Published on
October 8, 2009,
9:08 pm in
Daily and Trading.
Tags: CHIP, DXD, DZZ, ERY, ES, OPXA, SDS, TBT, TZA.
Traders were happy with AA earnings and futures were up all night. Adding in a good jobs report and many stocks gapped up at the open. My spec plays from yesterday were flops. Both CHIP and OPXA floundered around to the down side, but not so much as to stop me out. Most of my trading activities were in the futures before the cash markets opened. I couldn’t sleep last night, so I got up early, like 4AM, and enjoyed some quiet trading. Using 1 car, I traded short 2x and long 2x and walked away with 45 ticks before the open….so it was a good day by morning 
The other exceptional play I had was entering some TBT calls before the auction results. TBT is the Ultra short 20+ year Treasury ETF. You would buy this when you think interest rates are going up. After the auction results were announced, the calls popped up 20%…and within another 30 minutes they climbed another 15%, so I cashed out with a 35% gain in about an hour’s time. That was one of those trades where you kick yourself saying, “Why didn’t I buy more?”
The markets have been up every day this week, so I’m thinking traders may be taking profits before the weekend. I also think that Gold may be getting a little ahead of itself. So I’m making a watchlist of several short ETFs, as in: DZZ SDS TZA DXD ERY. I’m also looking at re-entering TBT calls on any pullback. And I’ll probably be shorting ES….unless of course, the bulls come out and chase the bears away.
And for your reading enjoyment:
The Weak-Dollar Threat to Prosperity
Just look at the charts….I’ve got the S&P 500 here, but any index will do. Every day closed at about the same place as the day before. It was a week of nothing….a bunch of dojis. Are we taking a rest before making the big move up or just a topping process to roll over?
S&P Aug 28, 2009
Every day I bet on the rollover. This morning I panicked..after seeing how ugly all my positions looked in the premarket, I saw an opportunity to breakeven, so I did. I took a loss on
DXD but hung on to
DUG and
SMN…and they continued to take off. What a reprieve….cashed out and felt good.
Near the close I went short again: EDZ DUG SMN XLF puts and IWM puts. I’m hoping for some bad news over the weekend. Eight out of 10 taking the short overnite position. I’m gonna have a great weekend…no matter how Monday shows up. Enjoy the weekend and have fun 
Finally Being short over the weekend paid off big time….I love it when a plan comes together.
Futures started it’s downward trek early Sunday evening, but really started moving after Japan’s GDP was not as good as expected and China started falling hard. The markets continued down until about 1 hour after the U.S. markets open. After that we watched paint dry….boring!
I took profits on BGZ and then re-entered back into BGZ and added some DXD. I thought I’d be out of both by the close, but missed it. So now I’m holding a short position overnite. I’m looking (or is that hoping) for some follow-thru on Tuesday.
PPI tomorrow. Until then, I’ll watch what happens in China.
There’s a lot of people out of work and now it seems there is a growing number of people out of unemployment benefits. Given that the proportion of recipients who used up their jobless benefits topped a whopping 49 percent, the continuing claims number going forward will be essentially meaningless.
Friday, with no major economic reports to point the markets in any direction, the equities market struggled to pick a direction on their own. So, they started up, then went down and ended mixed. For the week, the S&P 500 fell -2.64%, Dow -2.95%, Nasdaq -1.69%, and the Russell 2000 fell -2.68%. The question now….is this a pullback to be bought or a warning sign of a tough summer to come?
I’m in the near-term bear camp, so I was planning on entering some market-bearish positions like BGZ or DXD or TWM. And I did play BGZ, but it started making such a profit I had to get out for the cash. 
I was going to get back in by the end of the day, but I got distracted and wasn’t there for the close. I could have entered after-hours, but I said…”What the hell, I’ll wait til Monday.”
So I’ll wait for morning for these entries and also add DTO to the watchlist, because oil doesn’t seem to be going up after all the hubub in Iran and Nigeria. If bulls rush in I’ll just digress and buy, buy, buy
We didn’t lose as many jobs we thought we would, so everyone was ecstatic. Did you see the market jump? But then cooler heads prevailed and noticed that the unemployment rate went sky high and probably still heading higher.
