Archive for the 'Trading' Category

Where oh where?

Published on September 8, 2010, 9:03 am in Opinions and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Volume was pitiful on Tuesday, so I guess we still have to wait for traders to return from summer vacation. Today? Tomorrow? Next week?

Labor Day is the traditional kickoff to November elections. We’ll be inundated soon as campaign commercials take over the TV and grow like mold into election day. I found this derivative of the word “politics.”

The word “politics” describes the process so well: “Poli” in Latin meaning “many” and “tics” meaning “bloodsucking creatures”.

So true!

Futures up overnight. Let’s see if volume starts to pick up. September index futures start to roll over starting Thursday into December contracts. Keep an eye on that.

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Back in the saddle…again

Published on September 6, 2010, 10:18 pm in Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , .

September starts off will a solid 3-day rally, which has put the Dow Jones Industrials back in the saddle again, or as they say, back in the green for the year! The Russell broke into positive territory on Thursday and confirmed it on Friday. But, all indexes are still off their April highs.

Let’s look for some additional upward movement here. :mrgreen:

Hope you had a wonderfully pleasant long weekend!

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Tomorrow!

Published on September 2, 2010, 9:48 pm in Opinions and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Yes, it’s all about the employment numbers on Friday. Are we overbought?….but is it a good overbought? The kind of overbought we got into in mid-March 2009? Friday’s reports will tell us.

All the news has been “not bad” the past 2 days…and if we can get another day’s worth, boy oh boy, we may go into the Labor Day weekend over 1100 S&P. Got to admit, that would be nice!

My moneymakers today were QTM AEZS USO and XLE. Friday’s pick’s will have to wait for the Non-Farm payroll report to get a feel for the trend. I would like to see oil try for $76 and the US dollar to rest in the $82 area. What the hell, the market never does what I want it to do. 8O

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Enjoying the bounty

Published on September 1, 2010, 11:13 pm in Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Days like today are so much fun! Isn’t it wonderful what a little good news can do in an oversold market! Now can it last for another day or two and takes us into the holday all happy and giddy?

China PMI got the ball rolling yesterday, but strangely enough, the China market didn’t think it was that good. This evening China seems to be realizing it had a good report, or more appropriately, it’s just following what the US market did today.

More news tomorrow: Jobless CLaims, Factory Orders, Pending Home Sales, and let’s not forget, Ben Bernanke is speaking again. Watch volume as it may go down as traders wait for Friday’s Non-farm Payroll Report.

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I seen the needle and the damage done

Published on August 31, 2010, 9:55 pm in Opinions and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

The stock market is the biggest junkie in the world. The Fed says that we don’t need no stinkin’ quantitative easing, which should be good news, but the market quickly goes into DT’s and trembles all the way down. “But every junkie is like a setting sun.”

No QE means a strong economy, it means a recovery is in process! Oh, but it also means a strong dollar…and at the present the stock market does NOT like a strong dollar. So today, everytime the dollar shot up, the stock market, along with the oil market, moved down. And it seemed to happen about 20 times today!

Volume doubled yesterday’s totals and I think it should continue throughout the week, even though we are leading up to a holiday weekend. Too much news going on which will stir up the pot. Tonight I was waiting for China’s PMI, which has come out at 51.7, up from last months 51.2. And by morning we should have heard some GDP’s from European countries. We’ve also got ADP payroll report Wednesday morning, along with Construction Spending and oil inventories and more.

So much going on, Australia GDP up along with China PMI so futures are moving up strong also. Let’s hope it lasts until US markets open….and through the day tomorrow! :mrgreen:

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Just another manic Monday

Published on August 30, 2010, 10:11 pm in Opinions, Trading and reading. 0 Comments Tags: , .

It was just another Manic Monday, until the last hour, when indexes closed at their lows….on very low volume. It was a slow-motion crash.

We’ve got a load of economic news coming starting tomorrow: Home Price Index, Chicago PMI, Consumer Confidence and FOMC minutes. The question is, will good news or bad news make the markets move up? Or will nothing happen until Friday when the monthly employment numbers come out. Crazy market!

When everyone is bearish, that is the time to go long, a contrarian indicator. But what if all the contrarians are saying that there are too many bears out there and start writing stories about that? I found a couple stories today to read: Are Wall Street Analysts Contrary Indicators? Then followed that up with Sell Signal on 36% Profit Increase Has Analysts in Math Denial.

