San Diego, CA 10/2/2009 1:38:08 AM
News / Finance

Breakouts and Breakdowns: RAME, STSA, GRT, MDZ

Charts of Sterling Financial, RAM Energy Resources, MDS, and Glimcher Realty Trust are taking some trade-worthy shapes.

Though the market's movement today is pretty one-sided, we're seeing a surprising number of breakout efforts in addition to the breakdowns. Among the most trade-worthy of today's movers are Sterling Financial Corp. (STSA), MDS, Inc. (MDZ), RAM Energy Resources, Inc. (RAME), and Glimcher Realty Trust (GRT). A closer technical examination of each chart would be time well spent.

You can't quite tell it from our zoomed-in chart of MDS, Inc. (MDZ), but there's a tone of recovery room here. This stock was trading in the $20 area just a little over a year ago. More importantly, the stock just made big progress to the end.

What we like best about the MDZ chart is how the bears had a chance to take it down last week (and close that gap), but the buyers persisted. In fact, MDS shares have attracted more buyers in the last month than they have over the prior three months.

The trick was getting past the ceiling of $8.25, which MDZ has accomplished today with a high of $8.40. Volume's not been tepid either. So, we're going to go ahead and call this on a breakout.



Glimcher Realty Trust (GRT) is being listed in the breakdown column. The stock's 8% slide today has carried it under a key support level that goes back to March's low. If you look closely, you'll also see the selling volume has been picking up over the last two weeks while Glimcher Realty Trust shares have rolled over.

As for a target, GRT seems to have made a base around $2.40 during the second quarter of the year. Let's start there. Longer-term though, Glimcher has the potential to move all the way back to March's low around $1.00.

GRT


There was a bastion of hope for Sterling Financial Corp. (STSA) at the $1.95 mark. That line was support earlier in the month, and even held up for a while today. Today though, the 6% dip to a low of $1.86 has restarted the bigger downtrend.

From here (not shown), Sterling Financial shares may be headed back to the March low of $1.00. Needless to say, we're calling the STSA chart a breakdown in progress as well.

Finally, RAM Energy Resources, Inc. (RAME) is being listed as a breakout stock. Though we've watched the stock fall back from today's high of $1.96, the bullish damage has already been done - the ceiling around $1.32 has been smashed.

And that's nothing to take lightly. RAM Energy Resources shares have been battling that line since late 2008.... Not just mid-September. The move today just finalizes what's been a long-term paradigm shift for RAME.

As for where it will all end, who know? RAM Energy peaked above $6.00 in mid-2008, so there's a lot of upside stored up here. More importantly, the direction shift for RAME was made official today.



If you'd like to know of any changes in our opinion of MDZ, RAME, STSA, or GRT (or if we officially recommend them as trades), be sure to sign up for our free newsletter today. It's delivered 2 to 3 times per week.