Tag Archive for 'FAZ'

Looking for a good, no, great day

Published on July 8, 2009, 9:23 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Sometimes I amaze myself :D Yesterday I “hoped” for a down move and a reversal…and today I got it! Sorta. I was looking for a gap down (didn’t get it) and a strong reversal (didn’t get it). But the intent was there :!:

My DYY positions continued down until the announcement of the Treasury auction…DYY has a portion of its assets in 3-year treasuries. It recovered a bit. The other trades I made today was averaging down in price some GS Jul 135 calls. I was about to give up and just take my losses when the market, but more importantly, GS turned up and made a nice recovery. My GS call position is sitting very nicely in the green. GS earnings are next week, so I’d like to see a move up to a great earnings report.

Futures this evening are still excited about the move up…they are continuing to the upside. Let’s see how Asia and Europe will react. Maybe that little bounce to test the June highs :?:

And all you FAZ / FAS traders, don’t forget the 10-to-1 and 5-to-1 reverse splits are effective tomorrow. Time to make….or lose…a lot of money fast again.

Busy trading day

Published on June 16, 2009, 9:42 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

After the initial shock of the market being up first thing in the morning…and my short ETFs being underwater…a little patience paid off big time. Wow, 2 days in a row with a good pay-off! EDZ FAZ and DUG all recovered and turned green.

After unloading, I worked the market with BGU, getting in and out a couple times…adding to the coffers. I also ended the day opening another small position in BGU to catch an anticipated updraft tomorrow morning. I didn’t have conviction to buy a full position, so I just picked up a couple hundred shares. :oops:

Is the pullback over? I think not. But trading fast, both up and down, makes for a busy day…and fruitful. After 2 down days of about 290 points in the Dow, we could see a little jump up, just like today. I would not be surprised to see 890 on the S&P500 in the next few days or weeks. The scary thought is, what if it continues down?

Which way now?

Published on June 15, 2009, 9:09 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Markets got ugly early last evening in Asia and continued through Europe. It may have been the talk from the G8 that they discussed they are looking to unwind all their massive economic stimulus packages. That downward pressure was confirmed by the report that manufacturing activity fell more than expected in June. Markets gapped down at the open and never looked back.

Which was fine with me! I took profits on TZA and BGZ fairly early. But then, It was tough trying to wait for some sort of bounce to get back in. My first new short was DUG, ultrashort oil. It hasn’t moved much since I entered, but my thinking is that oil still has some downside. I picked up some FAZ when AXP started to break back down and finished off with EDZ ultrashort emerging markets, thinking that the rest of the world is not going to like the US action and go down some more.

So the big question is: Do buyers come in to buy this dip…as they have for the past 3 months, or will they just not get interested in buying a shaky economy. Or maybe the sellers will want to have a small party of their own. A pullback sure would give the idea of a bull rally a lot more fuel to keep going. :!:

My Plan…Faster, Smaller

Published on May 17, 2009, 9:11 pm in Trading and Weekly. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

It was a down week for the markets, but an up week for my account. :lol: And I was trading the opposite direction of the market all week. I did come into the week fairly short with QID FAZ and QQQQ puts, making it a very successful Monday, but I didn’t think it would continue. So I started to get long by the end of Monday. It was QLD and BGU that made money by the end of the week. Every day held opportunities for the bulls and the bears. If I was a bit more nimble, I could have entered and exited faster to take advantage.

It was the worst week for the markets since the bottom in early March….and the S&P and Dow closed near the lows of the week. So I’m thinking we continue down. This notion is being confirmed with the futures this Sunday evening and a real poor start in the Asian markets. I’ll continue this week with the same tactics as last week…smaller positions and quick, small profits. Of course, just because it worked last week…how does that go….previous results do not guarantee future gains.

Got Shares?

Published on May 12, 2009, 9:59 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Many companies looking for money by diluting their outstanding shares…thus making their stock price go down. And they all were going down…until about 2PM EDT when the bulls came back from lunch and wanted to skin the shorts. But boy, what an opportunity.

So, as I wrote last night, I had QQQQ puts and FAZ from yesterday, which were looking pretty ugly in the pre-market, but turned at the open and made for a very profitable day. I also picked up some IWM puts during one of the intraday rallies. I covered all short positions during the lunch hour and thought I was done until about 1:30 when the Dow and S&P500 charts showed some bottoming action. About 30 minutes later it looked like a confirmation and quickly picked up some QLD and BGU. I held on for about 45 minutes and cashed out again on the long side. Oh what a glorious day….well, profitable anyway.

Tonight I sit in cash trying to figure out something with the market. Being options expiration week, and tomorrow being Wednesday, usually the most bullish of opex days, I’m looking for some bull action. If you take a look at the S&P500 5min chart, you can see a cup and handle formation, usually a bullish formation.

I’m just going to see what the market brings in the morning. 8)

Did you take profits?

Published on May 11, 2009, 9:16 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Stocks under pressure, profit-taking, pullback, whatever you want to call it, stocks went down today…and I think it’s a good thing. First and foremost it’s because I was holding short positions. Second, it makes for a healthy market.

