Tag Archive for 'Russell'

Spastic

Published on October 26, 2011, 10:45 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Crazy days in the market…up down and all around. On Monday we closed near the highs, on Tuesday near the lows and then near the highs again today. The markets are different things to different traders…hope they’ve been good to you.

Futures are taking off in the early globex session….up up and away! The Dow and Nasdaq are flirting with their 200-day average, while the S&P and Russell are working to move up and get close. If the Eurozone makes a decision we should fly. Otherwise, up, down, up, down….

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Unexpected?

Published on August 8, 2011, 8:48 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

I thought the bounce would start sometime by the close, but you can’t always get what you want! And the selling in the ES futures continued into the evening. ES has sunk below 1100 last time I looked.

I did nibble on some TBT calls at a time I thought they may have bottomed, but, no such luck. I’m still sitting in them, underwater. So you can say I had a bad day.

It was an incredible day….The VIX advanced 50%, and although I was looking to short the VIX, I sat on my hands. SPY down 7.5%, yes in one day. The Russell was down almost 9% and the “winner” today was the Dow, down “only” 5.5%.

Some sector ETFs really got bruised: FAS the 3X financial bull ETF was down 30%, so the financial XLF was down over 10%. But Bank of America, BAC was down 22%…ouch! Oil and technology weren’t pretty at all.

So is it time for Turnaround Tuesday? China has some announcements overnight and those European PIIGS are still a pain in the ass. And let’s not forget, it’s time for FOMC meeting and announcement. Gee, what are the chances of a rate hike on Tuesday? :roll:

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Historic Bullsh!t

Published on August 4, 2011, 9:03 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Yes it was the worse day for the markets since December 2008! Just look at some of those numbers for just the 4 days of this week: Energy and Transportation down 10%; Russell down 9%; Banks down 8%; Semis down 7%…just ugly! Get a perspective here at A look at the Dow’s worst drops since 1900.

The VIX finally perked up with a 35% pop today and ES volume was enormous, relatively speaking with over 5 million ES contracts traded. Haven’t seen that since…well I don’t know when…but it’s been a long time!

And did you see the NYSE Advance/Decline volume? …-84:1 WOW! I guess traders aren’t going on vacation…they’re lurking!!

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Up, down and back to even

Published on August 1, 2011, 10:30 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

The gap up was expected of course, but the reversal after only 15 minutes was a surprise. I unloaded half my long positions at, as it turns out, the high of the day. My thought was to hang on for a continued up move after a pullback. But, the pullback never stopped!

The S&P, Dow and Nasdaq broke through Friday’s low to notch new lows. But, the Russell did not make a new low…although it did close below its 200MA. The Dow tested its 200MA but bounced back up. The S&P broke through its 200 but managed to recover and close above…. A wide range day on all indexes. You would think with all that volatility the VIX would have gone up. Instead the VIX moved down. With the VIX down and the RUT not making new lows, there is some hope for the bulls.

The House passed the latest version of the debt-ceiling crisis bill. Now onto the Senate. It traders hated the announcement of a deal, just what will they do once it’s approved? Well, futures are near the low of the overnight session as I’m writing. Oh my!

A little bit of economic reports every day this week, but Friday brings the monthly aggravation of the employment situation…which can’t be too good. And of course, the never-ending debt-crisis will continue to wreak havoc. Can’t wait til it’s over so we can go back and worry about Europe! ;-)

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Getting close

Published on July 31, 2011, 7:29 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Traders are on the edge of their seats waiting for the official word….will they or won’t they?

Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason!

On Friday, the S&P and Russell tested their 200 day moving averages….and successfully bounced off it.
S&P July 29 tests 200MA
Futures are giddy Sunday evening and anticipating a resolution to the debt-crisis as they pop 20 points (ES) at the get go. Still a very news driven market. :-(

We’re going to start off the week with ISM Manufacturing numbers along with Construction Spending. But remember there’s a big employment report on Friday!

I bet on a resolution on Friday so I’m long the Russell and financials. Now here’s hoping that this evenings happiness lasts at least until Morning!

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Finally!

Published on January 30, 2011, 8:02 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

I have been looking for a retracement for a couple weeks now because the market was overbought and sentiment was running too bullish. But it took Egypt to give traders an excuse to sell-off. I’m thinking we may have sold off even if the whole Egypt mess had not happened. Oh well, woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Now the question…Is that all there is? While all the indexes retreated on Friday, the Russell has been looking ugly for a while and now looks really bad. Russell at the end of January

Lots of things happening….the whole Mideast tensions, BLS Employment reports, the start of a new month, February options expiration coming in 3 weeks, financials and techs not very happy, retail sales disappointing…a continuing pullback is possible and probable.

So far futures are moving downward Sunday evening, but it’s a long time until U.S. markets open. Europe’s open should give us a pretty good idea on what to expect for Monday. I will be trading lighter until I see a definite trend, one way or the other.

I would sometimes think that maybe I ought to stop trading because it was very painful to keep losing. In “Fiddler on the Roof”, there is a scene where the lead looks up and talks to God. I would look up and say, “Am I really that stupid?” And I seemed to hear a clear answer saying, “No, you are not stupid. You just have to keep at it.” …..So I did. — Michael Marcus

Thanks for checking in and good luck tomorrow!

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Is it over?

Published on January 20, 2011, 9:40 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Wow, what a great day trading the S&P e-mini futures…in both directions! Definitiely a traders market today. But the question is…is the correction over?

I don’t think so. The S&P had 33 continuous days of closing above the 8-day exponential moving average. Yesterday the index closed just below the 8EMA and today it closed a little below yesterday. Is there another trend starting….down?
33 days of closing above the 8EMA

The Dow and the S&P, although closing in the red, were well off their lows. The RUT closed near its lows.

No news on Friday, but some pretty big earnings reports from GE and BAC. Oh yes, and it is Options Expiration Friday. According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, the Dow has been down 10 of the last 12 January expirations. Let’s see if history repeats.

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It’s good to be short

Published on January 4, 2011, 10:02 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

It’s hard to review charts while watching the Buckeyes at the Sugar Bowl, but a win by Ohio State would just be a topper to a good day. I was positioned short since last week and today was the payoff. I skimmed some profits while leaving some positions to make a little more. Whether this is the start of a larger correction is yet to be determined.

The indexes looked weird as most were red, but the Dow was green, and closed that way. When markets begin to correct, there seems to be a rotation from the small-caps, like the Russell 2000, to the big-caps, like the Dow….and that was exactly what was happening today.

Wednesday starts the employment merry-go-round with the ADP Employment report and the Challenger layoff report, before Thursday’s Jobless Claims and climaxing with Friday’s BLS Employment report. Some of today’s downside move can be attributed to rumors that the reports may not be too good. Early evening, the futures are down a bit, but still along time until morning. 8O

Go Buckeyes :!:

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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!

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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.

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