ATK - Alliant Techsystems $94.00 (+5.56)

What a great week for Alliant. The #1 supplier of ammunition to the United States Armed Forces beat the Street's earnings expectations by two pennies with profits of $1.72 a diluted share. In addition to this good news, the Company rewarded shareholders with a 3:2 split announcement. Therefore, this play is a split run for us, with the playable date being November 27th. We have to think that Presidential candidate George W. Bush's narrow lead in the polls is also contributing to the rally. If Mr. Bush delivers on just half of his promises to increase military spending, Alliant has to be a beneficiary. Alliant's other divisions, a missile products company and a defense systems division, would also presumably benefit from a Bush election. ATK is one of only a handful of stocks that started an up trend in July and kept it going. In fact, the share price has not even gone through a serious test of its 50-DMA throughout this time period. (It did slip a bit in October but recovered very quickly). All of last week's good news drove the stock into new high ground. When dealing with stocks like this, it is always important to make sure that the stock does not drop below any previous day's low. Friday's low was $90.00. We will give the stock a little wiggle room by setting our initial stop at $88.00. Technical indicators look good. The MACD is positive and rising. OBV is in a very solid up trend. Money Flow is just barely positive but it certainly does not detract from the overall picture. If we are not stopped out, we will exit this position before the split becomes payable on November 27th.

Picked on November 5th @ $94.00 Change since picked +0.00

SUNW - Sun Microsystems Incorporated $113.06 (+9.88)

Sun Microsystems (SUNW) is a leading supplier of products (servers, workstations, storage devices, network switches) incorporating UltraSPARC microprocessors and the Solaris operating system. The company also invented Java, an object-oriented programming language. Java has attracted significant interest in the software development industry because of its ability to run on any type of system. SUNW's future growth opportunities are huge. The company has introduced products that are key building blocks in supporting the build out of the Internet's expanding infrastructure. These technologies range from high-end servers to storage and software technologies. On August 18th, the company announced a 2:1 stock split to be paid as a stock dividend on December 5th. We feel that additional buying ahead of the payment date could be the catalyst for sending shares higher. Currently, shares have bounced sharply from their lows last week ($94.88) and are fighting their way back to the 50-dma of $114.93. On Friday, a quick intra-day advance to the 50-dma confirmed that there was definite resistance at $115. An advance above this level will signal the breakout for the stock, when good volume (20 million shares or better) can confirm the advance. Next, we'll look for established opposition at the $120 (neckline of double bottom) and $125 levels to further challenge an advance. However, should the recent advance pullback before running higher, we'll look for primary support to come at the $110 mark. Due to the recent volatility of SUNW's price moves, we recommend placing a fairly tight stop at $108.50 to protect against a false breakout. Consider using strength in the NASDAQ Composite Index to confirm entry points.

Picked on November 5th @ $113.06 Change since picked 0.00