Say whatever you want to about the way their growth plans were put on hold in 2008, but you can’t deny that somebody made some big money by owning Spicy Pickle Franchising Inc. (OTC:SPKL) shares since the end of last year. Those traders who stepped in at 17 cents over the course of the last days of 2008 are now sitting on a 47% gain, if they held onto those trades. If that wasn’t you, don’t worry - there may be more of the same in store.

Just to be clear, this is strictly a technical look. We haven’t heard from Spicy Pickle in a while, and what news we were getting was modest when we got it. However, technical analysis can still highlight some great trades, which may be the case now.

Specifically, we’ve witnessed a bullish cross of the 20 day moving average line (blue) and the 50 day moving average line (purple). More importantly, we’ve seen some pretty strong volume behind the recent gains. Though the shift in the underlying dynamic has been subtle, it’s also been more meaningful than most traders seem to be giving SPKL credit for.

In the very short run, SPKL may be a little overbought. We may see the stock slide all the way back down to 21 cents before support is found and the uptrend can be renewed. So, from that perspective, right now may not be the exact best time to get in. There’s no way of knowing for sure; the chart has just been a little too hot for most traders’ taste.

Either way, we’re pegging a near-term target of 35 cents. That’s the first Fibonacci line SPKL will meet if this rally does end up taking hold (that target has nothing to do with whether or not we see an intermim pullback). The next key retracement level is at 47 cents … the major one we’re eyeing. If you look closely, 47 cents was also a ceiling in September, so there’s something significant there that we may not want to mess with. A move from 25 cents to 47 cents isn’t anything to sneeze at though.

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