Tag Archive for 'GS'

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News Galore!

Published on July 15, 2010, 9:25 pm in reading and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

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. :P

One Day Wonder

Published on April 29, 2010, 10:00 pm in Opinions, Tools and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

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. :mrgreen:

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.

The word of the day – “shitty”

Published on April 27, 2010, 9:46 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

The question was, “What are CDOs?” And Sen. Levin continued to use that word all afternoon talking about CDOs or the GS sales force or describing Goldman’s deals! As it turns out, Mr. ”Shitty” Levin doesn’t know a thing about what he’s asking! And here’s the best joke I saw today… from Lloyd_Blankfein: “The joke’s on Levin. I had my boys put the Senator Pension Plan in Portuguese bonds this morning.” heeheehee! :mrgreen:

Here’s how the market reacted to the GS grilling: Financials (-3.4%), Materials (-3.2%), Consumer Discretionary (-2.9%), Energy (-2.8%). Of course there was more to that than just GS…we had the downgrading of Greece and Portugal debt. I’m sure that was worth a few points.

Personally, I had one of the best days of the year. The short positions via TZA, QQQQ puts and TWM calls were all golden, but I spent most of the day playing the S&P emini to the short side. The best position would have been just to short in the morning and cover in the afternoon, but I was in and out 4 different transactions….but all to the good.

Tomorrow is Fed Day with the rate announcement coming at about 2PM EDT. Before that we have today’s continuation…maybe a gap down with a bounce? A lot will depend on if we have any more downgrades like Greece and Portugal today. Play ‘em like they’re dealt!

My takeway after watching hours of Senate grilling of GS on TV: Throw away all email servers!

Never write when you can speak, never speak when you can nod, never nod when you can wink.

Still crazy after all these days

Published on April 22, 2010, 8:28 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

What a day…a great morning for bears and a great afternoon for bulls, as the markets recover from a triple-digit loss. What the $%@&*? And although price led the way up, market internals did not look so good. The high-beta stocks in the Nasdaq and the Russell reached new highs, but the blue chips in the Dow and the S&P did not! The NYSE closed in the red. Major indexes are trying hard but cannot break to new highs.

Earnings are a story also….There are a few exceptions, but, it looks like companies are still making profits from cost-cutting and not from higher sales. So unless jobs come around, where will topline growth come from? And just because some Euro boss said that Spain and Portugal would not be like Greece, traders drank the Kool-aid!

MSFT and AMZN sucked after the close. Futures started to go down right after the cash close. Not that any of the reports have been bad, it’s just because they haven’t been as great as the run-up in price.

Not too many reports tomorrow and eco-news is light also. So…maybe the bears can accomplish what they need to do, bring down this market. Here’s some interesting reading in the GS bullshit….

That’s exactly the problem I have with SEC’s case. When you buy a call option, do you scream foul when you discover the guy who sells you the call is bearish on the stock? If Goldman clearly disclosed what was in the Abacus portfolio, why does it matter who selects them?

Goldman Is Tarnished, but Don’t Write It Off. You may need to sign up for a preview to read the entire article, but a subscription to Barron’s is not a bad thing.

Unbelievable….really

Published on April 19, 2010, 9:03 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

If you told me this morning that the Dow was going to end up 70+ points, I would have called you an ass. Turns out it was me…I mean the ass part. Unbelievable that the Dow made a 120 point u-turn! The S&P had a similar strange day. GS made a crazy u-turn also. The Russell had some semblance of sanity closing in the red.

The big trading volume was still on the downside, as was the advance/decline line and the A/D volume. The new 52-week highs today was way low for all indexes, turning both the 5-day and 10-day moving averages downward. So we had the lowest number of new highs and the highest number of new lows. Click on the chart to see it bigger.

I took profits from TZA and also the SPY puts I was still carrying. I’m still holding some TZA because I was expecting some more downside follow-thru! Again, the move up was uncalled for. 8O

This week and next are the busiest earnings reporting weeks and this week has a lot of biggies, IBM today, AAPL and GS tomorrow. IBM had a good report but sold off afterwards. As I had mentioned before, I think the good reports are priced in so either good or bad they selloff. Here’s more good news: U.S. Bankruptcies Spike 35% in One Month

The details are an even clearer warning sign that both the “bottom” in the U.S. housing market, and the “job growth” reported by the Bureau of Labor Propaganda are nothing but the “smoke and mirrors” of private sector shills, and/or government propagandists – dutifully reported by the mainstream media-parrots.

Gives you the warm and fuzzies, don’t it?

Time for a bounce?

Published on April 18, 2010, 9:09 pm in Opinions. Closed Tags: , , .

Futures continue their downside move this evening. This is the first chance for the Asian markets to react to Friday’s GS spectacle. But the rest of the news isn’t that great….

The carnage of seizing banks continue….51 already this year. Regulators seize eight banks We’re on pace for twice as many closures as last year!

The SEC’s Fraud Case Against Goldman Seems VERY Weak

The SEC’s case against Goldman seems weak. The case against Tourre seems somewhat stronger, but it’s not no slam dunk.
Overall, based on a close reading of the evidence, the case against Goldman seems much less clear cut than the press and SEC are making it out to be.

Traders see room for a pause in stock market climb

Goldman Sachs May Face U.K., German Probes After Suit

I told you so :-)

Published on April 16, 2010, 8:47 pm in Trading. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

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!