Except for Tuesday, these market closes have been ugly, especially the last 15 minutes. Today actually started well for the bulls, but around noon, became quite lackadaisical, a sideways action with downward tendencies. Then traders took to the hills selling everything they had before the bell sounded….but, on lower volume. I think sellers are losing their mojo 
As I said last night, watch the financials and I did. I loaded up on HBAN and UYG. I wanted some FITB also, but I would have margined out too much. But they both paid off….UYG not so much, but HBAN became an ATM machine. I sold half at about 11% and then let a trailing stop keep going. When the afternoon mess started, I was soon stopped out, but still for about 15%. They all showed some weakness into the afternoon, so I’m not sure how tomorrow will be. If the financials don’t shape up, I don’t think the markets will be going up 
It was a mish-mash of items that eventually sent us reeling….increased taxes, Sallie Mae tanking when BO says he will curtail subsidies for student loans, and the whole health sector started feeling sick when BO announced curtailing payments to insurers. The seeds of socialism are being planted…the question…will they take root?
As I said at the start of the week, it has been all news / rumor / announcement driven, and even then you could not figure what the market could do. Tomorrow will be no different. Floor traders will be reacting to what other traders will be doing…a catch-22. No one is willing to innovate, to start something, maybe on technicals or fundamentals…or god-forbid, inside information. Just watch the TV and see what comes up on the “Breaking News” ticker and trade your best guess…yuck!
Yesterday we recovered everything we lost on Monday. Today we had some profit taking, and except for that discouraging last half hour of trading, there was some strength….the afternoon run up from the lows and the fact that we had higher lows and higher highs than the previous day.
I think it was Ben Bernanke who saved the day again. He reiterated that he is against bank nationalization, plus, and I think it’s a big plus, he acknowledged that the SEC was looking at restoring the up-tick rule and that it would have been better had the rule not been removed. It was good to hear the Fed chairman admit that allowing shorting on a down-tick only helped the short hedge funds.
I had some good luck with financials today, mainly with UYG, FAS and BAC. I got in and out of UYG twice. I had luck with S&P futures also, but got clipped at the end of the day and ended up with only 2 ticks. Oh well 
Futures are up this evening and so are the Asian markets….so far. We do have some volatile reports on Thursday: Durable Goods Orders, Initial Claims and New Home Sales. So the morning may be fun. I’ll be watching those financials again and a couple other banks: FITB and HBAN.
While the President was talking, I notice that the world must be watching. My screens weren’t blinking at all. I checked to make sure my internet connection was still live
Prior to the speech, futures slacked off. As the the speech closed, the futures started to go down even more, not too bad, but down. Asian indexes were still positive, but still reacting to today’s US markets and the Ben Bernanke speech. I still don’t know if we will be getting a follow through day on Wednesday! Guess we’ll find out in the morning. I guess I’ll look for stocks in both directions. Till then, Happy Mardi Gras 
Published on
February 24, 2009,
9:16 pm in
Tidbits.
Tags: Psyche.
The jive talking continues as Ben Bernanke raised everyone’s spirit today…along with the market as a whole. But we await more words from the President and his recovery plan(s). Part 2 to follow after the speech…..
You can follow it with the Nasdaq Government Relief Index ($QGRI in Tradestation). The index follows all companies that have received government TARP money or bailouts. It started on January 5th at 1,000, and has fallen over 50% in just 6 weeks. $QGRI closed yesterday at 480. It’s also a way to grade Congress and the Treasury Department to see if their plan is working. Now I’m wondering when someone will start an ETF for this 
Were you looking for one? Sure did seem like everyone was. And we did have a bounce in the pre-market futures. We got our high in the S&P futures, ES, about 9AM, and then downhill after that. We did have another rally attempt…another news- and rumor-driven market reaction…when some politicos announced the government really doesn’t want to “own” a bank (I think I heard someone mumble – we just want to print the money:-). The market scooted up some, but was quickly sent packing when AIG coughed up a humongous fur-ball….about the size of $60 billion. If you were long, you were wrong
If you’ve been visiting here for a while, you know that I use TRIN as one of my indicators for the market….And today was a real anomaly. The TRIN closed at 0.63, but was as low as 0.42. We almost always see such a low reading on large up days, and not down days. You need to read this from the SentimenTrader: Today’s TRIN – Never Seen Before….An explanation of what’s going on.
