"Street Critique"-Todd Harrison, Founder and CEO of Minyanville.com
Wednesday, August 05, 2009PAUL KANGAS: Tonight's "Street Critique" guest says the tech market is at a critical point. He's Todd Harrison, founder and CEO of minyanville.com and Todd, welcome back to NBR.
TODD HARRISON, FOUNDER & CEO, MINYANVILLE.COM: It's great to be here, Paul, thank you.
KANGAS: Todd, you're a veteran trader. What are you seeing that has you so concerned about the tech stocks?
HARRISON: Well, as a trader, I'm more concerned with -- I'm less concerned with the destination that we arrive at versus the path that we take to get there. So I'm looking for risk reward constantly in the marketplace. And I think that we're at a juncture right now for the technology sector that is critical. It is a confluence of technical levels that I'm looking at. It's the down trend lines for 2007 and it's also the point that the tech market broke from in this past support as future resistance in the marketplace. These two lines are crossing precisely where we are now, which happens to coincide with the 50 percent retracement of the entire technology decline from the top of 2007. So I'm looking at this level as a critical inflection point. I'm personally short technology stocks (INAUDIBLE) here, if they can pop through to the up side, I'm giving myself about 2 percent, in which case I'll cut bait, but until such time until proven otherwise I'm short technology here for a trade.
KANGAS: So you're looking at it very carefully every day, I should imagine.
HARRISON: I'm staring at it all day, yes. This is what I do.
KANGAS: OK. What about the broader market Todd? We've gone through some major resistance milestones. Are we due for a pullback there?
HARRISON: That's consistent with what we talked about last time. I do still believe that we're going to see a W formation and I thought 950, 950ish on the S&P would have been that middle peak. I was wrong in that. But I still think that we're going through a process right now where after the government effectively bought the cancer and sold the car crash or put off the crisis, we're going through a recovery period. And it's tough to run a marathon with cancer. So I think it's going to be a prolonged process. I'm in no way on board the V shaped recovery up up and away. I think we need to learn from our mistakes, least we risk repeating them.
KANGAS: What do you make of the potential ban on flash orders used by high frequency traders?
HARRISON: Well I'll, tell you Paul, I think the last thing this market needs and the social mood needs and the psychology needs right now is another black box or opaque financial instrument right now. I think the more transparency the better. I think there's going to be a long trail so to speak with regard to high frequency trading and just who benefited and I think that overall right now, the specter of competitive disadvantage for the public is on the margin, very negative.
KANGAS: So for the public, be very careful of what you're doing in the way of trading.
HARRISON: I think that the more transparency in the market, the more trust. I think trust and truth are commodities going forward.
KANGAS: Very interesting and thanks very much for joining us again, Todd.
HARRISON: Thank you, Paul.
KANGAS: My guest, Todd Harrison, founder and CEO of minyanville.com.
