Despite a big, big selloff on Friday, the markets ended on a bullish note and in the green. Now that we have experienced the largest pullback since the beginning of the March 09 run up, maybe Friday’s key reversal will be the start of something fresh. Monday will tell.
Lots of employment news on Friday morning…..Yes NFP decreased by -20K. And even though November NFP changed from +4k to +64K, October went from -127K to -224K and December went from -85K to -150K! So even though we get a number the first Friday of every month to tell us, or warn us, what the employment picture looks like, it continues to change for months. They even added another 800K more people lost there jobs in 2009 than were originally reported! What’s the big whoopdee-doo about the numbers? Why do we go through this every month?
The VIX grabbed a 29-handle before it retreated to 26, basically unchanged for the day. So everyone was feeling cynical and full of fear in the morning, but all turned out okay. Boy, aren’t we traders weird?
Isn’t it time for the Treasury to start popping the U.S. dollar bubble yet?
Some interesting reading….
Bank failures to keep rising in 2010, despite GDP rebound
Obama’s $6.3 Trillion Scam Is America’s Shame
A long day if you were a bull…party time for bears! The PIIGS were a worry for everyone accompanied by some lousy employment info. Maybe Friday’s employment reports will be nicer to us.
Most notable today: NYSE Advance/Decline Volume….. -33:1 ! What the $%@&*!
Didn’t trade much today…I was out of the office until mid-afternoon. I did get stopped out of some QQQQ calls I had entered on Monday, for a smaller profit than anticipated. Actually I just got my commisions paid. 
The markets ended stronger than it looked at lunch time….I did catch some updates on my Blackberry smartphone. I do have the capability to trade off my phone, but I haven’t excersized that option…yet.
I updated to the latest version of TradeStation to get ready for the change in options nomenclature next week, Friday, February 12, 2010, the first part of the Options Symbology Initiative. The biggest difference I’ve noticed so far is slower reaction time, but I guess they haven’t started using the new symbols. I hope their programmers are looking into that speed thing!
I’ve also downloaded the latest version of StockFinder from Worden. Looks interesting but I need to learn another program language. It sure would be nice if there was a universal trading program language. Then I could concentrate on the charts and indicators rather than how to program the damn things. 
Tomorrow Initial Claims will lead the way. We’ll also have to watch CSCO and V to see if their good reports this evening will follow thru…as well as all the Thursday reports. And don’t forget Friday for what turns out to be our “monthly curse” the NonFarm Payrolls and Unemployment Rate reports. Ugh!
Happy Trading!
Haven’t see one of those to the upside for a while….and volume was a bit stronger also. The markets had a lot to be happy about…great earnings reports and great car sales, except for Toyota of course. Even home sales ticked higher, but that’s probably a crock of $h!t.
Tomorrow has the potential for more good reports from IP V AMP CSCO among others and also the ADP employment report, the preview report for the governments report on Friday.
News is Good Again for Stocks, for Now.
Well after the markets put in their worst monthly performance in a year, February started out with a bang. In January there was no build up of new lows during the sell off. Over that same time new highs declined significantly, without a corresponding growth in new lows….leading me to think we may have just had an 8% correction from the highs, and it may be time to test those highs again. Of course, any political or economic news would disrupt anything the charts may do. 
The there’s the Monday pattern of being an up day for the past several months….it did not disappoint. But after a nice green Monday we run into a red Tuesday. I sure would like to buy and sell stocks based on the charts rather than the calendar!
AMZN was a big red island in a sea of green. After this weekends bugaboo with MacMillan books, traders got scared that it will all be coming out of Amazon’s bottom line…they hit it hard.
Volume was light, showing traders not going for advancing prices with any gusto. So the thought process is the trend is down until it isn’t.
Here’s some scary reading to support that trend:
All you can say is wow! 2 Graphs Showing Part of the Reason for the Christmas Eve Taxpayer Massacre.
Double Dip Risk Rises After Inventory Blowout. With more analysis here: What Normally Happens to GDP After Blowout Inventory Quarters?
Futures are working their way down as the dollar is moving up this evening. Australia did not raise rates which at this time looks to be helping the dollar. Sometimes I just don’t understand. 
Again the day started out nicely, moving up on good earnings reports and a great GDP number. And then a stink bomb went off and the rest of the day crumbled. All the indexes were red. The pattern continues, selling off the good news. So last year turns out to be a “buy the rumor” looking for an improving economy, and when we get a confirmation, “sell the news.”
FDIC Friday brought us closure of large LA-based First Regional Bank which pushes the number of banks to fail in 2010 to 14.
Small business owners say Obama’s efforts are falling flat
Last night’s zeal in the futures turned down at the open. Seems like the Obama address did not inspire buyers. With many great earnings reports this morning like NOK EK TWC plus the great overnight futures action, you would have thunk that the markets would at least have a green day. But no! Even Ben’s reconfirmation couldn’t pick this market up.
The “January Barometer” states that as the S&P goes in January, so goes the year. Seasonally, the last trading day of January is bullish, but we would need a monster day to recover all of this month’s losses…..or should I say all of last week’s and this week’s losses.
GDP comes out on Friday and I would normally say it will define how we trade. But looking at all the good earning reports and how all those stocks have sold off, I’m thinking the GDP will define how fast we go down.
