Tag Archive for 'QQQQ'

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GOOG

Published on October 14, 2010, 10:03 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

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! :D

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!

Hump Day

Published on October 13, 2010, 9:32 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

The sun rose this morning … INTC did what it always does…drop after earnings. AAPL held on to 300 barely, and I added to my short positions via SDS QID and VXX … so it was a slow day. I also took profits on C calls and DRYS calls I’ve been holding for months.

So why did the markets go up today? INTC had a good report…but INTC didn’t go up. JPM had a good report…but JPM did not go up. I guess it must be AAPL…as goes AAPL so goes the market? I did see a report today that AAPL’s weighting is two-thirds of the QQQQ. The markets were cut in half from the highs today…so does that mean something? I’m not sure, but I am now net short and will continue to take profits in the longs that I have remaining…if they show themselves.

Now that AAPL hit 300 I guess all the people on CNBC will be pumping $400 for a while. Of course it looks like it went down to $298 after hours. Speaking of which, the US Dollar continues to tank and Index futures are moving up this evening. Gold continues its trek to $1400 and the grains are moving up also.

I’m starting to feel queasy about this market….irrational exhuberence comes to mind. If all these companies are doing so well, why is the economy still in the gutter? There’s a correction coming, I just don’t know if it’s sooner or later.

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.

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

Ouch, that did hurt!

Published on June 29, 2010, 10:59 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , .

Well, I said it would hurt! All my stock longs were crushed. The only redeeming action I took was hedge scalping with the ES. They were counter-trend plays scalping 3 to 5 ticks at a time. But all I came up with was a breakeven for the day. Success!

QQQQ now down 8 straight days. Only 3 times in QQQQ history has it been down 8 in a row, so we should see some relief. Circuits were tested — Circuit Breaker Kicks in, Stopping Trades of Citigroup and other financials weren’t any better: Financials take hit.

So the rest of the week will tell us if we have bottomed or just entering a new bear. It will come down to jobs, jobs, jobs. And remember, after Monday and Tuesday even the calendar says W T F . . .

Got Gold?

Published on May 12, 2010, 9:35 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Wow, gold is on a rocket….but eventually the rocket fuel runs out. Have you noticed all the gold commercials on TV? On the business channels like CNBC, FBN and Bloomberg, they are trying to sell us coins and bullion. On “regular” channels they want to buy all our chains, bracelets, rings and teeth. So…do you think we’re in the middle of a gold bubble?

Y’know, the SEC could announce a circuit breaker rule soon, but why not instead reinstate the uptick rule and stop the naked shorts from manipulating the markets? But nooo, that would upset all the big boys on the playground…

DRYS and CSCO reported after hours. Neither had blowout reports and both are trading below today’s close, but not in the red…yet. CSCO could weigh on the QQQQ and Nasdaq and all the techs. Tech and banks have been leading the past couple days, so I’d like to see that continue.

We’re going to have to test the 200ma or at least get close to a recent low before we go to much higher, so I’m keeping a close watch on the inverse ETFs like: TZA BGZ TYP FAZ SDS. Play these on a short term and/or to protect some of your long positions.

Futures mildly unexciting this evening, hanging around where they closed, plus or minus a point or two. Initial claims on Thursday better continue to the upside. The slightest news, good or bad, could move this market in either direction. 8)

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.

What to do?

Published on April 25, 2010, 10:14 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Oh what to do? The market is way overbought, but price action keeps moving on up. Markets still making new highs and also 52-week new highs…except for the Naz, the index made a new high Friday but did not make new highs in the 52-week new highs….a slight divergence maybe?

I’m still sitting in mostly cash, but have now split my longs/shorts at 20%/30%. My longs are DRYS ZANE TBT. My shorts are via TZA, IWM puts and QQQQ puts.

Futures this evening are already frisky to the upside….just reflecting tha happy openings in Asia. The melt-up continues. Be long or be wrong! But be careful.

A mixed bag of indexes

Published on April 21, 2010, 10:40 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

The day started off giddy with AAPL excitement, but soon tamed down and moved back and forth between red and green. All the indexes, except for the NYSE, closed barely green. After the close some bad reports from QCOM AMGN and EBAY sent futures moving to the downside…and they continue down thru the evening.

With the big up move in the Q’s thanks to AAPL, I thought I’d nibble on some puts, along with adding to my TZA position. The SPY looks like it may have formed a double-top over the past several days. Maybe tomorrow we see a confirmation of failed top. Also note that we continue to have increased volume only to the downside.

Tomorrow we have Jobless Claims and lots of earnings reports. If neither of those have any good news, we may get real ugly. Here’s some more reading to cheer you up:
Greek Workers to Strike Today as Papandreou Faces Bond Rout

Do Bank of America’s Blowout Earnings Actually Blow?

See you tomorrow on the battlefield….or maybe I’ll just sleep-in. 8)

Giddy + Frothy = Stock Market

Published on April 15, 2010, 10:43 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

This bullishness (or is that bullshitness) is making me sick. C’mon people, we are not in that great of shape. Did you see initial jobless claims ticked up along with continuing claims? Of course now that unemployment has been extended another year, there should be a lot more liquidity now available for the market! :mrgreen:

Both ISRG and GOOG had earnings reports this afternoon and are getting snipped afterhours. GOOG was down over $30 from the day’s highs while ISRG was down $13. I’m expecting QQQQ puts and SPY puts should work out well tomorrow….along with the GOOG puts of course. Futures are already moving to the downside….we’ll just have to see how far. BAC and GE report in the morning, so maybe that will be the frosting on this cake. Housing Starts and Consumer Sentiment get reported tomorrow as well.

Remember, it’s options expiration Friday….do you know your options? :D