PLTR 

In a really crappy sucky tape, there are some things that are calming down a bit, at least to a point where you can watch them and look for some clear trades. One of them here is Palantir ( NYSE: PLTR ). Peter Thiel, one of my idols for various reasons, founded this company. They do business with both government and private enterprise so they have kind of got the whole thing covered; until Musk goes to Mars and then they will probably be doing business up there too.

IPO, you could see the big massive ride this is on but the initial print here was right around $10.00. Well, the stock came all the way down round trip and tested that $10.00 level. And by the way, this is something from the very top to the very bottom, over a 75 percent fall. That’s what happens with a lot of these high fliers. But now we have tested $10.00, run back up above the 50-day moving average for kind of an aborted breakout, and then now a pullback. And where is this holding up? Right around $12.00.

Now, this would be a very speculative buy right here. So if you are a speculator, buy. Keep your stop just a little bit below yesterday’s intraday low, 11.88. That is below the 12.52 50-day moving average. So you would keep your stop basically right where this line is, something like that.

Or you could wait, you could watch the stock and if it breaks out above this level, in other words, to a new April high, then that is when you would buy it. Or you could split the difference, you could take some right here, a small position with the stop down here so you are not risking, from a dollar standpoint, you are not really risking very much money at all.

But then, from a risk standpoint, on the other side, you are getting a partial position so you are going to get some capital appreciation. And then if the stock does break out and you are buying stock at that point, you are actually adding to a profitable position. And that is better than your initial entry, which could always lose your money right away.

That’s how I am looking at Palantir ( NYSE: PLTR ). It is, again, if you are buying it here you are speculating. I am just telling you, don’t let me see anybody on Twitter or anyplace else giving me crap for saying, “Buy the stock right here”. I am not saying that, I am saying, “Watch the stock”. I have given you a trading plan. If you choose to accept it this message will self-destruct in 15 seconds.

XLE XOP WTI CRK PARR PBF CVI CTRA RRC EOT DK AR SWN VLO OXY INT CNX PSX ALTO CRGY GEVO GPRE TELL LFG CLNE CDEV REGI KOS CIVI CLR SM REX XOM GPOR OIH 

One of the things that come up quite a bit is how to buy these various energy stocks. There have been so many stocks that have just gone parabolic and then others, of course, haven’t. The typical trading style that anybody should want to follow is you want to be in the strongest stocks. Strong meaning, they’re making you the most money. You really want to be in those stocks, the top one or two stocks in a sector, maybe the third one, but definitely limit your exposure to the top three stocks in a sector or an industry group.

One thing that you can do, let’s say you are kind of looking for a general way to trade in the market, to trade in the energy market here, without taking on too much risk from buying the top stock, even though it’s up 30 percent in the last 3-weeks or whatever. One way to do that is to go the general way and buy, in this case, the XLE ( NYSEARCA: XLE ).

Now, you are absolutely not going to underperform or outperform the energy sector because this is the sector, this ETF. So at least if the energy market is moving higher you are going to make money on the trade. And this, for a lot of traders, is preferable to buying some stock that is absolutely screaming.

BUT on the other hand, you could say, well I will just buy the stocks that are down the most because then I am not going to get hurt. No, you don’t want to be doing that because what you are doing is, basically, the worst house in a good neighborhood, and that is fine until the neighborhood goes to crap. What you want to be doing is you want to move your portfolio in the right direction.

And so by buying, literally, the average in the XLE ( NYSEARCA: XLE ), you are bringing in the underperformers, no question about it. But you are also participating in the outperformers. You don’t have the singular stock exposure, you have, really, the profit exposure to the entire energy sector.

Now, another way you can do it, if you want to get a little more specific is, the Exploration & Production ( NYSEARCA: XOP ) ETF. You look at this, I kind of don’t think that 146.63 is the high, but there is no question this has really screamed.

Let’s look at the individual stocks, we’ve got 60 here, we will order them in terms of gains. Let’s get to the daily chart, WTI ( NYSE: WTI ); no thanks, a nice move today but this isn’t really something that I would look at. Comstock Resources ( NYSE: CRK ), do you want to buy this stock? No, but I sure as heck would like to own it. I don’t know this, PBF ( NYSE: PBF ) but we are seeing a lot of these stocks that you’re really not familiar with ( NYSE: CVI ) but they are moving higher, they’re in the XOP ( NYSEARCA: XOP ), ( NYSE: CTRA ). All of these winning stocks ( NYSE: RRC ), ( NYSE: EQT ), are in the XOP ( NYSEARCA: XOP ).

