Tag Archive for 'Nasdaq'

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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.

3..2..1..

Published on April 4, 2011, 8:38 am in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Is it time for takeoff? News, good or bad, the markets go up. Bullish sentiment is running high. Energy and food prices are moving up. Runaway inflation is pending….so….buy, buy, buy?

I am net long, with a few short hedges, but still not confident enough to go all-in…..50% cash, 35% long and 15% short.

According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, April is the best month for the Dow, 3rd best for the S&P and 4th best for the Nasdaq. That’s a lot of ammo for the bulls.

I would like to see a pullback before launching just to get out of shorts and load up on a few more longs. But, as we know, the market rarely does what you want it to do. Good luck and happy trading!

“It’s not being wrong that kills you, it’s staying wrong that kills you.”

Crazy!

Published on February 9, 2011, 9:59 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

So we had a negative A/D line, a negative A/D volume, negative S&P, RUT and Nasdaq, all with a positive Dow. Is that a divergence or what? Irrational exhuberance…big time! If you’re a candlestick watcher…Hanging Man galore!

CSCO and ATVI should help bring the indexes down on Thursday, at least the Nasdaq for sure. Other bad reactions include AKAM, ALL, AMKR, TQNT, TEX. Remember, it’s not the reports or the news that matter….it’s the reaction.

But, there’s always a but, futures at the moment are up, even though Asian markets are down. Crazy?

“You’re already starting to see some unrest in some countries as prices go higher. It’s going to cause a lot more social unrest as prices go higher around the world.

You will see some governments topple. Is it the end of the world? I don’t think so. It wasn’t in the 70s. But there will be more political instability everywhere.” – Jim Rogers

Another mixed up crazy day

Published on January 6, 2011, 9:39 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Except for my shorts on Nasdaq-related issues like QID and QQQQ puts, it was a good day to be short! And the big big winners were the rare-earth related shorts in REE and MCP. I was so giddy, I even wanted to sell my 1970 Rare Earth album…. I Just Want to Celebrate.

Retail sales reports were not as good as expected and started the move down. Then Jobless Claims popped a bit helping to increase the downward pressure. But the techs were not following, keeping the Qs and Nasdaq futures in the green. Just another mixed up crazy day.

Friday we have Non-farm Payroll reports. And the talk all day is that it may be a blowout good number, maybe even 500K jobs in the private sector! With any news, it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. it’s a matter of how the market reacts to it that counts. And that’s what worries me…the market being disappointed, even on relatively good numbers. Be afraid, be very afraid! 8O

Rollover

Published on December 8, 2010, 9:33 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I wish I was writing to say that the market was rolling over. But, not yet. If you are an index futures trader, you know exactly what I mean….the index futures December contracts will rollover on Thursday. That is, the March 2011 contract becomes the front month. So if you are trading ES, YM, TF and/or NQ, it’s time to change to the ‘H11′ contract.

Back to today…did you see those banks/financials takeoff? Wow! Explosive type move. But even with the financials taking off, the markets themselves were pretty tame. The last half hour of trading were strong and it looks like the futures have continued that move well into this evening….YM up +40 and ES up +5. Of course we still have 12 hours before the U.S. cash open.

My net short position is gasping for air and Thursday may be the day to get out…Friday at the latest. Weekly jobless claims tomorrow, China inflation info Thursday night, and consumer sentiment on Friday. Not a whole bunch of economic data but enough to rile markets. And Options expiration next week is upon us again!

Laid Low…

Published on November 2, 2010, 11:03 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

I laid low today, as did many traders, all waiting for election returns and the FOMC announcement on rates and QE2. We may see some reactions during the night in futures on elections, but before we hear from the Feds, we’ll see some employment reports from Challenger and ADP on Wednesday morning.

Volume was low…again, but the S&P did sneak out of that 8-day channel of dojis we’ve been sleeping in. Nasdaq working on a breakout also. Futures calm this evening, but a followthrough day would be nice. Monday was calm, Tuesday was calm, but I don’t think this can go on much longer. I’m looking for some crazy time to finish out the week. Remember, after Monday and Tuesday even the calendar says W T F !

