Ariba

ARBA

Company. "Since its founding in 1996, Ariba has remained at the forefront of the Internet evolution, providing easy-to-implement, robust online commerce solutions for proven cost savings and return on investment. Ariba now leads the Enterprise Spend Management (ESM) market. Enterprise Spend Management is a new class of solutions that focus on delivering a closed loop of control and leverage over a company's spend, including assessing spending activities, conducting effective sourcing and capturing and reconciling spend enterprise-wide." (company website)

I just love it when companies make up a new "business" that they can be the "leader" in.

Buy. I bought Ariba this morning when it continued yesterday's recovery. The move above $9 was on very heavy volume, and it seemed natural to me that there would be a pull-back. I believe — OK, I hope — that yesterday's smart move was the end of the pull-back.

Sell. Ariba had a rough time of it in today's trading session. It opened higher, fell precipitously, then clawed its way back up. I decided near the end of the session to sell. The long tail on today's candlestick could be interpreted as the bulls beating back the bears. On the other hand, the very short tail on top of the candlestick could be interpreted as a distinct lack of enthusiasm for higher prices.

I chose to see the glass as half-empty. I would not be surprised to see a period of consolidation, much like the one that followed the previous big one-day jump with volume (17-Sep). In view of the historical pattern for October markets (see sidebar), I decided to take profits while they were available.