Ford revisited: stock refuses to come down to earth

Ford Motor (F) is hanging in there. After the gap-up spike on April 24 (closing price $5), instead of dropping right back down it's been holding above $5. It not only survived Thursday's news (Chrysler filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy) but it went up 7% to $5.98. Friday it succumbed to a lower volume selling and ended at $5.69, still higher than Thursday's open. That's impressive. Only 3 cents short of last September's high, before the October crash of the market.

This is all the more frustrating; when I bought Citigroup (C), at about the same price I could have gotten Ford instead. Citi has gone nowhere, and the only good thing I can say about the stock is that I haven't lost any money on my investment. I know it's no use saying, but can't help it: If only I had bought Ford! In the same time period that I have held C, Ford has gone up 120%. During that period, the only chance to buy in was April 21 if I was brave, when it hit the mid bollinger band and bounced, or the next day April 22 when it jumped back to the prior high of $4.41 on April 9.

IF the market keeps upward momentum (big IF) and F doesn't crash far below $5 (which is the gap-up day's closing price), and if I still think there's long-term upside to F, then $5 would be the buy price where the stock price would probably meet the mid bollinger band and the trend line from April 24.

One of my biggest "Fish That Got Away"...

Fffffooooorrrrdddd...........!!!!!!!!!!!

Ford Motor, that is. The ticker symbol F cannot appear on my "Shoulda, Coulda Stocks" column (to the right) often enough. I called up the buy screen at least 3 times now. Ford announced the 1st Q results today, and since the results were less bad than expected, the stock has skyrocketed 16% to $5.22 (as of 10:24am PST).

I am mad at myself for not acting on this stock, so I've done some chart analysis to clearly see what I was feeling (that F was a buy). The 3rd chance was just this Tuesday, when it touched the trend line and bounced back up. The very next day, Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock, along with Japanese auto makers, to Buy.

Now I'll have to see if this pop is sustainable. You wouldn't think so but I've seen such a thing sustained. If it falls back and stays not far below the previous top, that may be another opportunity. On a longer-term chart (2 year), there seems to be a large overhead between $4.50 and $6 so the stock could well be bobbing in this area for some time.

The easy trade may be finally over for F, but who knows... Certainly I don't. I thought the easy trade was over every time F doubled in price.

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Looks like my other obsession, NRO, may be joining the "Shoulda, Coulda Stocks" soon... Who could have known, the closed-end fund that invests in REITS and CRE can perform so well?