My day started Sunday night when I shorted ES at 920 and covered Monday morning at 910…oh what a feeling :lol: Within 15 minutes of the market open I cashed out QID near the QQQQ lows…another ring of the bell. I was still holding onto QQQQ Jun35 puts thinking I was on a roll, but they went downhill from there. About mid-afternoon they finally went red, but all I did was add a bit more near the lows. By the end of the cash session, the puts were back in the green and I think we will have some more down side movement on Tuesday. The only other trade I’m holding is FAZ which is sitting in the green and again, looking for this to go up with the banks going down, while they sell shares to raise capital to pay back TARP funds.

Asian markets down, as are the futures this evening. Happy Trading :!:

The Week That Was

Published on May 3, 2009, 8:47 pm in Trading and Weekly. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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 :!:

Wild Week Ahead?

Published on April 26, 2009, 9:06 pm in News, Trading and Weekly. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

With tech woes behind me…I hope, I hope….I’ve had time to review what happened this week. Although the Nasdaq was able to make it 7 in a row, the S&P500 and Dow took a little breather. On the weekly charts the indexes are very overbought, while on the daily they still have some room for upside. But I’m thinking the news may play a big role. Specifically the threat of a world pandemic with the swine flu and the near threat of socializing the US banks….and the direction looks to be down :twisted:

So, I’m looking at the 2x and 3x short ETFs, such as: FAZ BGZ TZA SRS…..and I always look to scalp a few points in the S&P emini futures in either direction. It will be a very big earnings week with about 150 of the S&P500 and several of the Dow, including VZ XOM and PG. There’s an FOMC meeting and a lot of economic data. Plus, the month is ending, so all those money managers are going to make their portfolios look pretty. This is going to be a wild week :!:

The FAS-FAZ Dance

Published on April 13, 2009, 10:24 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Wasn’t that something….watching FAS and FAZ teetering back and forth, up and down. FAS closed higher than FAZ for the first time since they both started last November. Then GS came out with its earnings report today rather than the scheduled time tomorrow….and they were good….but it may have just put us a bit overbought. The futures this evening are down, as well as early Asian returns.

Since the cat is out of the bag on GS, we still have some important reports this week: INTC GOOG JPM C MAT among others. There’s also PPI and CPI reports coming out, along with the weekly jobless claims. Oh, and let’s not forget, it’s options expiration week :!: I think we have a wild week on our hands.

Happy Easter….bulls!

Published on April 13, 2009, 10:21 pm in Trading and Weekly. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

All week, everybody, including myself, kept saying how Thursday was going to be a lackluster day with everyone taking off early for the holiday….something like, “not expecting huge moves on a no volume pre-holiday market.” Not only was Thursday’s volume the highest of the week, but also the highest in 3 weeks. No bull wanted to leave early for a holiday…at least not before buying some stock. And, the Nasdaq closed at a new high for the year :!: The Dow and S&P500 still have another 10-12% to get there.

The banks and financials led the way after WFC surprised with news of record profits in the first quarter. Gee, weren’t they about to go under about 6 weeks ago? When money doesn’t cost you anything to use, even I could make a profit ;-)

Another neat thing about to happen, maybe, is that FAS and FAZ may reach parity. Again, 6 weeks ago, FAS was at $2.32 while FAZ was at $115.50. FAS has climbed to $8.71 while FAZ has fallen to $10.49….amazing. So FAS has quadrupled while FAZ has fallen “only” 92%.

I started writing this post on Saturday afternoon….then my PC crashed….hard! It is now Sunday night and I’m now re-installing all my software and trying to remember all my passwords. This is the first time I’ve experienced a crash which did not let me back in via safe-mode. It was just dead. It’s not my trading PC, so I’m still ready to go in the morning. But I do use a separate PC for my “communications”….web browsers, email, twitter, blogs, PalTalk, IM and the like. Technology, can’t live with it…can’t live without it. :oops:

Banks down, Banks up

Published on March 30, 2009, 9:45 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Well it was a rough start that lasted all day. I couldn’t get a good handle on the S&P futures (ES) so I didn’t play along at all. The only trade I made was adding to my UYG position late in the day.

The big banks took it on the chin, and thus, FAZ really took off. But not all the banks were hurting. FITB SBNY ABCW are a few of the regional banks that did alright on a down day. A couple other tickers were doing well for an ugly day: SHFL EEE ARIA ANV QCOR. Now to see if they pan out tomorrow.

Overall it was another low volume down day, but support levels did hold, like $30.00 for the QQQQs and the 34ema for both the DJ30 and SP500. I’d say the low volume pullback is not bad…at least not yet. Futures are in the green this evening and so are overseas markets, at little bit anyway. So let’s watch those banks again and see if they start moving up

Rough start?

Published on March 29, 2009, 8:53 pm in Trading and Weekly. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Friday was a mediocre consolidation day, with the lowest volume day in the month of March…but then, the entire week was low volume. The banks were a bit lethargic and the rest of the markets followed suit.

But, trading was profitable :-) I had several great trades in ES, ending the week in positive territory for my P/L….which barely made up some lousy trades in the banking sector. I had a run in with FAZ during the week, which left a bad taste, but made it up with UYG. Still holding some UYG, but stops are in at breakeven…so it will end up a good trade no matter what it decides to do on Monday.

Some financial stocks came up on my scans this evening which I’ve added to my watch list for tomorrow: NFP TEN AIB WBS … along with some techs: RNWK ATML TNL.

Futures are moving to the downside this evening, along with the overseas markets. The government is showing its hand in business management, firing GM CEO Wagoner. I think we start off on shakey ground Monday morning :-(