Tag Archive for 'XLF'

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GO GOOG

Published on April 17, 2011, 10:01 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Well, earnings weren’t stellar for the first week, especially for GOOG….it got clipped for almost 10% on Friday! BAC stunk a bit also, stinking up the entire financial sector. We’ll see this week if there is any saving grace from C or WFC or GS. Besides a big financial reporting week, we’ll also hear from GE and F on Thursday, among a lot of other companies on Thursday, a really big reporting day.

Don’t forget this will be a holiday shortened week with the markets closed on Friday. Expect lighter than average volume, which may mean the markets move up!

Coming Next Week: More Earnings, Housing Data

Banks get bitch-slapped!

Published on April 13, 2011, 10:25 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

The premarket was looking pretty good…futures up overnight and JPM had a good report. But, historically JPM gaps up on earnings and sells off during the day. And although there was an initial gap up, all the banks/financials turned tail and moved down quickly, stinking up my positions. I’m still hanging in, but not as confident as I was yesterday. Still looking for BAC to beat on Friday.

Jobless Claims and PPI on Thursday before the bell…and then GOOG after the bell. Hope tomorrow is a better day.

“Remember, hope rhymes with dope.”

GS has spoken…so be it

Published on April 12, 2011, 10:37 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

GS said oil would go down, and down it went! Amen…and so be it.

Yesterday I complained about maybe selling USO puts too early, but UAL calls made up for it today…kaching. On the other hand, TBT calls weren’t so hot today. I’m still heavy into the bank/financials sector with many of them reporting over the next 2 weeks…JPM tomorrow and BAC on Friday. The rest of the boys will check in next week, looking closely at C GS MS WFC. But rather than buying each of them, I’ve got XLF and FAS, although I do have C and MS.

Volume sure moved up on today’s down move. Only the downs days have high volume. This was also the first time the markets were down 4 days in a row since last year! The Dow and S&P found some support while the RUT looks the ugliest in its leadership down. Wonder if oil has found support and if silver will ever go down.

Have a great evening!

Interest rates anyone?

Published on April 6, 2011, 10:23 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Although volume is still low, it was the highest volume of the week. And crude and gold and silver are still manic bulls! And although we had a gap open to the positive side this morning, we quickly started to meander and flirt with red and green and back to red and back to green. Volatility remained low, confirmed by a narrow-range VIX.

I had a great day taking profits in F ZION and TBT. I’m all out of F and ZION, but still have several options in TBT. Banks/financials finally had their day today and am still holding C XLF and HCBK. My long hedges are SPY puts and a few SDS calls. It was a good day for the ol’ portfolio.

With the ECB announcing their rate hike Thursday morning (about 7:45AM EST), I’ll be watching TBT closely to make sure it does not become a “sell the news” event. If the UK also announces a rate hike, it could turn into a great day for TBT. Either way, interest rates and inflation will be moving up eventually! I’ve also got DZZ and ZSL on my watchlist…those ETFs are gold short and silver short….gotta come down soon, don’t you think?

“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

Nice rally off the lows

Published on March 23, 2011, 10:35 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

The bears came running out of the gate looking to do some damage. New Home Sales gave them fodder. I panicked and sold my QQQ calls when they dove down. But, if I hadn’t panicked I would have had a much larger profit…I walked away able to cover commissions and a cup of coffee. :-(

By the afternoon the indexes had all turned green and kept pushing for new daily highs for the rest of the day. They backed off a bit at the close, but ended completely different then they started. Low volume was the only consistency.

Jobless claims on Thursday may give some fodder to the bears…or maybe the bulls. If we have a continuation day up with higher volume, we may be on our way to another bull run. I’m still treading lightly with 70% cash and 30% long in C F TBT and XLF.

Happy Trading :!:

Good Day

Published on December 1, 2010, 9:14 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Oh what a beautiful day! Sure I was looking for an up day, but nothing like this. Finally my thinking and the market were in sync….and that makes for big profits! The QQQ calls were the big winners but XLF and NOK did themselves proud also. I also added C and BAC to the list. Go financials!

The first of the month has been green for 10 out of 12 months in 2010. Good news today from the U.S. and abroad got the juices flowing early…and they never looked back! Some consolidation or a small pullback would not be surprising at all and give us an opportunity to reload the longs for a nice move up into 2011.

This is amusing….Buy the fuckin’ dip you fuckin’ idiot!

Boring

Published on November 30, 2010, 9:19 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Sure there was the usual gap down with a crawl back up the rest of the day…volume was even decent. But, it was a boring day. All I did was nibble on some calls in QQQ and XLF and NOK…just enough to make me feel like I did something today. We’ll see how that turns out.

News starts to pick up tomorrow about jobs…ADP Employment report on Wednesday, Jobless Claims on Thursday and the BLS Employment report on Friday. Tomorrow also has Construction Spending, Auto Sales and Crude Inventories. When does that Santa Claus rally start?

Wow!

Published on November 4, 2010, 9:31 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

What a great day for trading….and a solid day for all the indexes. I really wasn’t expecting it. The norm is for the markets to do the opposite of what they do on FOMC day. Since they were up yesterday, I thought we would go down today. But no. The rest of the world was up so the US put the exclamation mark on Thursday’s market!

Although the Jobs Claims report wasn’t that great, the market quickly brushed it off. New 52-week highs exploded on decent volume.

I grabbed profits from XLF, C, and UNG, and still holding positions in TBT, C, UNG, and DRYS. I also started positions in QID and ZSL.

Looking for Non-Farm Payroll report to be…..well, it doesn’t really matter. If it’s strong, that might put a damper on QE2, If it’s weak, then the market may be weak. So I’m looking for a bit of downside no matter what the report says.

Then after the morning report, also look out for Pending Home Sales at 10AM and Consumer Credit at 3PM. The market has been growing each day with more excitement. So let’s see if it goes out with a bang!

Missed it

Published on November 3, 2010, 10:58 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

The most exciting day of the week so far and I missed it…not entirely, but I was away from the office most of the day. In the morning though I did pick up some TBT and XLF thinking that a flood of money into the system has to be good for banks and bad for bonds. Checking the markets with my Blackberry during the day had me disconcerted because the markets were just going down and down. My last check was just shortly after the FOMC announcement and as it turns out near the low of the day. Sheesh, I thought, I really screwed up! By the time I got back, both were in the green! :mrgreen:

Unemployment report on Thursday and then the biggie on Friday. There’s also a lot of European economic reports overnight. So far the futures have been pretty flat. Be careful out there!

Chop chop chop

Published on October 28, 2010, 10:02 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

We’ve had six days of nothing…decent ranges during the day but always closing near breakeven…some indexes green some red. Looks like traders are waiting for an election result and QE2 announcement….or maybe just for the GDP report Friday morning.

My biggest position is cash, about 85% and then 15% long in financials via C and XLF. Futures are a bit red this evening as news from Japan was not so good. Let’s hope Europe has better news….but I’m not going to wait until 3 in the morning to find out. What will be will be!