapbacks so be careful is WFM. Leigh Drogen recently did a great post about WFM. Its ALL about their prepared foods/deli area imo. The regular shopping is ok. Its the experience and its the prepared foods. I’ve seen it at the Boca Raton store, the Fort Lauderdale store, the Coral Gables/South Miami store and more recently in NYC where I am visiting right now. I agree with some of the comments that its overpriced and people will find their groceries cheaper elsewhere. That will happen, but its not about that. The prepared food is probably a higher margin business and although it probably doesn’t get the volume the reg shopping gets, it just might in the future. If they are able to add a drive thru to their stores you can forget about it (see what Panera is doing). The prepared foods is a gold mine and that trend is big. The next Starbucks? Difficult. The footprint is the obvious issue. However, they could always have some scaled down Starbucks sized locations (think Panera) and create satellite prepared foods stores. In many locations where people price compare their groceries more it could kill. In South Florida, both Panera and WFM do well. Panera probably more so. Its always bat shit busy throughout the day and people live there on their computers. People live at Starbucks as well, but imo, I like living at Panera because I like to eat once in awhile and Starbucks food choices are not as attractive as Panera’s. WFM could easily compete head on with Panera imo. Either way you slice it there is tremendous growth.