Baked ALasKa

Almost everything is tied these days to how the oil contracts are performing. The foremost industry that comes to mind that will suffer when we talk about oil is the airline industry. One of the airlines that we're concentrating on is Alaska Airlines (NYSE:ALK).

After peaking at 45.85 in the last quarter of 2006, it has been downhill from there. Most of 2007 was spent on moving sideways but not after suffering a big drop in April 2006 where it has ranged between $21.00 & $28.00. After trading sideways, it broke down below $21.00 in March 2008. Since then, it has consolidated in what looks like a continuation head & shoulders formation inside a descending triangle.

Whatever pattern you are looking it, they're pointing to only one direction: DOWN. The MACD has confirmed the continuation of its downtrend as the lines of the MACD has been oscillating lower under the zero line.

The best time to short sell ALK is at $17.15. The downside target given to us by the chart is $12.57, minimum.

ALK is not an exception. Practically the whole industry is suffering. That has been reflected on the charts of the different airlines listed in the market like United Airlines (Nasdaq:UAUA), and Ryan Air (Nasdaq:RYAAY). The big culprit for this is oil. Rising oil prices have not only made their costs higher, it has forced them to raise prices which also made a lot of people rethink of flying.

With the DJIA suffering its worst June in decades, ALK rides along for its descent.

NYX Takes a Trip on RYAAY's Troubled Skies

NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) was still around $80.00 last Friday but it already looked ready to take a fall. My informant, who I shall call ZZ Top to protect their identity, spotted this early last week. After conferring with my colleague, Welles Wilder (an alias of course), and our trusty apprentice VIP, I decided that NYX was on borrowed time and it was nearly time to short sell this. A descending triangle was right there waiting for us to hit it. I was quite surprised to see this drop immediately to my trigger price of $78.58 yesterday. Nevertheless, a disciplined trader should always be ready to put their plan into action. Therefore, order #1 for the day was executed almost immediately. Now the long wait starts for our downside target of around $51.73.


Now let's talk about the Nasdaq 100 index issue, Irish airline Ryan Air (Nasdaq: RYAAY). Everyone is talking about the troubled sector, the airline industry. There are a lot of candidates to short in this sector but I decided to concentrate on RYAAY as it has a distinct double top formation coming from an uptrend. Add to that, prices are trading below the moving averages. So if we want to talk about a weak stock then this has got to be one of them. Order #2 for the day was executed probably near the end of the trading day as my shorting price was where the low and close was made. Downside target for RYAAY is around $31.72. As to when it will hit its target remains to be seen. Will this be a soft landing or a crash landing...?