The art world is abuzz with Picasso's Women of Algiers selling for $179.3 Million where the commissions to Christie's were 12% or $19.3 Million! That all wraps up as a selling price of $160 Million. Christie's is not publicly traded, but I thought a look at Sotheby's (BID) might be in order. This stock has some great technical patterns. First of all, we can see it has formed a rising series of cup shaped patterns. The pullback of each one has been about 50% to 60% of the previous cup. The horizontal red line marks a major form of resistance for Sotheby's but a bid above that would test the trading range in 2013 and 2014. If we can see the orange line in the middle of the screen, it marks the ceiling of a cup shaped base. A break through that level of $35 sent everyone into the stock for a 40% gain. The SCTR shows BID was one of the top performing stocks as it broke out in July 2013 above 75 and stayed that way for 6 months.
Now, Sotheby's is trying to get into the top quartile with the SCTR at 73. The MACD has just turned up and the relative strength in purple is trying to make new 2015 highs. Have your bidder card ready, this one looks like it's trying to make all time highs, just like the Women of Algiers! Hopefully you'll agree that my chart work is just as beautiful!
Good trading,
Greg Schnell
