Gems in a bear market rally: A familiar pattern in ANF!

As I try to let my bullish projections play out, I always find it better to trade single stocks as longs rather than simply trade the futures. If you do it right, you should get a higher bang for your buck. Conversely, in bear markets like these, when it's time to go short you need only to trade the indexes.

Highlighted in the chart is yet another inverse head and shoulders pattern -- this time in ANF. If the pattern plays to fruition, we should see it fill the gap at $25.60

Fundamentally, Abercrombie is in the midst of a 4 year turn around story as it tries to save its brand after falling out of style. It failed to rally over the past 10 years like every other stock on the planet, so we won't find it as levered to market price action as other stocks. Additionally, it recently reported its 5th consecutive quarter of same-store-sales growth. Furthermore, retail names have been rallying on the back of a solid holiday season.

I think we can buy ANF on a breakout of the neckline at $21.30 with a target of $25.50 and a stop at $19.

Trade active:

This trade has triggered but the stock has failed to rally in a very strong tape. We might have to revisit this chart on a later break out after a sell off.

Trade closed: stop reached:

A rough same store sales number got this one to gap down this morning

Comment:

2 months early (and in this business, early is wrong), but the inverse head and shoulders has played out to the upside on strong earnings today.