Alliance Imaging (AIQ)

Company

"Alliance Imaging completes 1,000,000 patient scans annually in the areas of MRI, Open-MRI, CT, SPECT, and PET, making us the nation's leading provider of diagnostic services. We operate over 450 systems at large university hospitals, physician offices, community medical centers, clinics and free-standing imaging centers across the United States." (company website)

Buy

5-Jul-06. Alliance Imaging is showing signs of reversing a long downtrend (see sidebar). The 50-day moving average is rising again and about to cross over the declining 200-day moving average. Each successive dip is higher than the previous one. All good signs.

• Price momentum (PPO) — picking up sharply in last two weeks
• Trend (ADX) — strengthened to above the threshhold (20), and buying pressure (+DI) is safely above selling pressure (-DI)
• Money flow (CMF) — in a patch of outflows, but improving
• Relative strength (RSI) — strengthening
• Volume — a little more-lightly traded than I would like, but fairly stable

I ended up with only 200 shares because my order was not filled at my bid price.

Sell

2-Aug-06. I sold AIQ today, even though it is starting to look a lot better after weeks of blah. The company is scheduled to report earnings tomorrow, and I would rather pocket a few dollars profit than run the risk of a surprise. Surprises are not handled gracefully by this skittish market.