Monthly Archive for July, 2010

Whole lot of shaking going on!

Published on July 30, 2010, 11:44 pm in reading. Closed Tags: .

There was a Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On today as volatility was chop chop chop! However that doesn’t matter much to computers – oops, I mean traders. :mrgreen:

Here’s some weekend reading:
A great site to check sentiment using option puts/calls. ISEE Index

Do The Latest European Bank Lending Numbers Reveal A Major Headache Looming For The ECB? The devil is in the details.

Oh boy! More levereaged ETF’s :twisted: Direxion Planning 11 New Leveraged Currency, Commodity ETFs.

High-Frequency Programmers Revolt Over Pay. Computer jockeys setting up own shops in bids to make millions.

Japanese-style market crash?

Published on July 29, 2010, 8:54 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Futures were up overnight and then Initial Claims came out not so bad, so the market was going to have a decent day. Then, St. Louis Fed Prez said we were close to jap-style deflation and the markets broke down! It was a wild ride. It looks like there is a bull snorting in one corner and a bear growling in the other….there’s a fight going on…and no apparent winner…yet.

All the indexes closed barely in the red. But we went up then way down and then fought back to breakeven. The Industrials and Russell are still above their 200ma and the S&P is still below….not much change this week….but it sure hasn’t felt that way!

I was lucky enough to have time to get out of some, but not all, longs at the market open. I tried to hedge with ES but got chopped to bits every time. I finally just quit trying, and by the end of the day, all the positions I had remaining returned to where they started.

On Friday we have lots of numbers coming out: GDP Price Index, Employment Cost Index, Chicago Purchasing Managers Index and University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment. Now, this afternoon I would have thought traders would have stayed away, but volume increased in the afternoon and GS really took off. Do you think GS knows something about those numbers? 8)

Chop continues

Published on July 28, 2010, 10:12 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

The blades have to be getting dull on this chopper. All the indexes ended in the red, off anywhere from a quarter percent to one and a half percent. Volume was extremely low and Advance/decline volumes were barely down two to one.

But which way do we go now? I’m positioned on the long side, so I want the market to go long. Unfortunately, the market never does what I want it to do. So, play the charts. But I can’t tell from the charts. The only play I have is to tighten stops and maybe hedge a bit with TZA BGZ or maybe just S&P futures.

I’ll be listening in on the DRYS conference call on Thursday morning. Earnings came out after the close today and looked good. Now we need some good news…like an IPO or a sale. 8)

Thursday brings us the largest single day of earnings reports of the season. And let’s not forget our weekly headache of Initial Unemployment Claims. Something’s got to move in a confident direction, either up or down….soon, I hope. Good luck tomorrow!

Sgt. Schultz sent to the front :-)

Published on July 27, 2010, 11:06 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Do you remember the old WWII war movies, or even Hogan’s Heroes, when they disciplined soldiers by threatening to send them to the Russian front? Well, I guess that’s what BP is doing with CEO Hayward…sending him over to the russian front as someone else runs the mothership. :roll:

Today was a sausage-maker…chop, chop, chop. The good thing, it relieved some of that overbought pressure in equities. The bad part…gold and oil got bitch-slapped….hard!

All the indexes closed near breakeven, the Dow in the green and the rest in the red. Not very damaging, but I wouldn’t want to see much more than 10 points shaved off in the SPX…a test of that breakout would be good.

Tomorrow will be wait and see…see what the Durable Goods Orders says in the morning and what the Fed’s Beige Book says in the afternoon. Oh yeah, and in between we’ll see how oil inventories are doing.

Happy trading tomorrow!

That was fast

Published on July 26, 2010, 9:44 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , .

We suprisingly had some good homes sales news and FDX boosted its earnings predictions for the fiscal first quarter and the rest of the year! All the indexes closed in the green.

I didn’t think the S&P would get to its 200ma in 1 day, but it did…And the June highs are not that far off.
The Dow closed above its June highs, while the Russell still has some ground to cover.