The S&P500 has had 6 down days in a row and is sitting at it’s November lows. And like many traders, I’m looking for a bounce….maybe the mother of all bear market bounces. Catch you on the upside 
Time to start another week of trading…..trading on headline news and rumors. This headline and/or rumor of the day nonsense wears you out, big time. It is very stressful and tiring to try to front run a government leak or press conference or announcement.
It was fears of bank nationalization that tanked the markets on Friday…but then President O came out and said he favors free market, with a sheepish grin and chuckle….and rumors that the Treasury could release more details regarding their plan to rescue the financial system. The markets did go green for a bit, but digressed to reality.
There was a rally in gold…you can play GLD instead of the actual metal. But the rally tells us that fear about financials has returned to the market.
I just wish we could get this market back to trading on fundementals and technicals…reading annual reports or looking at the weekly and monthly charts. My favorite chart lately has been the one-minute 
Futures are looking good this morning, financials like FAS and UYG are up along with the individual banks. Telecom and technology showed some strength on Friday, so we’ll see if it can follow through.
IBD had an interesting editorial on Friday: Is It Any Wonder The Market Continues To Sink? Check it out and…..Happy Trading!
Published on
February 22, 2009,
8:41 pm in
Tidbits.
Tags: Psyche.
Well, doesn’t this just give you the warm and fuzzies:
The global economy may be deteriorating even faster than it did during the Great Depression, Paul Volcker, a top adviser to President Barack Obama, said on Friday.
Read the entire articles here.
Politicians have no reason to try to figure out what is best for this market….besides, they don’t know s#!t. Legislation has a negative affect on the markets. Remember a decade ago when the President told banks to increase their leverage and to loan money for houses to people that can’t afford a down-payment? Maybe this article from the New York Times will refresh your memory. We all know the outcome now….20/20 hindsight
Anyway, Congress now wants to tax each trade you make. Yes, that’s right, not how much money you make, but how actively you trade….a winner or a loser. Please, please, tell your congressman and senator to go $%@&* themselves…..I mean in a nice way. Send them an email asking them to not approve the trader’s tax. And go ahead and tweet this entry 
Published on
February 21, 2009,
10:04 am in
Tools.
Yes, I’m playing with this website…..a lot of subtle changes. Please let me know what you think. It may be a couple of days before I’m done. Thanks for visiting
I didn’t hear any bailout announcements today, but we sure did hear from CNBC’s Rick Santelli and his opinion of the Presidents mortgage bailout…
The government is promoting bad behavior… do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages… How about we all stop paying our mortgage!
See and hear it all right here.
The DJ30 closed below its November lows. I still find it hard to understand why these 30 stocks are so important!! But anyways, this area has been support for the Dow in November, as well as, 2003, 2002, 1998 and 1997. All the other indexes still have a way to go, so there is still plenty to keep an eye out for. The pre-market and first half hour of the market open were looking very “normal” as if we were going to take-off after Wednesday’s doji….. But soon reality set in and down we went.
I haven’t been as active trading stocks as I have been trading the futures, the S&P e-mini ES specifically. I am holding STEM and DNDN for “playing” and I have been adding to UYG in an IRA…..And I still diligently run my scans each evening and keep looking for that perfect chart….but I still haven’t found it…yet. I’ll try again tomorrow
I didn’t pay attention much, having some other business to take care of, but I did trade ES for a few quick ticks late in the afternoon. My STEM position is back to breakeven, but still above my stop at the 34ema. The banks didn’t do anything for me at all either….So, it was a nothing day. Even the volume was below average and trading ranges were subdued.
The markets wavered red and green all day, ending pretty close to unchanged. The good thing was that the DJ30 worked pretty hard not to violate the November lows…the other indexes have a ways to threaten their lows The markets have nothing to trade on but rumors, emotions and speculation. We need to get something we can sink our teeth into….maybe Thursday’s PPI report or Initial Jobless claims will give us some meat.
