Catching Up on a Thursday

* After a Strong Momentum Day - Wednesday was a particularly strong momentum day, as my measure of Demand (reflecting the number of issues closing above the volatility envelopes surrounding their short-term moving averages) exceeded Supply (those closing below their envelopes) by more than 8:1. I went back to September, 2002 (when I first began collecting these data; N = 1384 trading days) and found only 28 occasions when Demand exceeded Supply by more than 8:1. Interestingly, there was no directional edge the next trading day, but ten days later, the S&P 500 Index (SPY) averaged a gain of 1.01% (22 up, 6 down), much stronger than the average ten-day gain of .33% (805 up, 551 down) for the remainder of the sample.

* After Hours Volatility - Brian Shannon tracks the action in GOOG and its impact on the NASDAQ 100 Index. I just received an advance copy of Brian's new book and will provide an overview shortly. It deals with using technical analysis across multiple time frames, something Brian illustrates well in the videos on his site.

* Great New Site - While we're on the topic of GOOG, here's the stock's page in the iStockAnalyst site. There's a wealth of information in one place, including rankings on technical, fundamental, performance, and sector criteria; latest news; analyst ratings; and much more. Very promising research tool.

* A Portfolio of Blogs - Financial Philosopher identifies his favorite sites, including self-improvement and philosophy blogs I wasn't familiar with.

* Agricultural Boom - Research Recap examines evidence that high agricultural prices are likely to persist, given structural changes in population growth among emerging economies and the use of food crops for biofuels.
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