OK, who’s lying here: “Sales were up,” stated several retailer reports this week, meaning that consumer spending is up or at least holding its own. But on Friday, it was reported that consumer borrowing is way, way down. We are a consumer driven economy, if we ain’t borrowing, we ain’t spending. 
Trading went according to plan with the big up move after the Non-farm payroll report, allowing me to add to the TZA position and pick up some positions in QID and DXD. Unexpectedly, I took profits within an hour on both QID and DXD. The market calmed down for the rest of the morning, meandering to the upside and allowing me to start an additional position in BGZ….And I thought I would go into the weekend heavily short the market. But, the market turned down in the afternoon, so I took profits again! Was this fun or not? So now I was going into the weekend flat.
But wait, there’s more. The plunge protection team came late in the day and tried to save the market. This looked ripe for another play. So I picked up more BGZ and TZA. So here I sit now, short for the weekend. My positions are already slightly green and futures are cooperating, being down in early evening trading.
The bulls have momentum and lotsa good news lately, but this week is a slow economic data week, with maybe Wednesday’s release of the Beige Book and Retail sales on Thursday causing some action. I think it is time for a correction and this may be the week to take advantage of that. If we want the market to go up, it definitely needs to retrace. So you hear me market? Go to it
Published on
May 3, 2009,
8:47 pm in
Trading and Weekly.
Tags: 200ma, doji, DXD, FAZ, Fed, MZZ, QID, QQQQ, SDS, SKF, SP500, SRS, TZA.
The market has held up extremely well even though all the indicators show that we are very overbought. We’ve made a run four times for 875 in the S&P recently…3 times just this week, and finally closing 2 points above that line…not real decisive. The QQQQ closed for a second consecutive day above the 200-day moving average, a level it hasn’t traded above consistently for over 9 months. Of course, the candles show doji’s…a very indecisive signal.
As I’ve said before, I am looking for a rest/pullback soon…as is just about everybody. I’ve been playing the Q’s short via QID for most of the week and that has worked out. I closed my QID positions on Friday during the market pullback late in the afternoon, but then started nibbling at QID again after hours after that violent and fast run up.
The upcoming week will give us many chances for a pullback with fairly active economic data releases. Monday we have Construction Spending and Pending Home Sales; Tuesday the ISM Services Index and the Fed Reserve Chairman testifies before Congress. Wednesday is ADP Payroll. Thursday is Weekly Jobless Claims and Productivity and Labor Cost data, and finally Friday is the widely watched Employment statistics.
I’ll be watching many UltraShort ETFs, such as the QID, SDS, DXD, TZA, FAZ, SKF, MZZ, SRS. And be nimble on the trigger…you may have to change your mind quickly
I’ve been shorting for 2 days now and it is still working….at least the positions are in the green. But it sure seems like there needs to be some more pullback to these markets, and for sure to the bank stocks. I’m hoping the pullback is orderly and not too violent, but some correction is needed. I mean, 2 months in a row, the greatest bull run in the shortest amount of time! We need to get the bears back in so when it’s time to move back up we can have more shorts covering
I added to my QID position today…got some with a $35-handle, and if we get a pop or intraday rally on Friday, I may add some more…..or dive long into some other bear ETF like, TMW SDS DXD TZA. I may even hold over the weekend, thinking that next week will continue down. I’d like to see us go down to 810 on the S&P500.
Published on
October 15, 2008,
8:39 pm in
Daily and Trading.
Tags: DGP, DJ30, DTO, DUG, DXD, futures, QID, SDS, SKF, SP500, TWM.
Wow, only 5 stocks in the S&P500 closed in the green today and 1 in the DJ30…that stinks! The goal today was to get back to cash…just so I could preserve as much as possible. Again that last hour was another killer.
I guess I’ll just sit and watch…because I have no idea what this market wants to do. Any plays I make will be with 2x ETFs. Today’s ETFs that would have made money if I had jumped in earlier: DUG, SKF, TWM, SDS, DXD, QID, DTO, DGP.
I’m really getting tired of this market. Remember to try to weed out the political rhetoric and just listen to your charts. The market lives in the moment….I wish I could figure out which moment. The futures are down another 1 – 2%, so I’ll go to bed with a frown on my face 
…but I didn’t trade anything! After being bogged down with a summer cold, or maybe bronchitis, or maybe allergies, I just didn’t feel like doing a damn thing…just coughing, blowing and sneezing. I hate being sick in the summer, but better now than after Labor day.