Now, can you buy EQT Corporation ( NYSE: EQT )? I couldn’t buy it here but I could buy the XOP ( NYSEARCA: XOP ), ( NYSE: DK ). We keep on going, ( NYSE: AR ), ( NYSE: SWN ), ( NYSE: MUR ), ( NYSE: VLO ), ( NYSE: OXY ), do you see what I am talking about? OXY ( NYSE: OXY ) probably looks the most like the XOP ( NYSEARCA: XOP ) chart. We can go down here, ( NYSE: INT ), ( NYSE: PSX ) but I am not going to.

The bottom line is when you are buying the XOP ( NYSEARCA: XOP ) you are buying all of these winners. However, ( NASDAQ: ALTO ), ( NYSE: CRGY ), ( NASDAQ: GEVO ), ( NASDAQ: AMTX ), ( NASDAQ: GPRE ), ( NYSEAMERICAN: TELL ), ( NYSE: LFG ), ( NASDAQ: CLNE ) you are buying these stocks that are drifting lower as well, but this is on the daily chart. How many of these stocks that I am looking at ( NASDAQ: CDEV ), ( NASDAQ: REGI ), ( NYSE: KOS ), ( NYSE: CIVI ), are actually weak? Really, I don’t see any ( NYSE: CLR ), ( NYSE: SM ), so far. I’m sure there is one in there, I wouldn’t buy this ( NYSE: REX ).

The point is, what you are buying with the XLE ( NYSEARCA: XLE ) or the XOP ( NYSEARCA: XOP ) in this case, what you are buying ( NYSE: GPOR ) is the diversification of a really, really strong sector. And so this is one way that you can consider going. The same thing with the OIH ( NYSEARCA: OIH ).

All of these ETFs are safer investments, where you are in the right area but you don’t have to be picking a stock that has been absolutely screaming because you want to be in the best stock in the best sector. That’s a really big risk that you are going to get hurt by some kind of a pullback. So you have got a theme investment going here without having an individual stock risk.

TWTR 

I want to look at Twitter ( NYSE: TWTR ) today. This is the “funnest” thing that I have seen in a long time, with what’s going on with the G.O.A.T. When it comes to trolling you don’t get any better than Elon Musk.

Everybody by now knows the deal, he bought enough shares, almost 10 percent of the company, that popped the stock. They are going to take him on the board, and then he kind of thought, wait a minute, if I am on the board then I can’t buy more than, basically, much more than I have, so I don’t want to do that because I hate these scumbags. And so he declined his board seat.

And then just today, I think it was this morning but it might have been yesterday, I don’t remember. I think it was this morning he hits a tender offer for the company at, I think it was $54.00 a share, it ran up to about $48-$49.00 so it didn’t really get there.

Here’s the thing, you can hardly trade this stock technically except in this way. This is where it was before this whole maelstrom happened. This is where it gapped up to when the news about Elon came out. This was a base for the shareholders, meaning you if you are a trader.

It probably would have been better if this hadn’t happened because Tesla ( NASDAQ: TSLA ) was starting to go up anyway, though you could take the other side of that argument and say it was because Elon was buying all of these shares.

There are always dirtbags on Wall Street that know that, and magically, their brothers or their wives start trading. Nobody knows, obviously, nobody is doing anything wrong, of course. It’s Wall Street, we all know that everybody is totally aboveboard there, so it might have just been a coincidence.

In any event, as I am looking at this now, I see this as being the trading box. I would say the stock is probably going to trade in here for a bit but there is just so much headline risk that it kind of becomes untradable for anything other than quick trades because you just don’t know what is going to happen. But once Elon Musk gets into the punch bowl like that, this stock is not going to go back to normal. And so, don’t expect a return to normalcy.

If you are an options trader, frankly, you could sell puts all day long. Sell puts, the $40.00 puts, I think they even have 42.50s, but you can sell puts on this and do quite well because there is now an underlying bid for this stock. Even if Musk goes away, Prince Charming, whatever the guy’s name is over there where all of the sand is, even if all of that stuff goes away Twitter ( NYSE: TWTR ) is not coming back below $40.00.