What the $%@&* Trading!

Friday was a nice ending to a lousy week. The week started out okay, but Wednesday and Thursday really sucked….but, on lower volume. Friday came back up…but again on lower volume. Although there were some crazy swings, I’m still thinking we just saw some profit-taking after the previous week’s run-up. I guess it is strange to call a weekly Dow range of a thousand points as “basing.”

I’m looking for an up week though….well…an up Monday at least. But if we close at the upper portion of our range, the week should setup for a bullish tilt!

Asian markets have opened to the upside and U.S. futures are continuing their late-Friday bull run. Time to go scanning and looking at charts. Live long and trade everybody

It’s nice watching television this evening without any political ads….and the Law & Order reruns are ones I don’t remember

I sold my UYG position for a 42% gain….didn’t want to risk the reaction day on Wednesday. Besides still sitting on a few QQQQ calls. I did a few trades during the day with S&P emini futures, ES, but otherwise I’m sitting mostly in cash.

Overseas markets are liking that the election is over…futures seem to be happy also! Does the rally continue tomorrow? I’ll sleep on it and trade what I see in the morning. Now I’ll go have nightmares about higher taxes

The Stock Trader’s Almanac says the first four days in November are bullish…and futures so far this morning are looking bullish as well.

The most important thing to do today is VOTE. The second thing to do is make money….even if you do have to give it all away in taxes

And, as they say in Chicago, the home of dirty politics (and the constituents of one of the candidates), Vote early and vote often

It was a bit scary about noon today, but after we bottomed out we had a nice move to the upside, continuing from the the last two days. We’re still in search for 2 green days together in the Dow and S&P500, while the Naz and the Russell have had 3 in a row! The Russell 2000 looks the strongest of them all, closing at the high of the day today after making new lows just 3 days ago. C’mon, let’s go for four-in-a-row.

You can play the Russell with IWM and UWM, both the stocks or call options, which both have been working well these 3 days. Those plays along with ES and YM futures have made for a very nice week. ES futures were so volatile today, I didn’t have a trade that lasted more than 15 minutes until the last half hour…and that was because I walked away from my screens when the markets took a big dive. I waited it out and it worked by the close

Did some chart scans this evening and found a few I’m adding to the watchlist: BMII, EYE, ERES, LPNT. Still hanging on to UYG. Also added some stocks into my long-term account: CVS, CVX and MRK. These looked like they have bottomed and seemed like good recession plays.

Sure would like this market go up for another couple of days running up to the election. That’s what the Stock Trader’s Almanac says anyway.

The DJ30 and S&P500 closed in the red but not too far down. Other indexes like the Russell2000, Nasdaq, and NYSE were up and green. And during the day there were a lot of up and down moves to make a trader happy

My QQQQ calls and UYG continue their up move and ES futures paid again. Overseas markets have good action. Futures this evening have been rising. If we don’t finish up for the week….it may get back to ugly again

…closing at the high….yeah baby!!! Those bears are shaking in the bushes

I bought IWM and UWM calls about 2 o’clock this afternoon. Within the hour they were up about 60% so I cashed out. Oops, close to a double by the end of the day. Oh well. I’m still in my QQQQ Jan calls and also in UYG. I doubled down last night in UYG and it turned into a big winner. I still see it as a double over the next several months. And again, ES futures were a wonderful play

The afternoon today was really something! With no selloff, it then became an amazing sight to watch 500…600…700…what the hell 800….and oh my god 900! But, just look at the Dow chart…we’re right back where we started last Tuesday!

And another thing….the markets have not been able to put two green days together for a month! The Fed will tell us tomorrow if we can do it! So let’s make a proclamation…the markets do not go down any more this week Let’s see if that works

Interesting tidbit heard on CNBC today….the S&P500 is down 43% from its highs in October 2007. BUT, if you had not traded the 10 worst days since then, you would be up 4%….now that’s timing

I also did some good timing today with HBAN and XING along with picking up some additional shares of UYG. I’ve also been able to hedge all my bets with S&P500 futures, or ES. Playing the futures keeps me on my toes, since none of the trades have lasted more than 60 minutes…and some as fast as 90 seconds. I did 8 round turns with ES today.

Futures are looking good this evening But then again, they were looking good yesterday…..

Woke up to another ugly market. Boy, futures really deteriorated after going to sleep. Here’s some fuel for the fire…NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini :

“We’ve reached a situation of sheer panic. Yet I fear the worst is ahead of us. Don’t be surprised if policy makers need to close down markets for a week or two in coming days”.

I’m still basically bullish, just not buying much

The markets are too crazy to try to predict something or to try to read something into all this technical analysis. Futures had a nice evening, but have turned down as I write….same for Asia markets.

Guess I’ll go practice my chart scanning. Happy trading!

Pre-market futures tripped the circuit breakers and were halted. The chatter on TV talked about stock market curbs going into effect soon after the open. But no! Today’s market was no different than any other day this month…..crazy, but not overly so.

Again we failed to put 2 up days together. There’s only 1 week left to see if we can string 2 together this month.

It was a good day for me, mostly on going long and short ES, the S&P500 futures. Some trades lasted only 90 seconds! Active day and nerve-racking. Even some of my QQQQ calls were in the green. Still have some calls, but I never hold futures overnight, much less an entire weekend.

Have a great weekend everybody…relax….tip a few…and enjoy

I moved from being a day-trader to being an hourly trader. It was much easier to control my emotions, and thus made mo’ money. Today was actually a good day for me until they closed the index futures markets. Oh well.

This is gonna hurt a lot of people, IRA’s and 401k’s. Keep your powder dry. The time to start buying for a longer term may be at hand

Limit down day on the indexes. I guess my indicators are only good for a couple hours….but then again I was trading futures at 3 o’clock in the morning