5 Big Stocks to Trade for Gains in April

Investors are shifting sentiment by the calendar month in 2012, opting to turn bullish as the page turned to January, and now ramping up anxiety in April's first week of trading. Stocks are headed into what looks like a third day of selling today, a move that's being attributed to the Fed's not announcing another round of quantitative easing on Tuesday, and now rising borrowing costs for Spain.

But what's really changed? Not much.

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Let's not forget that Mr. Market just came off the biggest gaining first quarter in a decade. A week or two of sideways trading isn't exactly reason to run for the hills just yet. And in fact, the last couple weeks of selling have pushed the S&P 500's RSI reading within a few points of the neutral 50 level.

The last time that momentum gauge hit 50 was back in March, when stocks pulled back under similar circumstances only to double the S&P's 2012 gains in the month that followed. That's why at this point, traders shouldn't be looking for the exit signs -- they should be looking for buying opportunities.

To find those, we're turning to the technicals in five of Wall Street's big-name stocks this week.

If you're new to technical analysis, here's the executive summary:

Technicals are a study of the market itself. Since the market is ultimately the only mechanism that determines a stock's price, technical analysis is a valuable tool even in the roughest of trading conditions. Technical charts are used every day by proprietary trading floors, Wall Street's biggest financial firms, and individual investors to get an edge on the market. And research shows that skilled technical traders can bank gains as much as 90% of the time.