Monthly Archive for April, 2010

One Day Wonder

Published on April 29, 2010, 10:00 pm in Opinions, Tools and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

It looks like the bears only have enough energy for one day. Every once in a while, like yesterday, the bears come up with enough energy to drive the market down. But they soon exhaust themselves and give the field back to the bulls, like today. I think it just may be a dance in this whole topping process, or part of the correction process, but these swings can make sausage out of your portfolio….so you better find a bun to put it into. :mrgreen:

I tried to have another great ES trading day, but I traded 2 out of 3 losers…and my one winner could not make up for my 2 losers. I did clear out some of my short positions, but the way the indexes closed up strong, was to me a signal that it may be time to short again.

After hours today had some interesting mews. A Federal criminal probe opens into Goldman Sachs and staff over possible securities fraud in mortgage trading. That will not sit very well with the gang down on Wall Street. SEC sends Goldman case to prosecutors. Remember what happened two weeks ago when GS had some bad news? Uh oh.

Some strange happenings today…did you notice how the goveernment jobless claims every week raises the previous weeks numbers so that this weeks numbers look like they dropped a whole lot more than it should? Are we really that dumb? Did you notice that this is about the 10th time that Greece has had a report that it is being bailed out? And that the other Euro loser countries will need to help out…like Portugal, Spain and Italy? Did you notice how GOOG has been having a tough time lately? Did you notice the VIX is back to its lacksidasical self? Did you notice that these up moves continue to go up on lousy volume?

Ok, here’s a postscript: I’ve been working on explaining how I use different indicators and tools. It’s a work in progress, but I would appreciate any notes or comments you may have. Check out How?, or Moving Averages or Stochastics….and keep checking. Thanks.

Extended Period . . . still

Published on April 28, 2010, 10:39 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: .

Our economy is so bad that the Fed is keeping rates at 0% for an extended period…still. So is this good news? Should the market rally on this? This was one of the most uneventful FOMC days that I can remember….no wild swings, no melt-ups or melt-downs, not even big volume. FOMC Press Release

You would also think that the bulls would have been a bit more pervasive after that big down day yesterday. Although we had an green day across all the indexes, I still have anticipation of more downside.

Did you hear Pres. Obama say: “At some point you’ve made enough money!” Any idea on what is “enough money?” Flaming Dumbass

And yes, HPQ bought PALM….but why? As Senator Levin would say, that’s shitty! HP-Palm: Everyone’s a loser but Apple

Here’s a simple and good explanation of the whole Greece mess, Some details on the Greek situation, from Morally Bankrupt. And another view: Germany may fund Greece for three years; the question is why?

There has got to be more fallout from these Greece-Portugal-Spain debt downgrades. The question is sooner or later?

The word of the day – “shitty”

Published on April 27, 2010, 9:46 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

The question was, “What are CDOs?” And Sen. Levin continued to use that word all afternoon talking about CDOs or the GS sales force or describing Goldman’s deals! As it turns out, Mr. ”Shitty” Levin doesn’t know a thing about what he’s asking! And here’s the best joke I saw today… from Lloyd_Blankfein: “The joke’s on Levin. I had my boys put the Senator Pension Plan in Portuguese bonds this morning.” heeheehee! :mrgreen:

Here’s how the market reacted to the GS grilling: Financials (-3.4%), Materials (-3.2%), Consumer Discretionary (-2.9%), Energy (-2.8%). Of course there was more to that than just GS…we had the downgrading of Greece and Portugal debt. I’m sure that was worth a few points.

Personally, I had one of the best days of the year. The short positions via TZA, QQQQ puts and TWM calls were all golden, but I spent most of the day playing the S&P emini to the short side. The best position would have been just to short in the morning and cover in the afternoon, but I was in and out 4 different transactions….but all to the good.

Tomorrow is Fed Day with the rate announcement coming at about 2PM EDT. Before that we have today’s continuation…maybe a gap down with a bounce? A lot will depend on if we have any more downgrades like Greece and Portugal today. Play ‘em like they’re dealt!

My takeway after watching hours of Senate grilling of GS on TV: Throw away all email servers!

Never write when you can speak, never speak when you can nod, never nod when you can wink.

Strange Brew!

Published on April 26, 2010, 10:44 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , .

This morning started with a strange sucking noise as the markets lured the bullish sheep into its trap before the bottom gives way and they all get the shaft. Isn’t that how tops are made? When everyone rushes in before they think the market takes off without them?

New 52-week highs blasted thru and passed Friday’s highs. But with so much power in that thrust, how come the markets didn’t do much at all? All the indexes were in the red except for the Dow…and that was only because of CAT. Advance/decline lines were negative as was the A/D volume. Strange brew! Or should we just say divergence big time!

And what a change of character this afternoon when the dollar broke down AND the markets followed suit. It’s been a long time since that has happened. Usually dollar down equals markets up and vice versa. Another divergence?

This is a pretty scary market and it just may be time for a downside move…a correction…or maybe something a bit more sinister? Oh, and one more thing…a Monday that was finally to the downside. :mrgreen:    Signs That Could Mark A Top

News will pickup for the rest of the week as Tuesday will bring Consumer Confidence and Home Price Index. The FOMC begins a meeting Tuesday and a rate decision will be announced on Wednesday. What do you think….maybe a rate increase in the works? At the least traders will be looking for a change in the language. Oh boy, the last week of April promises to be fun!

What to do?

Published on April 25, 2010, 10:14 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Oh what to do? The market is way overbought, but price action keeps moving on up. Markets still making new highs and also 52-week new highs…except for the Naz, the index made a new high Friday but did not make new highs in the 52-week new highs….a slight divergence maybe?

