Healthtronics (HTRN)

Company

"HealthTronics is the leading provider of urological services and products in the U.S. ... First to introduce the orthopaedic Extracorporeal Shock Wave system as an alternative to certain types of surgery, HealthTronics continues to gain momentum in providing services and equipment in this developing segment. ... HealthTronics is now the global leader in the design and manufacturing of specialty vehicles for following industries: Medical, Broadcast, Command & Homeland Security" (company website)

Buy

18-Jan-05. Healthtronics broke out above $7.50 in December and has been consolidating around $10 for about two weeks. Today it jumped on heavy volume to test the previous highs. I jumped on.

Price momentum (PPO) is gaining; relative strength (RSI) is increasing; buying pressure (green +DI line) is moving up; and the oversold condition has been cured. The only cautionary note I see is that the money flow (CMF) into the stock is slowing. Nevertheless, it's still reasonably strong. I'm counting on CMF to be lagging.

Sell

14-Mar-05. HTRN has been nothing but a tease. It coos and murmurs sweet nothings about going back up, and then at the crucial moment pulls back again. Last Friday I decided to show a little tough-love: if HTRN didn't go up Monday morning, I would sell.

As luck (fate? hand of an evil god?) would have it, the first few trades of HTRN were decidedly lower, so my order triggered. By that time offers had come up enough that I got 9¢ more than my limit. I was chagrined when I checked in again last night to see that it had gotten quite a bit higher during the day. But my decision was bolstered this morning when I prepared this update and noticed that HTRN was falling again. Fickle little vixen.