Monthly Archive for September, 2010

Crazy Day

Published on September 30, 2010, 11:24 pm in Trading. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

…or is that crazy week? The old adage, “As goes AAPL, so goes the market,” sure has been holding true this month….not to far behind “As goes oil, so goes the market.” If you had either of those charts up on your screens you could watch the dance with the ES….not sure which was leading the others!

I’m hoping that the reaction to the China PMI this evening is similar to today’s Chicago PMI….sell the news, even if it’s good. I picked up some FXI puts that were green at the close, but are now looking like they will turn red at the open. That’s trading for you :!:

TBT on the other hand took off on the good PMI number as traders answered the question, “Why keep rates low?” The short Treasuries ETF is a bet that interest rates will be rising. I’m thinking it may be time to do that soon….how about you?

Overall this was a good week and September was a great month! If you didn’t make any money this month, it is probably time to take a break and reassess your trading plan. You may also want to read this: The Proof Is In The Numbers: America Is Getting Poorer. Misery loves company.

See you on the trading field!

End 3rd Begin 4th

Published on September 29, 2010, 10:25 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Thursday is the last trading day of the month and is the 1st of 2 days of heavy economic news….one day in the 3rd quarter and the next day in the 4th. GDP, Chicago PMI and Jobless Claims are just a few of the biggies….and Bernanke speaks on both Thursday and Friday. There’s so manyreports and eco news I can’t type that much. Go here to see them all.

Tomorrow is also another POMO today…”Permanent Open Market Operations” and, in the past has preceded big up moves. What happens is that the debt issued by the government is placed in bank accounts and, hopefully, used to buy stocks. We’ll see if it instigates a continuation of the September rally….or maybe a correction. Here’s an interesting take on the subject: Is the Fed Juicing the Market?

Yesterday I mentioned I was holding C stock and calls. I saw this today, Treasury’s 3rd Citigroup Stock Trading Plan Ends Tomorrow – Look Out Above, and made me happy.

Happy trading to you and here’s a funny…

“Larry Summers, President Obama’s top economic adviser, is stepping down. So finally some good economic news, I’ll tell ya, Summers didn’t want to leave, but apparently he was out of bad ideas.

Actually, Summers is the third Obama economic adviser to leave the White House since July. In fact, the only jobs opening up these days are for White House economic advisers.” – Jay Leno

Inflation is good

Published on September 28, 2010, 8:35 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

The economic reports this morning were not good, and thus the market rallies! A bad economy guarantees that the Fed will be performing some quantitative easing pretty quick…which ewventually gets us into inflation. More money at low interest makes its way into the market…making the market go up. But, Why is deflation bad?

Today I traded more transactions than I ever had in one day, clearing out a lot of positions that I had strung along for quite a while. DRYS QTWW FCEL NSM AMKR and a few I got just yesterday and today XRT IWM. Now I traded IWM puts all day long today (6 times) with 66% being profitable winners. :mrgreen:

Overnight I’m holding UCO TBT C and puts in both IWM and GLD….small positions in all except for C, got lots of C in stock and calls, picking it up here and there on dips for the last 5 months. One day I’ll cash out.

Tomorrow is a no news day except for oil inventories at 10:30AM EST….thus the UCO purchase today. Besides that we’ll be looking to Asia and Europe to set the tone for Wednesday. Keep in mind that the cloud over Europe has reappeared, especially in Ireland and Portugal, so watch out for that. Otherwise, happy trading, but be careful out there :!:

Deja Vu?

Published on September 27, 2010, 11:24 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Today’s late day selloff reminded me a lot of those days in August that became like clockwork, day after day. Sure hope it doesn’t become a habit!

Saw lots of reasons, or is that excuses for the selling….California needing money, a good treasury auction, new FDIC rules, and even Bob Prechter on TV. None of them sounded like a good excuse, but with the kind of volume we had on Monday, it took only a few traders to move the markets! :roll:

Now on the other hand, the publisher of the Stock Trader’s Almanac says that the Dow is going up 259% in the next 15 years! Read this: Dow ‘Super Boom’ to Send Gauge to 38,820, Hirsch Says.

Closed about half of my long positions for some profit taking, but also added some short hedges….mainly using puts in IWM XRT and GLD. We’ll have to wait to see how prudent that was. Happy trading!

What’s next?

Published on September 26, 2010, 10:14 pm in Opinions, reading and Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Monday is the last day for mutual funds to buy any winning positions they want on the books for the end of the 3rd quarter. I’m thinking volume should increase? The thought is that a lot of hedge funds have missed this move and they really can’t sit back and watch a rally without some stocks in their portfolios and they don’t want to show a lot of cash on their quarterly report.

If you’re a user of Worden’s Telechart, you may have read this Friday night. It was memorable to me, so I thought I would repeat it:

One thing I personally find almost amazing. The Nasdaq-100 is growing close to the Q2 quarter highs. This Index, as I’m sure you recall, has led all the way up from the August upside breakout. Should this index conquer the Q2 closing high, I believe I’ll have no choice but to call a promotion to a “Primary Uptrend.”

Here’s some more interesting stuff: Who Let the Bulls Back In?