We have the House Price Index tomorrow along with consumer confidence. The Stock Trader’s Almanac shows Monday, Thursday and Friday as bullish days. Now that doesn’t mean that’s what will happen, but seasonality does have a vote in this market. But, if you’re a bull, you’ve got to be feeling pretty good! :D

Bull Fun!

Published on July 25, 2010, 10:09 pm in Charts, Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

It was a good week for the bulls, except for Wednesday giving us a spook. We’ve made new July highs in the indexes and are now shooting for the June highs. The Dow Jones Industrials are the closest, sitting between its 200ma and the high.

The Russell 2000 is also already above its 200ma and July highs, but looking to get to its June highs….but that is still some distance to go.

The S&P 500 looks to be the weakest, still below its 200ma, but its June highs are also close to the 200.

Overall, the charts are bullish.

Last week we hardly had any economic data besides earnings reports. But this week the data picks up along with earnings reports.
Monday, 7/26:
10:00 – New Home Sales
Tuesday, 7/27:
09:00 – Case-Shiller House Price Index
10:00 – Conference Board Consumer Confidence
Wednesday, 7/28:
08:30 – Durable Goods Orders
10:30 – Crude Oil Inventories
14:00 – Beige Book
Thursday, 7/29:
08:30 – Unemployment Claims
Friday, 7/30:
08:30 – Advance GDP Price Index
08:30 – Employment Cost Index
09:45 – Chicago Purchasing Managers Index
09:55 – University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment

And then we’re all done with July! Thanks for reading and good luck tomorrow!

Weekend Reading 7/24/10

Published on July 23, 2010, 9:12 pm in reading. Closed Tags: .

Here’s some interesting reading for your weekend. Now don’t forget to spend time with the family and have some fun!

I’ll be back Sunday night.

Whiplash!

Published on July 22, 2010, 10:02 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Sure there was good earnings reports this morning, but initial claims looked bad. European good news, on manufacturing and services index and retail sales, trumped US Initial Claims this morning and yesterday’s unusual uncertainty. And it sounds like European bank stress tests are coming in better than expected. I think the give-away on that is just what the euro has been doing today. We’ll see the conclusion on those tests tomorrow.

The S&P has made it well above the 50ma which should now act as support. A trip up to the 200ma seems plausible….at least the first attack.

Some high-powered reports for Friday: F HON IR MCD VZ, but no economic news…at least not from the US. Now Europe should be full of it…so to speak. :D

Unusually Uncertain?

Published on July 21, 2010, 10:15 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , .

No… more like bitch-slapped! Looks like banks got slapped by Bernanke and the entire market goes down. Bernanke said NOTHING new but the market reacted as if we’re just learning Europe is broke and there are many people unemployed! On the other hand, many senators probably had not known that.

Earnings reports on Wednesday morning were generally good. MS and WFC had good reports that really had the bank sector taking off. But that was some negative reaction to Big Ben speaking on the hill. The markets are still up for the week so all is not lost.

Are We As Worried as We Were Back in March 2009?

All said and done, this is one tough market to be trading. I didn’t buy a thing today and sold for some small profits and even smaller losses. Tomorrow, besides an even bigger day for earnings, we have Initial Claims. You would think that we could figure out how the market would react after a report, but, like today, who knows! Uncertainty as usual ;)

Nice…Turnaround Tuesday

Published on July 20, 2010, 10:36 pm in Opinions, Tools and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

So wasn’t there some news this morning about bad earnings from GS? And weren’t C BAC GE still bad? Isn’t everyone worried about the bank stress test in Europe? So why are all the traders happy today?

Funny that the US dollar did not matter, or at least there is not that strong correlation between the US$ and the markets. Oil still seems to be correlated, as oil went up so did the indexes.

Lots and lots of earnings on Wednesday…and even more on Thursday! I’m interested in MS WFC KO QCOM and NFLX. That should give me an idea of how the world is doing. 8) And if the markets can’t rally on this evening’s AAPL report, then we’re in real trouble!

I apologize for some short blog entries, but I’m having technical difficulties with my hardware this week. I have tracked the problem(s) down, but new parts will take 7-10 days. In the mean time I’ve fired up a backup PC and getting it ready for trading tomorrow.

See you on the playing field.