Trading thoughts, ideas, tips, musings, and pontifications. . .not necessarily in that order.
Up and down a lot on decent volume…then closing mixed with most indexes red and the Nasdaq green.
Chinese CPI and PPI reported this evening looked a bit better than expected, giving futures a pop. Retail Sales and Consumer Sentiment reports may rule the day on Friday.
No! It’s all about the Eurozone. No one cares how good it may be in the good ole USA. GOOG blew away their estimates! VIX continues its move down. Time for a drink…plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is! 
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
The premarket was looking pretty good…futures up overnight and JPM had a good report. But, historically JPM gaps up on earnings and sells off during the day. And although there was an initial gap up, all the banks/financials turned tail and moved down quickly, stinking up my positions. I’m still hanging in, but not as confident as I was yesterday. Still looking for BAC to beat on Friday.
Jobless Claims and PPI on Thursday before the bell…and then GOOG after the bell. Hope tomorrow is a better day.
“Remember, hope rhymes with dope.”
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 
All the action today was after the market closed when GOOG came out with a blowout earnings report. GOOG popped $50 and brought up all the index futures and the Q’s. So, how will the market react overnight and tomorrow, options expiration Friday?
After the indexes dumped most of the day, it was another bull stampede in the last hour…maybe in anticipation of those GOOG earnings. Just 2 stocks, C and BAC, comprised almost a quarter of the total market volume….which was back up to average, or as it is now known as a big volume day! 
Expect a few shennanigans on opex. Futures at this time of the evening are alreadya bit under the weather…but we still have 12 hours before the US markets open. Speaking of US, maybe someone will decide to support the US dollar. Boy, is it ever stuck in the mud…but low dollar means high stocks and gold and oil and just about everything. So don’t be surprised when all those foreign imports start costing more.
I’ll leave on a light note from David Letterman:
“Bo, the White House dog, turns 2 years old today. Do you know the difference between Bo and the economy? Obama has fixed the dog.”
Heehee!
First it was all the pre-market news like Initial Claims, PPI, Empire Index and Philly Fed numbers. Although the numbers weren’t all that bad, actually the IC numbers were pretty good, traders didn’t like them and we went down…and pretty dramatically after the Philly Fed announcement. Oh yeah, and AAPL scheduled a meeting for Friday morning. We meandered down under for the rest of the day.
But (there’s always a but) first rumors then news came out after 3PM that had the markets giddy with happiness. Maybe BP has finally capped the well! BP took off. Then GS might be announcing a settlement with the SEC. GS took off. Then, kaboom, the markets took off, some ending green…others red. Pretty much breakeven for the day, again. Although that was a nice recovery for the indexes.
Then afterhours, GOOG comes out with a crappy earnings report. GOOG quickly dove more than $20 dollars. But (what did I tell you?) it had no affect on the QQQQs or Nasdaq futures or S&P futures. Maybe GOOG is no longer an 800-lb. gorilla? Even AAPL went green afterhours.
Oh yeah, and Congress passed FinReg….ho hum.
Tomorrow brings some very anticipated earnings: GE BAC and C and they might just set the tone for Friday’s trading, well at least until 9:55AM when Michigan Sentiment numbers come out.
You know I’ve been bullish on oil for a couple weeks now, and news like this can really perk it up in short order: An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table. Now, just clean up the mess and maybe we can get back to normal. 
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. 
It looks like the bears only have enough energy for one day. Every once in a while, like yesterday, the bears come up with enough energy to drive the market down. But they soon exhaust themselves and give the field back to the bulls, like today. I think it just may be a dance in this whole topping process, or part of the correction process, but these swings can make sausage out of your portfolio….so you better find a bun to put it into.
I tried to have another great ES trading day, but I traded 2 out of 3 losers…and my one winner could not make up for my 2 losers. I did clear out some of my short positions, but the way the indexes closed up strong, was to me a signal that it may be time to short again.
After hours today had some interesting mews. A Federal criminal probe opens into Goldman Sachs and staff over possible securities fraud in mortgage trading. That will not sit very well with the gang down on Wall Street. SEC sends Goldman case to prosecutors. Remember what happened two weeks ago when GS had some bad news? Uh oh.
Some strange happenings today…did you notice how the goveernment jobless claims every week raises the previous weeks numbers so that this weeks numbers look like they dropped a whole lot more than it should? Are we really that dumb? Did you notice that this is about the 10th time that Greece has had a report that it is being bailed out? And that the other Euro loser countries will need to help out…like Portugal, Spain and Italy? Did you notice how GOOG has been having a tough time lately? Did you notice the VIX is back to its lacksidasical self? Did you notice that these up moves continue to go up on lousy volume?
Ok, here’s a postscript: I’ve been working on explaining how I use different indicators and tools. It’s a work in progress, but I would appreciate any notes or comments you may have. Check out How?, or Moving Averages or Stochastics….and keep checking. Thanks.
Well, the 52-week high chart didn’t help me at all today…but that doesn’t mean it is not giving me a signal. 52-week highs were more than yesterday but still well behind what they were doing last week.
YHOO missed earnings this evening, but AAPL blew them out…and I mean big time! Can it follow-thru tomorrow though? Lots more earnings to come this week, but AAPL was the biggie….at least since GOOG came out last Thursday.
Futures are pretty happy this evening. But how high can we go? We’re breaking records left and right on consecutive up day, low VIX, volume, and just about everything. What I’m worried about now is: are we past time for a correction and are we looking for a crash?
We’ve been looking for an excuse to correct this market and today we found one. If the market indicators weren’t on sell signals already, maybe the market wouldn’t have reacted to GS so badly. It’s not just banks that went down today. Either way, I suspect no more campaign contributions for this administration from GS. I’m also gonna venture that GS bought its own April puts ahead of the news and will report a stellar quarter next week. GS volume was 7 times above its average trading.
Other good news today: Unemployment rises in 24 states in March according to the Labor Dept. All the big earnings report companies sucked, but not as bad as GS’s surprise: GOOG BAC GE ISRG were all down big.
For the week the Dow ends up .19%, the S&P down .18%, NYSE down .57%, the Russell up 1.7% and Nasdaq Composite up 1.1%. So the high beta stocks are still doing okay, but the blue chips suffered. I expect next week to be down for the small caps.
Should Small Investors Jump Into Stocks?
And oh yes, the SPY puts, VIX calls and TZA did their jobs today!
| 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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