Trading thoughts, ideas, tips, musings, and pontifications. . .not necessarily in that order.
It was my first losing day this year. I shouldn’t have tried….low volume, narrow range, choppy market. Oh well, learn from my mistakes.
AA had a losing quarter which may not go so well on Tuesday…after such a good day on Monday…before the report.
There’s still a lot of momentum for the bulls, so let’s see if they can follow through.
The indexes xontinue to move down…except for the Dow. It again eeked out a small gain closing in the green. The Russell/TF and Nasdaq/NQ again led the way down….all on low volume, but we’re getting used to that now, especially Mondays.
By the end of the day I had closed all my short positions and am now kicking myself as I look at the futures continuing to move down all evening. Oh well….a profit anyway…just mad it could have been more!
AA earnings were mixed and traded down afterhours. And even though most of the indexes were down, the VIX was down as well…a bit unusual.
Guess I’ll go to bed and get up for the European open. G’nite!
Traders are saying the scariest moment of the second quarter will be on April 27, when Bernanke will hold the first ever press briefing following a monetary policy decision by the central bank.
By the end of Friday I had cashed out many of my holdings. I’m about 20% invested, 1:1 long vs short, and 80% cash. Just couldn’t tell what this market wanted or was going to do. Commodities were floating to the sky, budget finger-pointing and low volume made me uneasy. The Dow was up slightly while the other major indices were down slightly last week. And it looks like the Russell/TF is leading the way down…just like it led the way up.
Even though we have some sort of budget compromise, I’m not sure it’s any better. It only gets us all the way until next Thursday, averting this weekend’s shutdown. So on Friday, not only do options expire, but maybe the government as well! 
The big news this week will be earnings…with AA kicking off the festivities after the close on Monday. JPM comes out on Wednesday and GOOG on Thursday. Option Expiration Friday has BAC SCHW and MAT.
Now I’m going back to melting down all my silver disco chains and throwing in a few forks and knives. Good luck and happy trading 
While the S&P had only 5 down days in all of December, there have already been 4 down days out of the 6 trading days in January…. just waiting for the pot to boil. These afternoon run ups from the lows are getting boring. Something’s gotta give.
AA had a decent report this evening, but, as always, it was selling off in the afterhours. NVDA popping on INTC deal. Will they become one someday?
“Borders bookstores are struggling to stay in business. This could be the first time in our country that borders are actually closed.” – Jay Leno
Another one of those low volume, hang around breakeven day, as traders wait for Friday’s Employment reports. Today’s Jobless Claims was better than expected and the markets were happy at the open and took off early before realizing that this wasn’t THE report everyone is waiting for, and turned back down and just shuffled around.
After hours, AA kicked off earnings sseason with a pretty good report. helping move the indexes to the upside. But will it matter after 8:30AM EST?
I ordered all the peices and parts for my new trading computer. I’m going to set up a new section for “Tools” and document my choices and the process of putting it all together….and pictures too. Stay tuned.
Now, filed in the “You can’t make this stuff up” drawer: Postal Union Election Delayed After Ballots Lost in the Mail. Really?
“Donald Trump may run for president. Is that a good idea? Haven’t enough Americans already been told, “You’re fired’?” – Jay Leno
The markets always go up at the first of the month…and it did…barely. But they also say September is always a bad month…and it wasn’t. Are history and seasonal analysis out the door? Is it a new market?
Since IRA’s and 401k’s were decimated 2 years ago, I’d say yes, we are in a different marketplace. Just look at the volume of trades. Sure it inched up the last 2 days, but the average is still down. Lots of people are out of the market and computers are so automatic some of that sentiment and history analysis just might not fit. Oh my!
What? Earnings again? Yep, AA kicks off the next round on Thursday and the NFP Employment report is on Friday.
My trading computer crashed this weekend and I have been working frantically to get it going again. It’s late Sunday night and the hard drives are 85% through the rebuilding process…and it looks like it will take the rest of the night to complete. I won’t know until morning how all the data looks. And then I will need to replace a fried video card to get all the monitors up and running. I’m a computer geek but sometimes I just hate technology! 