This at least will put a smile on your face: AAPL enthusiasts are naming the new iPad after viewing it as the “MaxiPad”. Let’s Get the iPad Jokes Out of Our Systems. I don’t know whether to go to an Apple store or the feminine care aisle to purchase an iPad.
It was nice to see the markets go up at the end of the day rather than sell off hard. And that bullishness has continued in the futures this evening.
It was an exciting day with the introduction of the iPad, FOMC statement and the state of the union address. I’m making the post short so I can watch and listen to BO. But, did you catch the hidden story behind the iPad? It is powerded by an Apple chip! AAPL is in the chip business? That would explain why the price is so low.
So here’s to you Mr. President…..it’s all about jobs and more jobs. And quit pissing off the banks and Wall Street. 
Published on
January 26, 2010,
11:53 pm in
Trading.
Tags: AAPL.
The morning was fun, but by noon the bears came strolling back into the arena and, like yesterday heavy selling came in the last hour of trading.
Wednesday is full of news: AAPL tablet announcement, New Home Sales, Crude Inventories, FOMC Rate Decision and the State of the Union address. Thursday and Friday have a lot of news also! So get ready for a ride.
and if the Fed raises rates, well….ugly comes to mind.
The markets acted fairly well until the last hour. They sold off pretty hard, still ended in the green but well off their highs. The real fireworks started after the close. AAPL was halted pending their earnings report. They came out with “Blow Out” earnings….or so it seemed. The futures took off, especially NQ futures, along with QQQQ and QLD. But then word broke that Apple had changed their accounting method….dive, dive, dive.
It looked like a crash was taking place…futures dove hard. And then AAPL opened for trading…gapping down 10 dollars, draggging the Q’s and related stocks. But, just as fast, comparing apples to apples so to speak, AAPL still beat expectations using the new accounting, and everything reversed. AAPL, the Q’s and futures contracts returned to where they ended the cash day earlier. AAPL beat, but not as fantastically as first thought.
So, stocks ended up after three days of losses, but there was bad news like existing-home sales tumbling and some not-so-bad rumors like support for Fed chief Bernanke’s reappointment. It was still a mixed bag.
As I’m writing this, futures are diving pretty hard. Over night trading looks very, very volatile tonight. U.S. Dollar taking off. We’re in for some ugly stuff.
The S&P 500 sold off 2.2% on Friday — 5.1% over the last three days. We’ve reached the December lows and now targetting the late October/early November lows. And the VIX popped up 55% in the same time frame. I’m looking to see if the Nasdaq and Russell may show more resilience. Whatever happens, we have wiped out this year’s gains and we start over….the indexes that is. My P&L this year has started out well and I hope will continue to do so.
Now don’t get into a panic…yet. If you remember, the S&P lost 300 points at the beginning of 2009 from high to low before recovering and finishing strong…first quarter weakness seems to be a trend.
Not trying to predict market, but I expect it go lower, but it may have to make a little bounce just to suck in some more bulls. Pressure will probably continue on financials…so watch GS COF HBAN JPM. I’m going to keep special attention to A/D lines and the VIX on Monday.
Lotsa earnings this coming week….highlighted by AAPL on Monday after the close. But then AAPL will again be in the news on Wednesday when they announce, supposedly, their new tablet PC.
Be careful out there…and Happy Trading
Kill Wall Street = Kill America…..
Obama is Killing America by Killing Wall Street …and make sure you read all the comments.
Why It’s Good News When Obama Sinks the Market
What’s the state of the economy? Keep a watch on the economic recovery….
Economic Recovery Dashboard
Watch how the recession progressed throughout the country like a virus, 2007 – 2009.
The Geography of a Recession
And finally, you probably never thought of this, but did you know that the space station had no internet access?
Astronauts (Finally) Get Internet Access
With governments throwing a lot of bad feelings towards Wall Street, fear and uncertainty came alive. Did you see that VIX move today…23% just today…20% yesterday on top of 6% on Wednesday. And we haven’t seen the indexes move like this since last February….3 down days in a row…triple digits in the Dow for all three days!
Now I can’t complain too much since I’ve been a bear for all this year, but sfter taking some lunch money out of the market, I just stood aside. It was getting a bit scary. Did you notice GOOG and GS? Wow…and others like F AXP and COF. Everytime I thought about getting back in, thinking that it’s time to reverse…bang! It just continued down. So I just watched and learned….after getting burned too many times in one day.
And the amount of ES futures contracts traded grew again to over 3.5 million contracts. Something is going on. We should have a little bounce on Monday….but then again, I thought today would be a bounce. We’ll have to see what kind of rhetoric we get on the Sunday morning news shows and what futures show Sunday evening. But a bounce may just be a small reprieve. After a little breather we continue down for maybe another 50 S%P points….but I was never good at predictions. I’m much better at 15- and 60-minute charts. 
Bank failure Friday continues into 2010. Federal regulators have shut Miami-based Premier American Bank, the fifth bank failure of 2010. These five failures in 2010 so far, compare with the total number of bank failures of 140 in 2009, 25 in 2008 and 3 in 2007. Oh well….maybe things aren’t getting better. That would explain the market actions this week.
Have a great weekend everybody. Relax and get those charts off your mind. The market will still be here Monday….I hope.
Sometimes, entranced by the screens, watching equities and options change colors, charts moving in a wave, and indicators pointing in every direction, I just have to scream....
