Tag Archive for 'C'

Up day?

Published on September 6, 2011, 10:11 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Sure, the indexes closed in the red…but it actually was a pretty strong up day. After making new lows at the open, the indexes kept creeping up…cutting its morning losses by two-thirds! The world was coming to an end last night, but finished today feeling good about itself.

Banks/Financials continued their sell-off…and energy and transportations joined in. The day could have been a whole lot uglier than it was.

And futures are looking frisky this evening. Is it time for this bottomming process to finally complete? Let’s go for a run up!

Share

Crash continues

Published on August 10, 2011, 10:57 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

As has happened the last three times the markets have had a green day, the following day was a big downer…no follow through. Volume was a “meager” 4.8 million, a let down after 3 days of over 6 million contracts traded. TRIN though was at an extreme 5.13 … looking for a bounce on Thursday or we’re in real trouble.

Because of SocGen’s problems and the Eurozone going down the tubes, the entire financial sector was crap. Stocks, and associated call options, such as C BAC MS GS, all withered in the bear stampede.

VIX is still elevated and I’m sitting on my hands just watching 987 tick charts and playing in my demo accounts. Sure, the pressure is off and I do great, but playing the charts and watching what happens is good practice….and you don’t lose money!

“By the way, the ratings agency is Standard & Poor’s. Who’s going to listen to a company whose name translates to Average & Below Average?” — Jon Stewart

Share

Fourpeat

Published on June 6, 2011, 9:59 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , .

Four days in a row and 5 weeks in a row, the markets have gone down. Are we correcting or is the bear back…or is that continuing? Indexes closed near their lows, so more downside may be coming. Turnaround Tuesday anyone?

“John Paulson, in a letter to clients, is calling for a SPY rally from here, possibly 40% !” Yeah, but what do hedgies know! :-) On the other hand, Paulson’s Flagship Fund Down 4% in May.

Financials sucked royally, so nothing else was going to play nice today. C was a leader down. This may have something to do with it: Citi’s Reverse Split One Month Later. This also helped them all go down: From Dodd-Frank to Dud: How Financial Reform May Be Going Wrong.

We can only play this day by day, but 1250 is in the sights. Bounce or straight down, be careful out there!

Share

2 years of Greek tennis

Published on June 2, 2011, 9:35 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

I’m real tired of hearing about all of Greece’s debt problems…fixed, not fixed, restructured…rumors, news and reactions. Today was like a tennis game…back and forth…up and down. All the indexes hung around breakeven…red, green, up and down. Does the U.S. stock market really depend on the Greece economy? What ever happened to Portugal? PIGS.

My remaining TBT positions, Jan 33 calls, were very happy today, after several different positions got stopped out yesterday. Financials also were up today, although, like the indexes went up and down all day long.

Non-farm Payroll report on Friday will confirm or deny ADP’s Wednesday report….which started the ball rolling down. Either way, expect a knee-jerk in both directions before deciding on which way the markets want to end the week.

Share

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.

Share

Slippery Slope?

Published on April 19, 2011, 8:23 am in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Ok, we’ve known about our debt problems for a long time. Today sure seemed like an overreaction and this Debt Market Reaction Raises Some Questions??

The panic sure brought up the volume, especially for a Monday and a holiday week! I picked up some USO puts and F calls to hold for a couple days. My bank/financial plays may be helped out by a great GS report this morning.

“Obama called on Americans to have more grandchildren. Probably so there’s more of them to pay off our debt.” — Jay Leno

Share

GO GOOG

Published on April 17, 2011, 10:01 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Well, earnings weren’t stellar for the first week, especially for GOOG….it got clipped for almost 10% on Friday! BAC stunk a bit also, stinking up the entire financial sector. We’ll see this week if there is any saving grace from C or WFC or GS. Besides a big financial reporting week, we’ll also hear from GE and F on Thursday, among a lot of other companies on Thursday, a really big reporting day.

Don’t forget this will be a holiday shortened week with the markets closed on Friday. Expect lighter than average volume, which may mean the markets move up!

Coming Next Week: More Earnings, Housing Data

Share

GS has spoken…so be it

Published on April 12, 2011, 10:37 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

GS said oil would go down, and down it went! Amen…and so be it.

Yesterday I complained about maybe selling USO puts too early, but UAL calls made up for it today…kaching. On the other hand, TBT calls weren’t so hot today. I’m still heavy into the bank/financials sector with many of them reporting over the next 2 weeks…JPM tomorrow and BAC on Friday. The rest of the boys will check in next week, looking closely at C GS MS WFC. But rather than buying each of them, I’ve got XLF and FAS, although I do have C and MS.

Volume sure moved up on today’s down move. Only the downs days have high volume. This was also the first time the markets were down 4 days in a row since last year! The Dow and S&P found some support while the RUT looks the ugliest in its leadership down. Wonder if oil has found support and if silver will ever go down.

Have a great evening!

Share

Interest rates anyone?

Published on April 6, 2011, 10:23 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Although volume is still low, it was the highest volume of the week. And crude and gold and silver are still manic bulls! And although we had a gap open to the positive side this morning, we quickly started to meander and flirt with red and green and back to red and back to green. Volatility remained low, confirmed by a narrow-range VIX.

I had a great day taking profits in F ZION and TBT. I’m all out of F and ZION, but still have several options in TBT. Banks/financials finally had their day today and am still holding C XLF and HCBK. My long hedges are SPY puts and a few SDS calls. It was a good day for the ol’ portfolio.

With the ECB announcing their rate hike Thursday morning (about 7:45AM EST), I’ll be watching TBT closely to make sure it does not become a “sell the news” event. If the UK also announces a rate hike, it could turn into a great day for TBT. Either way, interest rates and inflation will be moving up eventually! I’ve also got DZZ and ZSL on my watchlist…those ETFs are gold short and silver short….gotta come down soon, don’t you think?

“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

Share

Nice rally off the lows

Published on March 23, 2011, 10:35 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

The bears came running out of the gate looking to do some damage. New Home Sales gave them fodder. I panicked and sold my QQQ calls when they dove down. But, if I hadn’t panicked I would have had a much larger profit…I walked away able to cover commissions and a cup of coffee. :-(

By the afternoon the indexes had all turned green and kept pushing for new daily highs for the rest of the day. They backed off a bit at the close, but ended completely different then they started. Low volume was the only consistency.

Jobless claims on Thursday may give some fodder to the bears…or maybe the bulls. If we have a continuation day up with higher volume, we may be on our way to another bull run. I’m still treading lightly with 70% cash and 30% long in C F TBT and XLF.

Happy Trading :!:

Share