One of the stranger trading moments last week was when O’Reilly Auto Parts announced their earnings after hours. I was short the stock (I have written about it many times), and the stock plunged from the lower 200s down to the upper 180s. “Yow-Hoo!” thought I. The stock kept getting battered lower, and when it opened the next morning, it was down hard.
I tightened up my stop quite a bit, but never thought it would get hit. When I came back to my screen a little later, my stop had been taking out, and the stock had gone from being down huge to being up huge. I could hardly believe my eyes. Thanks to my stop, I got out with a nice profit, but it was much “nicer” before.
I let a couple of days pass by, and I got back into both of these related stocks again. AutoZone (NYSE:AZO):
……as well as the totally bizarre O'Reilly Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:ORLY):
In spite of this freak-out behavior, both patterns still look like massive tops to my eyes.