Actually, there wasn’t much trading at all Friday nor today, nor probably for the entire week. The indexes are looking down and I believe we may meander down until some traders come back into the market. The S&P500 had a big downer, giving back the last 3 days of upside advance. Today it still found support at that magical 1265 area, but looks like it wants more…maybe 1250 here we come…and if that doesn’t hold, July lows here we come!
I got out on Friday from some QID and TWM calls at just about breakeven. Today, I would have been a hero 
but didn’t do nothing, just sat there. Oh well, didn’t feel like doing nothing so I played my plan.
I’m going to continue my “take it easy” attitude this week, maybe watch some double ETFs like QID, DXD, DUG, SSO, QLD and UWM, if anything perks up either up or down. Otherwise, I’ll nurse my cold while my wife says, honey do this and honey do that 
…for me anyway. First, DNDN I thought was reporting after the close. But no. They reported before the open, only the conference call was after. The report wasn’t bad, so I hung on. It closed above its 8ema so I guess I get another day at it. Then the indexes were all wacky. While the Dow and S&P were going down, the Nasdaq was in the green. Thinking the it would eventually follow the rest, I bought into QID. And for most of the day I was sitting in the red…until about the last hour. Then the Naz started to dive and QID moved up… I was able to take half my position off with a profit. I’ll see how the the rest does on Wednesday. The DXD I got into on Monday is still growing greener
I dumped FRE with a loss early on, making me happy when I saw where it finally ended the day. Financials were dragging the whole market down. I didn’t get in or out of anything else since I had some other things to do.
I haven’t had a chance to go through my stock screeners to see what’s going on. I’ll do that later. If anything grabs my attention, I’ll let you know….maybe in the morning. 
Published on
August 11, 2008,
10:18 pm in
Daily and Trading.
Tags: candlesticks, CHK, CPSL, DJ30, DNDN, DXD, FRE, HAL, IAR, MPEL, Nasdaq, SP500, TONE, UNG.
You would think that the unrest in Russia would have caused a bigger spike in oil or gold, but no! And although we ended up for the day, that 110+ point drop late in the day by the Dow, was a bit depressing
Many of the indexes looked like they were going to close with a Shooting Star candle signal, but no again. So the close was not as depressing as the trip down. The Nasdaq closed at its 200dma, and the S&P closed above its 50dma. What does that mean for tomorrow? Hell if I know. I guess we will interpret them to the best we can. I would not be surprised at either direction, so I’ll decide what to do when it happens
Today was a good day for me. Money was made with HAL options, MPEL, and TONE. I am still holding some “in the reds” – FRE and CPSL….and some “in the greens” – IAR and DNDN. I also picked up some options on the Dow Ultrashort DXD to hedge my long stocks….which is in the green, for now.
For tomorrow I’m looking at SM because it has been supported at the 500 day moving average for a week now. I’m also getting suspicious of nat gas and oil. Seems like it should at least bounce a bit even if it is going to continue down. So I’m adding CHK and UNG to the watchlist. DNDN, a volatile biotech, has earnings after the close tomorrow, so we’ll have to see what happens. There seems to be a lot of call buying going into the report….either I’ll close the position or add to it
G’nite y’all!
Published on
July 24, 2008,
9:37 pm in
Daily and Trading.
Tags: ABAT, ARBA, AXL, CRUS, DXD, HANS, IAR, markets, QDEL, QID, SDS.
Yes, the indexes were down anywhere from 1% to 3%…and financial stocks were down big, but look how fast we came up the past week. We quickly became overbought and now we will quickly reset for a continuation up. Let’s take a breather for a couple days.
Individual stocks were good to play. I had luck with IAR, CRUS and ARBA….after unloading the banks I had held over from yesterday. Tomorrow being Friday, I’ll be going to cash, or mostly cash, sometime tomorrow…either early or late…depending on how the markets go.
I’ll put some of the ultra-shorts in my watchlist just in case it all goes to hell…SDS, DXD, QID, along with some short stocks HANS and AXL. For longs I’m liking the action in QDEL and ABAT.
I’m ready…bring on the markets