Lucky I use multi-computers also. Thanks for reading and good luck tomorrow!
This market could not make up it’s mind on what direction to go. Maybe it was just waiting for the earnings reports this evening. There must have been a lot of people waiting because nobody was trading….volume pathetic again. Options Expiration week….hours of boredom….with minutes of panic and/or excitment thrown in!
Earnings season looks like it may be just what the bulls were waiting for. AA CSX and NVLS all came in with better-than-expected results and the S&P futures were taking off before they closed at 4:15 PM EDT. And later on this evening, it looks as if they would like to continue their move up. Of course there is still 11 hours before Tuesday’s open.
Speaking of AA, it’s been going down ever since the last earnings report 3 months ago.
So does it go up for 3 months now?
It would be nice if the markets tomorrow just continue up in a nice-n-easy manner, slow but steady. What I would not like to see is a gap-n-crap in a wild opex kind of way….but, then again, it is opex week.
AA will kickoff earnings season on Monday after the close, and then we got some biggies the rest of the week: INTC GOOG JPM GE BAC C. Earnings for the 2nd quarter should be good, but it will be the guidance for the 3rd quarter and 2nd half that will control the market direction.
Futures this evening have been quiet with no volume….Asia still waking up….have to wait for Europe to kick it in the ass.
Only 3.6 billion shares changed hands on the NYSE tape on Friday….not much. This is definitely a contributing factor: Small Investors Flee Stocks, Changing Market Dynamics.
Guess I should rest up for the morning. 
Earnings season had its opening pitch today from AA…and boy did it suck. Not really that bad, but the hype and anticipation had traders looking for more….and they’ve just got to be disappointed in the morning. Tuesday will bring more reports to light including CSX and INTC among others.
Monday continues its pattern of being a green day… it’s been an up day 28 of last 32 Mondays!
The S&P 500 has risen on Monday 80 percent the time during the past six months, compared with 52 percent for Friday, Bespoke said. It averaged gains of 0.17 percent and 0.05 percent on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, and a loss of 0.04 percent on Thursday.
Read the whole story at Bloomberg.
And speaking of patterns, VIX now below the 2008 intraday low, which was the start of a 15% correction. The last time it closed this low was July 2007 which was the top before a 9% correction to the S&P. Just a little nudge for you to be careful out there. Here’s more info on the VIX from TraderFeed and the Daily Options Report.
I misspoke in my Saturday entry when I stated I was long/short at 35/65%. It is true but it looked like I was 100% invested. I should have pointed out I was 55% in cash. So a truer picture would have been a cash/long/short positions of 55/15/30%.
Either way I’ve been waiting for even a slight correction to cash the shorts, but now I’m thinking it may be a bit more than slight. Will AA earnings start the ball rolling down? Maybe INTC gives it another nudge down? I’m thinking even good reports, unless they’re blowout great, markets will sell the news. Wait and see.
Futures this evening are heading down, as are Asian markets. You can check the futures market here. So for now I’m content to have cash as my largest position. It would be good to have some resolution with a big volume move…in either direction. Volume continues to make new record lows. Sure would be nice to have more traders around. 
P.S. I haven’t been updating the old blog over the weekend, mainly because this cold keeps me drowsy and lazy. So make sure this URL: http://wtftrading.com is your main link! And update your RSS feeds.
| INDU | 0.00 | |||||||
| NASDAQ | 2905.66 | |||||||
| S&P 500 | 1344.90 | |||||||
| ^RUT | 831.11 | |||||||
| QID | 36.382 | |||||||
| QQQ | 62.05 | |||||||
| QLD | 100.36 | |||||||
| TZA | 18.3401 | |||||||
| SSO | 53.15 | |||||||
| SDS | 16.758 | |||||||
| BGZ | 23.5037 | |||||||
| BGU | 75.50 | |||||||
Sometimes, entranced by the screens, watching equities, options and futures change colors, charts moving in a wave, and indicators pointing in every direction, I just have to scream....
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