Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. (NYSE: HOS)

Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. operates offshore supply vessels (OSVs) and multi-purpose support vessels (MPSVs) in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Latin America, and internationally. It provides marine transportation, subsea installation, and accommodation support services to exploration and production, oilfield service, offshore construction, and U.S. military customers. The company owns and operates a fleet of U.S.-flagged OSVs and MPSVs that support the deep-well, deepwater, and ultra-deepwater exploration, development, production, construction, installation, inspection, repair, maintenance, well-stimulation, and other enhanced oil recovery activities of the offshore oil and gas industry. It also operates a shore-base support facility located in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, as well as provides vessel management services, such as crewing, daily operational management, and maintenance activities for other vessels owners.
Take a look at the 1-year chart of Hornbeck (NYSE: HOS) below with my added notations:

After peaking last summer, HOS declined for over 6 months, but since December the stock has been trending sideways. During this possible sideways bottoming process, HOS has created a resistance at $25 (green), which is a level that had also been support back in October and December. A break above that $25 level should mean higher prices for the stock.

The Tale of the Tape: HOS has a key level of resistance at $25. A long trade could be entered on a break through that level. However, if you are bearish on the stock, a short trade could be made on any rallies up to $25.
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Chart of the Day - The Blackstone Group (BX)

The Chart of the Day belongs to the Blackstone Group (BX).  I found the stock by sorting the All Time High list for the stocks with the highest technical buy signals, then used the Flipchart feature to review the charts.  Since the Trend Spotter signaled a buy on 3/31 the stock gained 11.34%.

Blackstone is one of the world's leading investment and advisory firms. Their alternative asset management businesses include the management of corporate private equity funds, real estate funds, funds of hedge funds, credit-oriented funds, collateralized loan obligation vehicles (CLOs) and closed-end mutual funds. The Blackstone Group also provides various financial advisory services, including mergers and acquisitions advisory, restructuring and reorganization advisory and fund placement services.

Barchart technical indicators:

• 100% Barchart technical buy signals
• Trend Spotter buy signal
• Above its 20, 50 and 100 day moving averages
• 6 new highs and up 5.58% in the last month
• Relative Strength Index 69.40%
• Barchart computes a technical support level at 42.52
• Recently traded at 43.29 with a 50 day moving average of 40.19

Fundamental factors:

• Market Cap $23.09 billion
• P/E 9.61
• Dividend yield 8.36%
• Revenue expected to grow 10.20% this year and another .30% next year
• Earnings estimated to increase 8.20% this year, decrease by 5.40% next year and decease annually at a rate of 2.22% for the next 5 years
• Despite these negative forecasts Wall Street analysts issued 5 strong buy, 9 buy and 1 hold recommendation

The 20-100 Day MACD Oscillator has been a fairly reliable trading strategy for this stock and should continue to be used for entry and exit points.

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Alon USA Energy, Inc. (NYSE:ALJ) looks ready for a long-awaited breakout move

Alon USA Energy, Inc. (NYSE:ALJ) — Shares of this oil refining company perked up in Thursday trade and made a good attempt at breaking past a pesky and obvious horizontal line of resistance. As a result, they look closer to a long-awaited breakout move.

ALJ stock rose 2% on Thursday, likely due in part to news the company is looking at options to expand its refinery in Big Spring, Texas. But the bigger picture driver for the sector is the U.S. dollar. While I think we may see one more bounce in the greenback heading into summer, the near-term trend remains down, which is bullish for commodities like oil and related stocks.  (more)

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US Weekly Economic Calendar

time (et)	report	period	ACTUAL	CONSENSUS forecast	previous
MONDAY, MAY 18
10 am	Home builders' index	April		--	56
TUESDAY,  MAY 19
8:30 am	Housing starts	April		1.03 mln	926,000
8:30 am	Building permits	April		--	1.04 mln
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20
2 pm	FOMC minutes	April 29		--	--
THURSDAY, MAY 21
8:30 am	Weekly jobless claims	May 16		269,000	264,000
8:30 am	Chicago Fed national activity index	April		--	-0.27 3-mo
10 am	Existing home sales	April		5.25 mln	5.19 mln
10 am	Philly Fed	May		8.5	7.5
10 am	Leading indicators	April		--	0.2%
FRIDAY, MAY 22
8:30 am	Consumer price index	April		0.1%	0.2%
8:30 am	Core CPI	April		0.1%	0.2%
9:45 am	Markit PMI flash	May		--	54.1

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Ekso: The Next 10 Bagger? Is Set to Conquer the Most Valuable Unstoppable Trend of All

Last year I told you about one of the most inspirational companies I’ve ever visited, Ekso Bionics Inc. (OTC:EKSO).
At the time, the company was almost completely off the radar and totally unknown to both investors and analysts alike.
I promised you that wouldn’t be the case for long because the company had something other small start-ups didn’t: real products, real customers, and applications that potentially extended sales far beyond the medical and military markets it had initially targeted. (more)

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Eric Coffin Pinpoints the Mining Companies with Resources that Are Right for Today’s Market

by Brian Sylvester
The Gold Report

Eric Coffin, long-time editor of the Hard Rock Analyst group of publications, has seen the all-time highs in the junior mining space, and the current three-year bear market has taught him to adjust his expectations. He says the companies that he follows that have performed recently all had a specific event—a bigger resource number, a new economic study or even a discovery—that prompted the market to rerate the stock. Coffin says that, as always, it is about solid management and good projects, but it’s no longer about who has the biggest copper or gold resource, it’s about which company has a resource that makes sense. In this interview with The Gold Report, he suggests some companies with resources that not only make sense but could make even more sense to larger companies.

The Gold Report: At the subscriber investment summit in Toronto in March 2015, you had a talk titled “Life in a Zero Yield World.” What is wrong with that world?
Eric Coffin: A zero yield world is the result of four or five years of central banks essentially buying the hell out of the bond market, which is what the European Central Bank (ECB) is doing right now. And buying those bonds, also known as quantitative easing (QE), drives down yields. QE has helped the U.S. and will probably help the European economies but it creates a lot of distortions.
Continue Reading at TheAuReport.com…

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Agribusiness Stocks & US Dollars

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