Tag Archive for 'GS'

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

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AAPL-tini

Published on July 19, 2011, 11:08 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Appletinis all around! Woot, woot! Smash that glass against the markets…what a killer report AAPL came out with afterhours on Tuesday. Will today’s climb continue on Wednesday?

The markets ignored lousy reports from GS and BAC. The bulls wanted to run and nothing was going to stop them. They were fueled not only from IBM’s good report last night, but also very encouraging housing data this morning. And there’s more Home Sales news on Wednesday morning. Gold did sneak back under 1600…maybe a little farther down? And don’t forget silver.

Thinking it’s time for some slow grinding up…or maybe some down…or maybe just some consolidation. We are getting into the “meat” of the summer season. Got to get those vacations done before the kids have to get back to school. Everyday an adventure. That’s why we trade!

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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

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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

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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!

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Here we go again

Published on March 27, 2011, 9:46 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Two weeks ago we were talking how low can we go, but this week we’re back to… can we go higher? After breaking down through key support levels, namely the 50 day moving averages, the indexes are back above and looking for more.

S&P 500 Mar 25
Of course we’ve had a pretty strong 8 day bounce and we may take a breather. We are closing out the frist quarter of the year and starting the second quarter and a new month. Friday we have another BLS report for employment which will tell us which way the markets will go. Oh, and the earnings season is about to start all over again.

And another thing… Have you seen this CNBC “Heat Map” that they keep touting. I just don’t understand. It is red or green, and sometimes black for unchanged. It’s not what I thought a heat map should be. I always think it should be some sort of gradation….like on FinViz.

I’ll close with a joke…about getting a job at GS:

Young Chuck moved to Texas and bought a Donkey from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the Donkey the next day.

The next day he drove up and said, ‘Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.’

Chuck replied, ‘Well, then just give me my money back.’

The farmer said, ‘Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.’

Chuck said, ‘Ok, then, just bring me the dead donkey.’

The farmer asked, ‘What ya gonna do with him?

Chuck said, ‘I’m going to raffle him off.’

The farmer said ‘You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!’

Chuck said, ‘Sure I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.’

A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, ‘What happened with that dead donkey?’

Chuck said, ‘I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $998.’

The farmer said, ‘Didn’t anyone complain?’

Chuck said, ‘Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.’

Chuck now works for Goldman Sachs.

Good luck and happy trading!

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It’s nice to be short

Published on January 19, 2011, 9:02 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

…Short stocks that is :-) Moneymakers today were puts…in JPM SPY and SDS. Money losers were calls in V and TBT…but the shorts won dollar-wise.

Still playing with TWX and their internet connectivity! Yes it sucks, but I was online more than offline. I did see that GS and AXP did not have good news this morning…and the kick to the downside was on. And that was really good for my JPM puts…thank you.

Jobless claims tomorrow, along with Existing home sales and Leading indicators, will either continue the downtrend or turn it around.

Oh boy…this is getting fun!

I like my new telephone, my computer works just fine, my calculator is perfect, but Lord, I miss my mind! –Author Unknown

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Japanese-style market crash?

Published on July 29, 2010, 8:54 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Futures were up overnight and then Initial Claims came out not so bad, so the market was going to have a decent day. Then, St. Louis Fed Prez said we were close to jap-style deflation and the markets broke down! It was a wild ride. It looks like there is a bull snorting in one corner and a bear growling in the other….there’s a fight going on…and no apparent winner…yet.

All the indexes closed barely in the red. But we went up then way down and then fought back to breakeven. The Industrials and Russell are still above their 200ma and the S&P is still below….not much change this week….but it sure hasn’t felt that way!

I was lucky enough to have time to get out of some, but not all, longs at the market open. I tried to hedge with ES but got chopped to bits every time. I finally just quit trying, and by the end of the day, all the positions I had remaining returned to where they started.

On Friday we have lots of numbers coming out: GDP Price Index, Employment Cost Index, Chicago Purchasing Managers Index and University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment. Now, this afternoon I would have thought traders would have stayed away, but volume increased in the afternoon and GS really took off. Do you think GS knows something about those numbers? 8)

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Nice…Turnaround Tuesday

Published on July 20, 2010, 10:36 pm in Opinions, Tools and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

So wasn’t there some news this morning about bad earnings from GS? And weren’t C BAC GE still bad? Isn’t everyone worried about the bank stress test in Europe? So why are all the traders happy today?

Funny that the US dollar did not matter, or at least there is not that strong correlation between the US$ and the markets. Oil still seems to be correlated, as oil went up so did the indexes.

Lots and lots of earnings on Wednesday…and even more on Thursday! I’m interested in MS WFC KO QCOM and NFLX. That should give me an idea of how the world is doing. 8) And if the markets can’t rally on this evening’s AAPL report, then we’re in real trouble!

I apologize for some short blog entries, but I’m having technical difficulties with my hardware this week. I have tracked the problem(s) down, but new parts will take 7-10 days. In the mean time I’ve fired up a backup PC and getting it ready for trading tomorrow.

See you on the playing field.

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Let’s get ready to rumble

Published on July 18, 2010, 11:11 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

C joined BAC and JPM with higher than expected earnings and improved credit trends. But they and all financials puked on Friday. You have to wonder… If you’re making more money on less revenue, isn’t that a good thing? Would you rather see increased revenues with lower earnings?

This earnings season expectations are that all earnings will be good, and so far so good. It’s all about what you say in your conference call. BAC laid out a scenario that doesn’t sit well for any financial institution. They are saying that FinReg will curb debit-card fees and that will reduce revenues and increase costs. In BAC’s case, they say they may have to take a charge of up to $10 Billion dollars. That’s gonna hurt not only BAC, but all banks and financials, like MA and V. Boy did that show on Friday!

So now July OpEx Friday is down 7 of last 10. That sucks…and I’m reading in the Stock Trader’s Almanac, that in the week after July OpEx, the Dow has been down 7 of the last 11 years. That’s ominous.

This week will be one of the biggies with hundreds of earnings reports, including GS and AAPL, 11 of the Dow Industrials, and about every airline! Ben Bernanke speaks on the Hill, but otherwise a fairly data-quiet week.

And one more for the intereting reading pile: Short side of commodity market becomes crowded.

See you in the market :!:

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