I’ll leave you with some profound words…

Politicians, like diapers, should be changed often……and for the same reason!

Time for ghosts and goblins

Published on October 24, 2010, 4:45 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

An ugly, messy market on Friday with low volume! And it even continued after the cash close as the dollar had a flash crash losing $3 in seconds and recovering just as fast. Several trades were cancelled. Flash Crash of the Day: Dollar Index.

Gold had its first down week in six and the U.S. dollar had its best week in the same timeframe. So which came first, the chicken or the egg? The Dow and S&P are flirting with their 200 week moving averages. And although the Russell and Nazdaq had a decent Friday, the weekly shows them both in a doji. The coming week will tell us how this resolves, but they all are looking toppy to me.

We’ve got a jam-packed week of news coming up with Home Sales, Consumer Confidence and Sentiment, Durable Goods Orders, Chicago PMI and GDP….oh yeah, and the usual Jobless CLaims. The G20 meeting will probably be a non-event.

From the Stock Trader’s Almanac: “Late October is time to buy depressed stocks, especially Tech and small caps.” On the other hand, the last 3 months have not acted at all like their seasonality would predict. Oh well.

Thanks for reading and good luck this week! Happy trading.

Nothing decided…

Published on October 6, 2010, 11:11 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

The Dow was stronger than the other indexes, but still it didn’t really confirm yesterday’s big move. The S&P just sat around breakeven closing barely red, and the Naz was the biggest loser….nothing decided.

Employment related reports were not very rosy and oil bulls loved the inventory numbers, mixing up the marketplace. More employment numbers tomorrow and Friday.

I’m designing my new trading PC. I’m going to document it for the blog over the next week or so. Hope it helps. 8)

What’s next?

Published on September 26, 2010, 10:14 pm in Opinions, reading and Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Monday is the last day for mutual funds to buy any winning positions they want on the books for the end of the 3rd quarter. I’m thinking volume should increase? The thought is that a lot of hedge funds have missed this move and they really can’t sit back and watch a rally without some stocks in their portfolios and they don’t want to show a lot of cash on their quarterly report.

If you’re a user of Worden’s Telechart, you may have read this Friday night. It was memorable to me, so I thought I would repeat it:

One thing I personally find almost amazing. The Nasdaq-100 is growing close to the Q2 quarter highs. This Index, as I’m sure you recall, has led all the way up from the August upside breakout. Should this index conquer the Q2 closing high, I believe I’ll have no choice but to call a promotion to a “Primary Uptrend.”

Here’s some more interesting stuff: Who Let the Bulls Back In?

Friday was a big day…will Monday be a big follow-through day? Thursday will be the heaviest economic data day with GDP, Chicago PMI, and Jobless Claims. Let’s see if September goes out with a bang! Friday will be the start of October and the 4th quarter.

Well, which is it?

Published on September 21, 2010, 8:03 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

One day after an official announcement from the NBER, that the recession ended last year, the FOMC says they are willing and able to do more quantitative easing to help us get out of the recession. So which is it?…are we in or are we out?

I tried trading TF, the Russell futures contract today to no avail…twice at bat and twice I struck out. I think greed got the better of me. My first trade was about a half hour before the FOMC came out. I went long with a tight 9 tick stop. I had made it up to a +5 ticks, but watched it go down to get stopped out.

Once stopped, I then watched TF take off after the announcement without me. I could have made +80 ticks easy if not more. I was still stinging from the stop out and took no action.

The second play was about a 15 minutes later after a small pullback….another long position with a 21 tick stop. This time I watched it go up +16 ticks, didn’t take profits, and watched it retreat before I stopped out. I may have timed it all wrong, but reviewing my trades I would have to blame it on greed…probably the worst emotion to deal with other than fear. Gotta get control of that stuff.

This evening the Q’s are hurting after ADBE came out with some ugly guidance…ADBE is down 16% after hours. Nasdaq was leading the rally, will it lead the pullback?

Oh well! Tomorrow’s another day. Happy trading.