Tag Archive for 'volume'

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Quiet Friday of a wild week

Published on August 12, 2011, 8:35 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

We had a follow-thru day on the lightest volume in 2 weeks. Been a long time since we’ve seen that. Doesn’t say much though. Retail sales were good, but U of M Consumer Sentiment took a dive…but no one cared. The Dow “only” had a 200-point range…how boring! Looks like the bulls and the bears are tired.

Now it’s OpEx week. Will It Go Round In Circles just like last week? And along with OpEx there’s a lot of economic reports all week long: Housing Starts, Industrial Production, PPI, CPI, Philly Fed Survey, Existing Home Sales. We just may go round in circles.

C’mon markets, Don’t Let Me Down!

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Let’s try it again

Published on August 11, 2011, 11:31 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

We recovered everything we lost on Wednesday, plus a little bit more. During the day we even went higher than Tuesday’s high and close. There’s only one thing missing…a follow-through day! We haven’t strung together 2 up days in a row since early July.

It looked scary in the premarket as again trouble in Europe rattled traders. But rumors and facts started growing throughout the day that got traders juiced…although it was the lowest volume day of the week. But it also was the 4th day of 500+ range in the Dow…WTF?

The banks, after getting bitch-slapped yesterday, were the frontrunners to the upside today. Gold took a big dive as did U.S. Treasuries…and thus, interest rates via TBT went up.

Let’s see if we can string 2 in a row!

“The stock market had its biggest one-day drop since 2008. Remember how the experts said we had to raise the debt ceiling or the market would crash? Well, they were half right.” — Jimmy Kimmel

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Crash continues

Published on August 10, 2011, 10:57 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

As has happened the last three times the markets have had a green day, the following day was a big downer…no follow through. Volume was a “meager” 4.8 million, a let down after 3 days of over 6 million contracts traded. TRIN though was at an extreme 5.13 … looking for a bounce on Thursday or we’re in real trouble.

Because of SocGen’s problems and the Eurozone going down the tubes, the entire financial sector was crap. Stocks, and associated call options, such as C BAC MS GS, all withered in the bear stampede.

VIX is still elevated and I’m sitting on my hands just watching 987 tick charts and playing in my demo accounts. Sure, the pressure is off and I do great, but playing the charts and watching what happens is good practice….and you don’t lose money!

“By the way, the ratings agency is Standard & Poor’s. Who’s going to listen to a company whose name translates to Average & Below Average?” — Jon Stewart

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Welcome back…

Published on August 9, 2011, 10:25 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

So is QE3 coming or not? Maybe not, but the “Bernanke put” is back! A song comes to mind… Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends. We regained two-thirds of what we lost yesterday, so that’s nice….but why? Stealth QE3 Is Upon Us, how Ben did it and what it means.

It was definitely a rollercoaster day as indexes moved in both directions all day long. It took about an hour to go from the low of the session to the high, closing near the highs…and the futures continued to go up after the cash close. Boy was that last half hour ever exciting!!

Volume was the highest in the last 3 days and the VIX returned about half what it gained yesterday. Some wild and crazy action for the last 2+ weeks…it’s getting frustrating. :!:

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It’s the economy stupid!

Published on August 2, 2011, 6:56 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

We had the biggest down day this year, although the volume was not that big. I would have rather seen a big woosh down and have buyers come in instead of this slow, grinding death…on every little pop, a barrage of bears come in and sell, sell, sell! It was one of the ugliest days I’ve seen…add in 7 down days in a row…8 for the Dow…the markets are very, very oversold.

For as crazy as the market has been the past week, the VIX has been fairly tame.You would think the VIX would have shown some additional upside movement. S&P is now negative for the year. I don’t expect it to stay there, but still a significant accomplishment…for the bears.

The Arms Index, also known as TRIN says: A TRIN close over 2.0 results in a bounce the next day 9 times out of 10. No bounce? Market is in trouble! The TRIN closed at 4.64 on Tuesday!

Wow…staggering…S&P down almost 100 points…the Dow down 900 points…all in a few days! Screw the debt-ceiling, it’s the economy stupid!

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Nothing

Published on July 20, 2011, 11:20 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , .

Nothing happened today…the markets ended where they started. Some good earnings reports, some not so good…traders just didn’t know which way to go. Or maybe they weren’t around at all. Volume was low.

I continue to trade small positions, not very often. I guess I’m contributing to the low volume. On the other hand, I’m getting a lot of projects completed around the office. Trading-wise, this has to be one of the slowest seasons I have endured…so far at least!

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Crazy OpEx Action

Published on July 14, 2011, 11:42 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , .

I’ve learned to trade lightly during OpEx week and stay away from trading on Friday. I also haven’t had much luck with Thursday’s of OpEx, but today was OK. A couple of TF trades that hit according to plan. So I’m doubly giddy because I followed my plan AND I made money…yippee :!:

But, that was all in the early morning…and like yesterday when Uncle Ben helped the market move up, today he removed the foot from his mouth and spoke clearly that the Fed wasn’t going to start up QE3 anytime soon. Traders disappointment started when Ben started talking and lasted all day. The down days still have the higher volume :-(

Options expiration…here we come. Be careful out there!

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Closed at the highs!

Published on June 28, 2011, 7:16 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Markets closed near their highs as traders anticipate good news from Greece by Wednesday morning. And we did have some good news on home prices, although consumer confidence was down a bit. The VIX closed at its lows. Both Monday’s and Tuesday’s rallies were on fairly low volume, both days about the same. Can’t complain though, unless you were short.

I didn’t like the way the news reported all the riots going on in Greece without mentioning that the Greek markets were up along with the Euro as well as other European markets. I finally turned off CNBC and concentrated more on the charts. I think I’ll look back to this week as the moment I turned off financial news while trading! Should be a good habit.

Remember Thursday is the End of the Month, End of the Quarter and End of the First Half 2011. Lots of window dressing going on, and could be the reason for the buying. Money managers want to get stocks into their portfolios before the reports need to be sent out.

Earnings season is about to start again….in about 2 weeks. And next week we have the monthly Employment reports. The big question, is this the summer rally and how long will it last?

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Forever Young

Published on May 24, 2011, 9:19 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , .

Well the market sure seems old, but I thought since it was Bob Dylan’s birthday I would play one of his remarkable songs….Forever Young. Yes he has an incredible repertoire, but this one always stuck with me.

So I listened to Dylan songs today because the market did nothing….on low volume…. ho hum. All the indexes closed on their lows…and continued after hours to move down.Futures this eveing are also moving down. ES should see 1300 overnight, maybe 1290. And if it does, I’m expecting buyers to step in for some bargains.

Me…I’m sitting in cash…mostly. I’ve still got some losers in banking and interest rates. Financials did seem to pick up in the afternoon, so this may be interesting.

No news today, no news tomorrow. Maybe it’s time to start the holiday weekend?

A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that as gas prices hover near $4 a gallon, nearly eight in ten Americans say the high cost of fuel is causing financial hardship for their families. The other 20% own oil company stock. — DailyComedy.com

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Monday, Monday

Published on May 23, 2011, 10:56 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Monday Monday, can’t trust that day. News was slow in the US but the news from Europe started the downward trend early and was reinforced with the Italy downgrade later in the day. The dollar went up, everything else went down…except for bonds of course. Advance/Decline volume was way down at -9:1

Dick Arms, the creator of The Arms Index, also known as TRIN, says: a TRIN close over 2.0 results in bounce next day 9 times out of 10. No bounce? Market in trouble. The TRIN closed at 2.23 today. We’ll see how this works out on Tuesday.

Signing off before the thunderstorm knocks me out!

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