Trading thoughts, ideas, tips, musings, and pontifications. . .not necessarily in that order.
Sure we ended in the green…and we rallied early in the day with the Dow coming from a 75 point deficit up 142 points! But, there’s always a but, the Dow closed at +9 and the Dow futures (YM) continued to sell off after the cash close. All the index futures closed in the red. These end of day selloffs are getting consistently ugly. 
We have two chances tomorrow of making some news that moves: Initial Claims and Leading Economic Indicators. I think I’ll sit and wait.
Markets sucked today, diving overnight and then continuing at the open. By the close they erased all their year’s gains! And then CSCO came out with a crappy report, missing expectations and futures crashed…again…going down another 12 points on the S&P (via ES) or 90 points on the Dow (via YM) afterhours. What a pile of bear poopy!
So the Dow is down 1000 points from last week’s high, and feeling a bit uncomfortable. A wise old sage told me the best trades are made while your finger is shaking when you hit ”enter”. So, while that finger was shaking I nibbled on some TNA afterhours for maybe a 3-6 day hold. I’m looking to do some shopping tomorrow (Thursday) to pick up some long positions.
Initial Claims in the morning will be the catalyst for a gap down or just a boring breakeven kind of day. The Stock Trader’s Almanac still gives tomorrow a bear face, but Friday and most of next week gets a bull face.
So I hope you didn’t get hurt too badly today, but better days are in store. Of course, if you’re bear, today was heaven. Thanks for reading and good luck tomorrow!
Oh, and here’s an interesting statistic to keep in mind….
The latest survey shows that three out of four people make up 75% of the population!
Really? 
Now that June options and future contracts have all rolled over, time to move on.
Volume was very low for an options expiration Friday. That USA vs Slovenia soccer match really took a lot of traders out of the mix! 
Actually, the entire week was a low volume boring time for an opex week.
This week should be a bit more news driven than last. A Fed rates decision is due on Wednesday. During the week we’ll see New Home sales, Durable goods orders, GDP and consumer sentiment…plus a rash of treasury bill auctions.
Futures are taking off Sunday evening!! Dow e-mini (YM) is already up +140, the S&P e-mini (ES) is up +17…if this holds up overnight we will get a big bang at the open! Oil is up almost 2 dollars and other commodities are following suit. Get ready for a rip roarin’ Monday! 
With oil so much in the news, I would think that it should be hitting bottom soon…say, $70 maybe? I don’t trade the crude oil futures, so like I said a couple days ago, I’ve added USO UCO into the watchlist….I even nibbled a bit on UCO already. It looks like $10 has been a resistance/support area before.
Here’s a note on USO: Is This Oil ETF Ready For a Bounce? USO
After doing my scans this evening I see a lot of “evening star” setups, which generally means those particular stocks are going down. On the other side, I also found a greater number of hammers, looking for a reversal up on those stocks. Of course, as in all candlesticks signals, we need confirmation in the next candle, no matter which direction you think they may go.
Futures this evening are looking tired with ES down 6 points and YM down 60 points, and oil futures just about where they closed Friday. I went into the weekend on the long side, but in very small positions of UCO SSO and C. Remember, for the past year a down Friday is followed by an up Monday.
I got some additional reading material for you today:
Impossible Wall Street Fixes
Fear of a Double Dip Could Cause One
The Huge Difference Between The “Flash Crash” And The Crash Of ’87
5 things we still don’t know about the market plunge
Happy trading and I’ll see you in the market!
| NASDAQ | 2228.87 | |||||||
| S&P 500 | 1098.87 | |||||||
| ^RUT | 634.25 | |||||||
| QID | 16.67 | |||||||
| QQQQ | 46.25 | |||||||
| QLD | 58.70 | |||||||
| TZA | 32.23 | |||||||
| SSO | 36.60 | |||||||
| SDS | 32.09 | |||||||
| BGZ | 14.14 | |||||||
| BGU | 46.98 | |||||||
Sometimes, entranced by the screens, watching equities, options and futures change colors, charts moving in a wave, and indicators pointing in every direction, I just have to scream....