I’m still sitting in mostly cash, but have now split my longs/shorts at 20%/30%. My longs are DRYS ZANE TBT. My shorts are via TZA, IWM puts and QQQQ puts.

Futures this evening are already frisky to the upside….just reflecting tha happy openings in Asia. The melt-up continues. Be long or be wrong! But be careful.

The Show that never ends…

Published on April 24, 2010, 9:13 pm in Opinions. Closed

If bailing out Greece helps the euro and European stocks so much, just imagine if they did it over and over and over again…like the U.S…..”to the moon Alice!” Greece debt is 113% of their GDP. U.S. is now 110% and getting worse! Who will bail us (U.S.) out?

Everyone is talking on how much better earnings are compared to last year. But what are we comparing to…the bowels of recession? Topline growth is negligible, if not worse. Bottom line is, of course, better…companies have thrown overboard every expense possible, including workers! So why wouldn’t earnings be better? Some of those same stocks though have now increased 100, 200 even 300% and, thanks to all that money printed up by government, they’re all liquid as hell! Are we really that better off than we were a year ago? Your comments are appreciated!

Earnings Season Update: So Far, So Good

Still crazy after all these days

Published on April 22, 2010, 8:28 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

What a day…a great morning for bears and a great afternoon for bulls, as the markets recover from a triple-digit loss. What the $%@&*? And although price led the way up, market internals did not look so good. The high-beta stocks in the Nasdaq and the Russell reached new highs, but the blue chips in the Dow and the S&P did not! The NYSE closed in the red. Major indexes are trying hard but cannot break to new highs.

Earnings are a story also….There are a few exceptions, but, it looks like companies are still making profits from cost-cutting and not from higher sales. So unless jobs come around, where will topline growth come from? And just because some Euro boss said that Spain and Portugal would not be like Greece, traders drank the Kool-aid!

MSFT and AMZN sucked after the close. Futures started to go down right after the cash close. Not that any of the reports have been bad, it’s just because they haven’t been as great as the run-up in price.

Not too many reports tomorrow and eco-news is light also. So…maybe the bears can accomplish what they need to do, bring down this market. Here’s some interesting reading in the GS bullshit….

That’s exactly the problem I have with SEC’s case. When you buy a call option, do you scream foul when you discover the guy who sells you the call is bearish on the stock? If Goldman clearly disclosed what was in the Abacus portfolio, why does it matter who selects them?

Goldman Is Tarnished, but Don’t Write It Off. You may need to sign up for a preview to read the entire article, but a subscription to Barron’s is not a bad thing.

A mixed bag of indexes

Published on April 21, 2010, 10:40 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

The day started off giddy with AAPL excitement, but soon tamed down and moved back and forth between red and green. All the indexes, except for the NYSE, closed barely green. After the close some bad reports from QCOM AMGN and EBAY sent futures moving to the downside…and they continue down thru the evening.

With the big up move in the Q’s thanks to AAPL, I thought I’d nibble on some puts, along with adding to my TZA position. The SPY looks like it may have formed a double-top over the past several days. Maybe tomorrow we see a confirmation of failed top. Also note that we continue to have increased volume only to the downside.

Tomorrow we have Jobless Claims and lots of earnings reports. If neither of those have any good news, we may get real ugly. Here’s some more reading to cheer you up:
Greek Workers to Strike Today as Papandreou Faces Bond Rout

Do Bank of America’s Blowout Earnings Actually Blow?

See you tomorrow on the battlefield….or maybe I’ll just sleep-in. 8)

Oh no! Not again

Published on April 20, 2010, 9:41 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Well, the 52-week high chart didn’t help me at all today…but that doesn’t mean it is not giving me a signal. 52-week highs were more than yesterday but still well behind what they were doing last week.

YHOO missed earnings this evening, but AAPL blew them out…and I mean big time! Can it follow-thru tomorrow though? Lots more earnings to come this week, but AAPL was the biggie….at least since GOOG came out last Thursday.

Futures are pretty happy this evening. But how high can we go? We’re breaking records left and right on consecutive up day, low VIX, volume, and just about everything. What I’m worried about now is: are we past time for a correction and are we looking for a crash?

Unbelievable….really

Published on April 19, 2010, 9:03 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

If you told me this morning that the Dow was going to end up 70+ points, I would have called you an ass. Turns out it was me…I mean the ass part. Unbelievable that the Dow made a 120 point u-turn! The S&P had a similar strange day. GS made a crazy u-turn also. The Russell had some semblance of sanity closing in the red.

The big trading volume was still on the downside, as was the advance/decline line and the A/D volume. The new 52-week highs today was way low for all indexes, turning both the 5-day and 10-day moving averages downward. So we had the lowest number of new highs and the highest number of new lows. Click on the chart to see it bigger.

I took profits from TZA and also the SPY puts I was still carrying. I’m still holding some TZA because I was expecting some more downside follow-thru! Again, the move up was uncalled for. 8O

This week and next are the busiest earnings reporting weeks and this week has a lot of biggies, IBM today, AAPL and GS tomorrow. IBM had a good report but sold off afterwards. As I had mentioned before, I think the good reports are priced in so either good or bad they selloff. Here’s more good news: U.S. Bankruptcies Spike 35% in One Month

The details are an even clearer warning sign that both the “bottom” in the U.S. housing market, and the “job growth” reported by the Bureau of Labor Propaganda are nothing but the “smoke and mirrors” of private sector shills, and/or government propagandists – dutifully reported by the mainstream media-parrots.

Gives you the warm and fuzzies, don’t it?