Thanks for reading and good luck tomorrow!

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Reaction vs Reality

Published on August 29, 2010, 10:02 pm in Charts, Opinions and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The news continues to suck, with GDP, consumer sentiment and speeches to confuse everyone. But, stocks still rallied. As we say, sometimes the reaction is more important than the reality.

Traders did take a quick trip down to test that 1040 S&P level. That level has been tested several times the last 3 months. We’ve also got oil moving up and bonds moving down…which should be good for stocks.

Sunday evening futures are moving up. And merger Mondays have brought good news lately, although Mondays have not been moving up much after the open. From the Stock Trader’s Almanac: August next-to-last trading day, S&P up only twice in last 13 years :-(

The market may be bad, but I slept like a baby last night. I woke up every hour and cried.

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Trading some ETFs

Published on August 26, 2010, 9:33 pm in Tools, Trading and reading. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I like to daytrade the index ETFs….y’know, TNA/TZA BGU/BGZ SSO/SDS and a multitude of other bull/bear pairs. Depending on how the market is doing, I jump on either the bull or bear ETF and scalp it for as long as all day sometimes….and other times for 60 seconds….sometimes for a profit and other times for a loss. You know how it goes. 8O

As I was watching the grass grow at mid-day today, I was daydreaming at where I would be if I had bought some pairs at the beginning of the year. Logic would be that one side would be up and the other side down. But no!

On January 4th this year, TNA opened at $44.66 and closed today at $33.58, down about 12%. The Russell is down about 4% for the year, and since TNA is a 3X ETF, being off 12% is about right.

So TZA should be up about 12%, right? No! TZA opened the year at $47.05 and closed today at $39.06, down about 15% for the year. What!? The bear ETF is down more than the bull ETF? Yes. So if you had decided to put on some sort of spread bet taking both sides to hedge yourself, you’d be a real loser! :cry:

My lesson here is … not to hold leveraged ETFs for more than a day. Yes I have held overnight and have both profitted and lost on the gamble…. But now just daytrade or scalp….make more money and sleep a whole lot better.

Here’s an article that should be read by anyone trading leveraged ETFs. This study is based on 2X ETFs so the issues are greater in the 3X and 4X ETFs available now. The explanation is a lot more technical than what my daydreaming came up with. How Long Can You Hold Leveraged ETFs?

For all the periods studied except one-year, tracking error grows larger … and more negative … as the expected return grows.
The results of the study are clear. As you move further away from the targeted one-day time period, tracking error on these funds grows.

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Slick oil

Published on August 25, 2010, 10:34 pm in Opinions and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

One of those weird days when gold, oil and the dollar, along with stocks, were up! As expected Durable Goods and the New Home sales sucked. Unexpected was the big oil inventories build-up, which sunk oil prices. But, like the last time this happened in late May, traders saw opportunity and started buying oil futures. And like it has done all year, oil led a move to the upside for stocks.

Keep an eye on oil to see which way we go stockwise. If oil continues its bravery, watch UCO USO and ERX.

Semiconductors also had some oomph in its step, most likely with the help of AAPL and INTC, but also watch XLK and SMH.

The crash for the day belongs to golfer Jim Furyk: Jim Furyk is disqualified from Barclays for missing pro-am tee time. Gee if he traveled more often he would know wbout hotel wake-up calls! :cry:

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It’s only a flesh wound

Published on August 24, 2010, 9:38 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

I fought the market today, and the market won! Do you ever feel like the Black Knight in the Holy Grail movie? I was the knight today and King Arthur was the market.

The individual investor has left the marketplace…computers and HFT are in charge! This can only help the bears ravage the market. Did you see some of those whips in nanoseconds? The bid/ask spreads were pretty wide also. Nobody can click a mouse that fast.

I spent most of the day just trying to get to cash with minimal losses. I was zigging and zagging as snipers kept shooting. 8O

I think I’ll trade futures this evening and take it easy during the cash market hours. Seems like the futures markets are much more reasonable and orderly during the night sessions. Night time money spends just as well as day time money!

New Home Sales report Wednesday…hoping it’s not as big a stinker as existing home sales were today. But we also have Durable goods before and oil inventories after. Oh boy, another quiet day! :mrgreen:

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