Tag Archive for 'AAPL'

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Don’t short a dull market

Published on April 19, 2011, 9:24 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

And it was a dull market. It looked good in the premarket with GS’s good report. And GS took off, but it, along with most of the bank/financials turned around and went down. For much of the day the market hung around unchanged, but in the afternoon began a steady climb up and closed near the high of the day.

I got out of the USO puts first thing in the morning, but re-entered and re-exited twice during the day. F didn’t do much but C was strong. AAPL also was strong and popped afterhours. Don’t forget they report on Wednesday.

After hours we had some strong earnings reports from IBM INTC YHOO JNPR which bodes well for the markets tomorrow. Seasonally it’s looking good also. According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, The Nasdaq is up 14 of 16 the day before Good Friday and up 10 straight since 2001. Should be an interesting couple of days.

Same old sh!t, different day

Published on March 2, 2011, 9:02 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , .

I thought yesterday was choppy….today was a sausage maker. Up, down, up, down, and ending breakeven. It was all about oil, just as it has been the past week. Same old shit, different day! :evil:

A notable pop during the day came from seeing Steve Jobs walk on stage at the iPad show. AAPL moved up fast and dragged the rest of the market with it. After the joy wore off, oil moved up and sent the market back down.

The jobs reports had a positive affect in the pre-market but were forgotten as the cash open drew near. Jobless Claims tomorrow and the biggie on Friday. Maybe we’ll move off oil and get back to jobs, jobs, jobs…..not like today, which was about Jobs, Steve! ;)

Up. up and away!

Published on February 16, 2011, 9:45 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Did the markets move up with all the good news today? Let’s see…inflation in the U.S. with the PPI report today. Will it leak into the CPI? We’ll see on Thursday. Or how about all those Middle East protests? Or maybe Ivory Coast rush to withdraw bank cash? A good old-fashioned bank run….all good news to take markets higher! Yep, that’ll do it. 8O

So tomorrow the market will really run with the Steve Jobs health rumors….AAPL took a dump afterhours. Or maybe the CPI will show inflation? Don’t forget we get Jobless Claims also. And many of the Fed governors are speaking on Thursday.

I’m a little less short now since several of my SPY put options and SDS call options got stopped out. Still have some, but not as many.

And let’s not forget it’s Options Expiration Week! According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, February Expiration Day, Dow Down 7 of last 11. But this OpEx is also the Day before President’s Day Weekend, which finds the S&P down 16 of last 19. We live in interesting times!

WTF was that?

Published on February 10, 2011, 9:36 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

We had a great bear start to the day with the markets heading down fast from the get-go. But, the HoseMe Mubarack announcement reversed the sentiment. As it turns out, by the end of the day, all HoseMe said was, “Fuck you Egypt!” I await to see what happens, but I don’t think it will be good.

Opposition Leader Mohammed ElBaradei on Twitter:

‘Egypt will explode. Army must save the country now’

Many stocks actually made new all time highs today….BIDU was one. E-mini futures were pretty wild today going up and down…volatility was great for trading in both directions. AAPL went crazy on rumors.

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” -– William O’Neil

What’s coming

Published on January 17, 2011, 8:49 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: .

After a lacksidaisical start, the markets shook off China rate hikes and poor consumer sentiment and started grinding up the entire day on Friday….closing near the highs, new ones at that.

Futures moved down Sunday night/Monday morning and then AAPL came out with Jobs health problems…maybe enough news to get some downward movement? As goes AAPL, so goes the market?

Remember it’s OpEx week also!

Buy the rumor, sell the news

Published on October 19, 2010, 11:10 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

It’s not just a catchy trader’s blurb….”Buy the rumor, sell the news” is a real thing. You see, if everyone buys in anticipation of good news, much like AAPL and IBM, there’s no one left to buy when the good news hits….as in yesterday’s earnings reports. So if no one is buying, they must be selling…and they did, not only in AAPL and IBM, but the indexes in general.

