Tag Archive for 'Russell'

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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 :!:

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!

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.

Inflation is good

Published on September 28, 2010, 8:35 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

The economic reports this morning were not good, and thus the market rallies! A bad economy guarantees that the Fed will be performing some quantitative easing pretty quick…which ewventually gets us into inflation. More money at low interest makes its way into the market…making the market go up. But, Why is deflation bad?

Today I traded more transactions than I ever had in one day, clearing out a lot of positions that I had strung along for quite a while. DRYS QTWW FCEL NSM AMKR and a few I got just yesterday and today XRT IWM. Now I traded IWM puts all day long today (6 times) with 66% being profitable winners. :mrgreen:

Overnight I’m holding UCO TBT C and puts in both IWM and GLD….small positions in all except for C, got lots of C in stock and calls, picking it up here and there on dips for the last 5 months. One day I’ll cash out.

Tomorrow is a no news day except for oil inventories at 10:30AM EST….thus the UCO purchase today. Besides that we’ll be looking to Asia and Europe to set the tone for Wednesday. Keep in mind that the cloud over Europe has reappeared, especially in Ireland and Portugal, so watch out for that. Otherwise, happy trading, but be careful out there :!:

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.

Back in the saddle…again

Published on September 6, 2010, 10:18 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , .

September starts off will a solid 3-day rally, which has put the Dow Jones Industrials back in the saddle again, or as they say, back in the green for the year! The Russell broke into positive territory on Thursday and confirmed it on Friday. But, all indexes are still off their April highs.

Let’s look for some additional upward movement here. :mrgreen:

Hope you had a wonderfully pleasant long weekend!

That was fast

Published on July 26, 2010, 9:44 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , .

We suprisingly had some good homes sales news and FDX boosted its earnings predictions for the fiscal first quarter and the rest of the year! All the indexes closed in the green.

I didn’t think the S&P would get to its 200ma in 1 day, but it did…And the June highs are not that far off.
The Dow closed above its June highs, while the Russell still has some ground to cover.

We have the House Price Index tomorrow along with consumer confidence. The Stock Trader’s Almanac shows Monday, Thursday and Friday as bullish days. Now that doesn’t mean that’s what will happen, but seasonality does have a vote in this market. But, if you’re a bull, you’ve got to be feeling pretty good! :D

Bull Fun!

Published on July 25, 2010, 10:09 pm in Charts, Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

It was a good week for the bulls, except for Wednesday giving us a spook. We’ve made new July highs in the indexes and are now shooting for the June highs. The Dow Jones Industrials are the closest, sitting between its 200ma and the high.

The Russell 2000 is also already above its 200ma and July highs, but looking to get to its June highs….but that is still some distance to go.

The S&P 500 looks to be the weakest, still below its 200ma, but its June highs are also close to the 200.

Overall, the charts are bullish.

Last week we hardly had any economic data besides earnings reports. But this week the data picks up along with earnings reports.
Monday, 7/26:
10:00 – New Home Sales
Tuesday, 7/27:
09:00 – Case-Shiller House Price Index
10:00 – Conference Board Consumer Confidence
Wednesday, 7/28:
08:30 – Durable Goods Orders
10:30 – Crude Oil Inventories
14:00 – Beige Book
Thursday, 7/29:
08:30 – Unemployment Claims
Friday, 7/30:
08:30 – Advance GDP Price Index
08:30 – Employment Cost Index
09:45 – Chicago Purchasing Managers Index
09:55 – University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment

And then we’re all done with July! Thanks for reading and good luck tomorrow!

What Fun!

Published on July 13, 2010, 10:55 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I hope everyone had a great day trading today! It looks like tomorrow may get a little wild also. INTC had blowout earnings and the futures reacted with splendor immediately, gapping up at the open and staying up there.

The SPX closed while wrestling with its 50ma.

Sure, it’s a speed-bump maybe, but a test of the 200 should be in the cards.

And look at these Advance/Decline volumes today: Russell 2000 +16:1 and both NYSE and Nasdaq +12:1 Those are some impressive numbers. Do they continue? I think tomorrow should be a high volume day…all the people sitting on the sidelines will say, “What the fuck? I’m going in!” and all the shorts will say, “I’m fucked! Let me out.”

And people wonder how I got the name of this blog. 8)

Smokin’

Published on July 7, 2010, 10:58 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Lots of trading today….all in S&P (ES) and Russell (TF) emini futures. What a fantastic day! And my oil play via UCO, although still under water, can actually see the surface of the water. :lol:

Okay, now what? We need to see some confirmation, but after a big move like today maybe a breather is in order. Some sideways meandering would not be a bad thing, nor would a small pullback.

My biggest problem, still, is DRYS, it’s been sinking for weeks, along with the BDI. The Baltic Dry Index has fallen for the 30th consecutive session. It is the longest decline in six years. During this swoon, the index has fallen 50% from May 26th.

Here’s some bullish thoughts:
Why Jeff Rubin still sees triple-digit oil prices by 2011

Altucher says S&P ready for 1500