Pfizer Is Trading a Lot on Hopes Ahead of Earnings

Investors are not positioned for an upside move.
Stocks quotes in this article: PFE, MRK, CAT, MSFT, SWK

During Friday's Mad Money program Jim Cramer laid out his game plan for the stock market this week. The highlights on Tuesday include Pfizer (PFE) and Merck (MRK) , along with Caterpillar (CAT) , Microsoft (MSFT) and Stanley Black & Decker (SWK) .

Cramer was anxious to hear an update on Pfizer's Covid vaccine and I am anxious to see how prices act if they decline a little bit further. Let's check out the charts. 

In the daily bar chart of PFE, below, we can see that the shares are just slightly above the declining 50-day moving average line and the declining 200-day moving average line.

The On-Balance-Volume (OBV) line has been in a decline since late July and the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) oscillator is only slightly above the zero line.

 
In the weekly bar chart of PFE, below, we see a mixed picture. The shares are trading above the declining 40-week moving average line.
 
The weekly OBV line has improved in recent weeks but the longer-term trend is sideways. The MACD oscillator is only slightly bullish. 
 
 
 
In this daily Point and Figure chart of PFE, below, we can see a potential upside price target around $42 but also that a decline to $36.74 will start to weaken the picture. 
 
 
 
Bottom-line strategy: Ahead Pfizer's earnings Tuesday the charts suggest that investors are not positioned for an upside move.
 
(Pfizer is a holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS member club. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells PFE? Learn more now.)
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TAGS: Investing | Stocks | Technical Analysis | Pharmaceuticals | Mad Money | Earnings Preview

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