It was a big down day, but the markets closed well off their lows. Was this a fluke or do we need to stretch those downside legs? I’m still banking on more downside. I question though…how much more and how soon? A lot will depend on our US dollar…maybe catching a bid and showing some strength.

Still in QQQQ puts, VXX calls and QID. I also picked up some FXI puts, thinking that China may not like that rise in interest rates they got today….which by the way may also help our dollar.

Thanks for reading and good luck tomorrow!

Happy 23rd!

Published on October 18, 2010, 10:21 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Yes, it’s been 23 years ago that the market crashed….with the Dow down almost 23% in one day! I wasn’t trading back then, but I do remember listening to news breaks on the radio that was playing in the office. Of course I was working in northern New Jersey at the time and living among many Wall Street types, so the news may have hit harder there than on Main Street.

Traders with AAPL or IBM may have thought another crash was going on afterhours today when they reported earnings. AAPL took a $20 dive while IBM went down 5 bucks. This of course helped push my short market positions via QID and VXX back into the green. I’ll have to wait until the market opens to see how well the options are affected! They were all green when the market opened and for the first hour. But then it started to get messy and that slow grind up whittled away that profit feeling.

Futures are looking a bit down this evening…but they were also down yesterday evening. Volume sucked again on Monday…about 35% below average. So, do we get a turnaround Tuesday :?:

Let’s try that again

Published on October 17, 2010, 10:52 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

Well my October puts didn’t do so well by expiration day so I rolled them into November….QQQQ and VXX….and I’ve still got some FXI puts from way back. So I guess I wasn’t wrong, just early! :D

GOOG brought the Q’s up big on Friday…helped along with AMZN and AAPL. But besides these big caps, the smaller techs really didn’t do so good. And if the rest of the market isn’t so happy, we may be just experiencing a bit of that irrational exhuberence. Tomorrow’s reports from AAPL as well as IBM will give us a hint.

S&P futures are down this evening as the US dollar shows some strength….short futures so far so good and puts looking good too. Let’s see what morning brings.

Hump Day

Published on October 13, 2010, 9:32 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

The sun rose this morning … INTC did what it always does…drop after earnings. AAPL held on to 300 barely, and I added to my short positions via SDS QID and VXX … so it was a slow day. I also took profits on C calls and DRYS calls I’ve been holding for months.

So why did the markets go up today? INTC had a good report…but INTC didn’t go up. JPM had a good report…but JPM did not go up. I guess it must be AAPL…as goes AAPL so goes the market? I did see a report today that AAPL’s weighting is two-thirds of the QQQQ. The markets were cut in half from the highs today…so does that mean something? I’m not sure, but I am now net short and will continue to take profits in the longs that I have remaining…if they show themselves.

Now that AAPL hit 300 I guess all the people on CNBC will be pumping $400 for a while. Of course it looks like it went down to $298 after hours. Speaking of which, the US Dollar continues to tank and Index futures are moving up this evening. Gold continues its trek to $1400 and the grains are moving up also.

I’m starting to feel queasy about this market….irrational exhuberence comes to mind. If all these companies are doing so well, why is the economy still in the gutter? There’s a correction coming, I just don’t know if it’s sooner or later.

Roller coaster OpEx

Published on October 13, 2010, 8:15 am in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

We rolled down hard and then ground up click by click on Tuesday. Although I would have rather stayed down, but I had enough time to cash out on the shorts purchased on Monday. Then with that move up I reentered the same shorts at an even lower price.

Unfortunately, that deal is not working out this morning…yet! Futures are up big Wednesday morning, as good reports from INTC CSX and JPM injects some euphoria into the marketplace. INTC ‘s history shows that it likes to pop ‘n drop on its earnings…and JPM took money out of its reserves to make the beat. I still can’t get my head around this irrational exhuberence on QE2. Doesn’t printing more money just mean that the economy still sucks?

I’ll probably add onto my short positions as the market pops and look for a drop into options expiration Friday or the morning after. QID VXX SDS

Congratulations AAPL for breaking the $300 barrier this morning! :mrgreen: