Tag Archive for 'Fed'

What was that?

Published on January 13, 2010, 8:57 pm in Daily, Opinions and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Stocks moved down at the open after last night’s AA disappointment, but quickly stopped the downward trek after about an hour and began a move up. After the Beige Book came out explaining that “situations are improving in 10 out of 12 Fed districts signaling that the economic recovery is well underway,” well, that just sealed the deal. But I didn’t really understand why the markets went up.

I started to go through the recent headlines to see if I could figure this irrational exhuberance out. Here’s what I came up with: Huge Earthquake in Haiti, Argentina Meltdown, Greece on the Edge, One in Eight Americans Receives Food Stamps, Major banks targeted for higher fees and taxes, Companies withdrawing from China, Rates heading up! After all that….markets go up….on lousy volume :!: What the $%@&*

I got out of most of my short positions in the morning, and then re-entered near the close. I can’t wait to see how this week finishes…it is OpEx y’know….and don’t forget we are going into a long weekend, as markets will be closed on Monday.

Here’s some more “good” news….
The Government Can’t Create Jobs

Dollar Crisis Looms if US Doesn’t Curb Debt

What I saw

Published on December 15, 2009, 11:09 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Not much. I didn’t get to my trading desk until the afternoon. I did notice the markets went down when I was looking for them to go up. :( But, that’s what markets do.

I didn’t get rid of anything and I did add some GS calls near the end of the day….hopefully near the bottom.

Why did the homebuilders like HOV and BZH get goosed today? I’ve added them to my watchlist for tomorrow.

ES futures in a small range this evening, 2 points. FOMC rate decision tomorrow, after morning of Housing and Building info and CPI.

See, I told you I didn’t see much. 8)

News Flash

Published on November 4, 2009, 3:43 am in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Futures were down pretty big this morning until…..famed investor Buffet bought BNI. You must know though that Buffet already owned 30% of the outstanding stock. So to me, he was basically talking up his own book. Yes, the other 70% owners made out, but so did Buffet’s 30%. And, all of that hoopla blocked out JNJ’s announcement of restructuring and laying off 7% of its workforce!

Oh well, beside that, it was a fairly boring market day…another up move on a lower volume day, and not giving us any idea of what it’s doing. Tomorrow at 2PM we get the FOMC announcement. Now that should shove some volatility up our arses :!:

I’m looking for some downside moves, but, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, November is the #1 month for S&P, #3 month for Dow, #2 for NASDAQ. So history says we may go up.

Remember….As Keynes famously once said “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”. So be careful.

Reality sets in?

Published on September 23, 2009, 10:13 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

It was an uneventful trading day, until the FOMC meeting concluded a little after 2PM…..then, well, it got real interesting. The markets were making a slow grind upward prior to the announcement and then quickly took off upward doubling its day’s gain in a matter of minutes. You could hear the bears groaning as their stops went pop, pop, pop.

Then reality set in as traders realized there was not any revealing or new news in the Fed statement! Duh! Haven’t we already priced in all this bullshit? The markets then spent the next 90 minutes diving fast and hard. You could smell steak grilling as the bulls had their stops popping on the way down.

If you’re a regular reader, you know that I have maintained fairly bearish positions for the last month…..and you know that for the past week I’ve had problems with my internet connection. That mixture put me in a precarious position today. I was nursing my position most of the day between internet outages. About 2 o’clock, prior to me setting some emergency stops, I lost my connection…cable internet down….cable TV up (it is the same cable isn’t it?). So I’m cussing up a storm as I was watching CNBC and waiting for the internet to come back. It took about 15 minutes this time and I’m still sweating. My positions were all down TZA QID and UYG puts….but not as far down as I thought they would be with that market run up. So I let them stay…..and by golly gee willickers, they ended up smelling like roses. Yeah baby! :lol:

I did close OPXA early in the day after a fantastic move. It was drowning well underwater last night, but resurrected in the pre-market and reached its high of the day early in the session. After taking profits it had a very nice and orderly pullback and re-entered. So I have one long position in a sea of shorts.

Tomorrow we have jobless claims, always a market moving number, and Durable Orders on Friday. So there is still action to be had this week. If it acts out like my dreams, I’ll see a corrective action this week before we get some quarter ending window dressing. Then a nice crash in October. Well, it could just happen that way y’know. 8O

Wondering….

Published on August 30, 2009, 9:09 pm in Opinions, Trading and Weekly. 0 Comments Tags: , .

…if the markets can make a move this week. Manipulated or not, the news and reports last week were mostly good. But, the markets didn’t move much. Sure there was a decent range each day so that both bulls and bears could make, or lose, money…. But each day ended pretty much where they started…as did the week….an entire week of dojis….indecision.

Again we had fairly good earnings with lousy revenues. Soon the cost cutting will be over and true earnings will show up…..or should I say down? Data coming out this week will be highlighted on Tuesday with ISM Manufacturing Index, on Wednesday we have the latest FOMC minutes, and the big shabang on Friday with the monthly Employment Report when we find out our new unemployment rate….all before going into a holiday weekend.

With many kids going back to school this week I wonder if volume picks up some, along with volatility? I am positioned short for the open, but at the moment futures and oil are up and the dollar down….not conducive for a short position. We’ll see what the morning brings. :?

Cold Day, Hot After Hours

Published on July 14, 2009, 8:58 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

You would have thought that those GS earnings would have kicked the markets up fast, but no. And as expected, GS traded in a narrow range much like the market. The real action was afterhours today when INTC reported their earnings. After closing at $16.83, INTC popped a buck+ and closed afterhours at $18.02. Even more surprising was the reaction in the future indexes. Yes I understand the NQ futures popping, but ES and YM took off like a bat out of hell :!:

YM popped almost 110 points but is off almost 82 points from the highs. The ES has given back 4 points from its highs. Yes, all future indexes are green, but traders must be wondering why they are buying all this on the report of one chip company? I’m thinking after a strong open tomorrow, reality may set in, or maybe the Xanax, and calmer, saner heads will prevail.

The big thing I see is that the PPI report shows us inflation is creeping in. On Wednesday morning we have the CPI, along with Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization, Business Inventories, Oil Inventories, and FOMC Meeting minutes. So it’s a jam-packed day of eco reports and a bunch more earnings reports.

I’m still more short than long, and am figuring to get to my max-pain point sometime tomorrow. Happy Trading….and be careful out there. 8)

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 :!:

70’s flashback

Published on April 29, 2009, 10:06 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

No, it’s not the drugs I took back then :oops: It’s that the initial Q1 GDP was down 6.1% and the US economy hasn’t contracted 3 consecutive quarters since the mid-70’s. You would think that would be bad news. But no, the futures moved up and the markets opened with an upside note and played it all day long. About the time of the Fed announcement, I thought markets would start down, so I bought QID. It was the right move and walked away with a dollar move in my direction. I still holding a half position, but early futures trading has the markets continuing up.

This market is as unreal in the upside as it was unreal to the downside in February! The weeks before the March low, we were oversold for a long time before we finally hit bottom. This time, the inverse – overbought for weeks and will not go down.

Asian markets are up big this evening…and if Europe catches the fever, we may be looking for a gap up Thursday morning. Of course, 10 hours in the financial markets is a long way to go 8O

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 :!:

Sunday afternoon pontifications…

Published on March 22, 2009, 1:44 pm in Opinions, Trading and Weekly. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I’m looking for an up week. I think there is enough upcoming news that may bring some optimism to the most downtrodden of bulls. And if the Arrogant Idiots and Goofballs (AIG) ever get out of the headlines, we may really takeoff :lol:

With announcements about toxic assets, TALF, FDIC and public-private partnerships, if this isn’t the start of a new bull, we should at least get a dramatic bear rally. We’ve also got some economic reports this week that may be a catalyst…Existing and New Home Sales, Durable Goods Orders, 4th Quarter GDP, Personal Income and Spending, as well as the weekly Jobless Claims.

Yes, I’m cheer leading for the bulls, at least in the mid-term….but I still watch the daily trend, either up or down, and base my daily trades on that. For the mid- and long-term in my IRAs and retirement accounts, I’ve been accumulating bit by bit, dollar-cost averaging new purchases, mostly in ETFs like the financials (UYG), real estate (URE), crude (DXO) and some indexes (SSO and IWM).

And speaking of indexes, they’ve had a great 7 days:

  • The Russell 2000 up 21.7%
  • The NASDAQ up 17.5%
  • The S&P500 up 17.4%
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average up 14.4%

So last week the S&P500 got knocked down from its January lows and the Dow from its November lows. No big deal. I think the next time we approach they will breakthrough….maybe after the S&P tests its November lows and bounces.

OK, time to check out some basketball and a few Bud Lights 8)

2 weeks up!

Published on March 20, 2009, 9:17 pm in Trading and Weekly. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Well, it was an ugly close to the week, but we have strung together 2 back-to-back up weeks. Haven’t seen that for a while! So we had some profit-taking and some consolidation of the rally…that’s not a bad thing. It was a fairly sedate options expiration. Yes there was news from GS about their continuing exposure to AIG’s problems and some news about the FDIC getting low in reserves, but overall it was a quiet news day.

I’m gonna go through plenty of charts this weekend and also experiment making some new scans in Tradestation. Thought you might like this video on the S&P and the crude oil market from the MarketClub. It’s a video looking at two different markets that are headed in two different directions. Enjoy…and have a wonderfully relaxing weekend :D

Big Ben to the rescue…again

Published on March 18, 2009, 8:41 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I think we need to call this “Ben’s Rally”. It started last week when Ben Bernanke hinted to Congress that the Fed was going to get tougher in playing a role in America’s Economic recovery. Then he talked nice in a TV interview over the weekend. And today he showed his hand….printing money to by the U.S. IOU’s, sometimes called Treasuries….a trillion dollars worth. Time will tell if this is a good strategy, but, at least in the short term, traders liked the news and the markets showed it, ending up, up, and away.

The day started on a down note and really meandered on very low volume. But, come 2:15PM, volume exploded and really drove the market upward. If you were in long, congrats. And even if you weren’t, you had plenty of time to get in and catch a part of the move…..and if you were on your toes, you got some on the subsequent pullback. ;)

An interest side note: Bonds went up with stocks. Usually bonds are inverse to stocks. That is, when stocks go up, bonds go down…and vice versa. But, both stocks and bonds went up today. You can follow bonds with some ETFs like TLT, TBT, TIP, and TLO.

The banks continue to outshine them all: C, BAC, HBAN, WFC, FITB, along with financial ETFs: UYG, FAS and XLF….all opening their ATM machines to traders. Did you withdraw some cash?

Some profiteering here would not be a surprise…and may even be healthy. A pullback, maybe even suckering in a few more shorts, and we could be going to the races again. Well, the Kentucky Derby is only about 6 weeks away :lol: Happy Trading!