Friday was a big day…will Monday be a big follow-through day? Thursday will be the heaviest economic data day with GDP, Chicago PMI, and Jobless Claims. Let’s see if September goes out with a bang! Friday will be the start of October and the 4th quarter.

Weekly Reading 09/25/10

Published on September 25, 2010, 3:54 pm in reading. Closed Tags: .

Why did the markets go up? David Tepper: “My Animal Spirits Are Awakened”.

Well, even if you don’t trade futures…Lumber Rises by Exchange Limit as Economic Growth May Spur Use.

Gov’t seizes 3 failing wholesale credit unions.

And in a related story…Credit Union Cleanup in U.S. to Cost as Much as $9.2 Billion.

I’m heavy into C calls…I wish something good would happen to Citigroup! Citigroup Sued in New York by Norway’s Central Bank for Stock, Bond Losses.

Are you not doing anything today? Are you smarter than a chimp? Careful…it’s addicting!

“Well, you know what’s interesting, O’Donnell said she dabbled in witchcraft, and her opponent, Democratic candidate Chris Coons, he had no comment. He wanted to comment, but he lost his voice, went blind and came down with boils.” –Jay Leno

5 more days

Published on September 23, 2010, 11:40 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Yeppers! Only 5 more trading days left in September. That means the 4th quarter starts a week from tomorrow. Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Well, fund and money managers will need some money to start so watch for a lot of window dressing in the week to come.

My late day yesterday and pre-market oil plays worked out well today. Still holding on to some USO calls and a couple shares of UCO.

I won’t harp on volume …I guess the “new normal” average volume is not about 10-20% less than what I always thought was average volume.

I’m not sure if we have had enough of a pullback….I think so. The S&P, along with the SPY, did close below the August highs. We’ll have to see on Friday if we pop back up through or feel around in the gutter for more. If we do get a down opening, I’ll look to nibble on some Bull ETFs like SPY SSO TNA BGU and the like. Watch out for 2 reports Friday morning: Durable Goods and New Home Sales.

“The National Bureau of Economic Research announced the recession actually ended in 2009. What idiots we were! So that recession you think you’re in, that’s as imaginary as the job you used to have.”

“What they don’t tell you, the next recession started in July of last year.” – Jay Leno

Woe is me

Published on September 23, 2010, 9:07 am in Tools and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

I had about 24 hours of hardware and Internet issues…all while trying to trade and attended an online webinar….those things don’t mix!

That also didn’t allow me to update my trading journal. For the past 18 months, I’ve been keeping a journal in Microsoft’s OneNote. While I jot down all my trades, I also write about what I’m feeling at the time, my reasons for buying, profit and stop targets. While it feels therapeutic during the day, the real value comes each weekend when I not only review the weeks entries, but also review some entries from months before…especially comparing recent winners and losers with “old” winners and losers.

I digress. The markets were pretty mixed up on Wednesday. Oil really got slapped around. At the end of the day I thought I’d nibble on some UCO and nibbled a little more in the pre-market this morning…average cost 8.65…we’ll see. May also look into some USO calls at the open.

Porbably a big eco number at 10AM…Existing Home Sales….also Leading Indicators. A pullback is not a bad thing…we just want to stay above the S&P’s June and August highs…Maybe a little poke-through, but nothing drastic.

Good Luck and happy trading :!:

Well, which is it?

Published on September 21, 2010, 8:03 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

One day after an official announcement from the NBER, that the recession ended last year, the FOMC says they are willing and able to do more quantitative easing to help us get out of the recession. So which is it?…are we in or are we out?

I tried trading TF, the Russell futures contract today to no avail…twice at bat and twice I struck out. I think greed got the better of me. My first trade was about a half hour before the FOMC came out. I went long with a tight 9 tick stop. I had made it up to a +5 ticks, but watched it go down to get stopped out.

Once stopped, I then watched TF take off after the announcement without me. I could have made +80 ticks easy if not more. I was still stinging from the stop out and took no action.

The second play was about a 15 minutes later after a small pullback….another long position with a 21 tick stop. This time I watched it go up +16 ticks, didn’t take profits, and watched it retreat before I stopped out. I may have timed it all wrong, but reviewing my trades I would have to blame it on greed…probably the worst emotion to deal with other than fear. Gotta get control of that stuff.

This evening the Q’s are hurting after ADBE came out with some ugly guidance…ADBE is down 16% after hours. Nasdaq was leading the rally, will it lead the pullback?

Oh well! Tomorrow’s another day. Happy trading.

Breakout!

Published on September 20, 2010, 10:01 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Well, we finally broke out of that 4-month range…summer is officially over. :D   I guess the best thing would be to pullback and test those June/August highs from above, but of course, the market never does what you “think” it should.

It’s funny how a little blurb about the recession ending over a year ago could get the markets so excited! Oil, gold and the other commodities had a big up day also.

Watch out for Housing Starts in the morning and the FOMC announcement in the afternoon. It usually takes a day or two before the markets figure out what the FOMC is saying, so watch for some shennanigans up and down.

I saw this one today: Do you know the difference between a stockbroker or a investment advisor, or a financial planner? Do you know their responisbilities to you? You don’t? Neither does most of America! U.S. Investors & The Fiduciary Standard survey.

Happy trading :!: