Tag Archive for 'HBAN'

Breathing Hard

Published on May 7, 2009, 10:10 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The market has been breathing real hard for a couple weeks now, as it climbed the wall of worry. And now it looks like it wants to roll back a little just to gather some energy. The futures this evening are actually up, but there is still a long night ahead….with a climax on Friday morning with the Non-farm Payroll numbers.

My short strategy of the last week accumulating QID and QQQQ puts paid off today. I probably closed my positions too early…but you can’t go broke taking profits, no matter how small. I’m sitting in cash right now, waiting for the report in the morning, seeing where the overseas markets end at. I suspect that the report will disaapoint and the markets go down, but I’d rather wait and see than speculate. Also the usual Friday afternoon lag will play.

It’s weird seeing all the bank ETFs are all red afterhours today. HBAN and BAC took off afterhours, while WFC continued down. Okay, time to rest up and hit it hard in the morning :P

Again….

Published on April 15, 2009, 6:55 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

…don’t short a dull market. And boy was it dull, until about 2:30PM EDT, and wow, did it take off. Isn’t this a sign of a bull market when even bad news can’t bring it down? Bad retail sales, bad CPI (unless you don’t eat or use a car), bad earnings, or any news for that matter can give the bears enough energy to tank this thing.

I sat and watched through it all. Yesterday, I made several months worth of profits on DNDN, so I didn’t really have the energy to trade….yes, a hangover :oops: But, with a clearer head, I would have bought the banks, especially HBAN and FITB, or the ETFs: FAS, UYG or XLF. The morning provided for some nice entries and the afternoon provided for some nice profit taking. Yes, I paper trade when I don’t feel like using real money ;-)

Volume was down today on the upside, while it was up yesterday on the downside…a bit disconcerting. The VIX continued down, now in the mid-30’s…a good sign. The market relieved some of that overbought pressure. The Trader’s Almanac is showing that tomorrow and Friday to be bullish. In fact, April Expiration Day has been up the last 10 out of 12. We’ll see how that goes.

Never short a dull market…

Published on March 31, 2009, 9:30 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

…In a low volume scenario, the market can skin you alive if you’re short. And boy could you hear the screams around lunch time 8O And after the cash close at 4PM, the S&P futures started diving to the tune if 15 points and then continued to fall when the futures re-opened for another 15 points. It’s been an ugly couple of hours in the futures this evening.

So, does this show us what to expect tomorrow? If I knew that I’d be rich :oops: Early overseas markets are up, but that may be more of a reaction to what happened during the cash market hours here in the US.

Banks did do very well today: UYG FAS FITB HBAN C BAC WFC JPM and all the rest. And of course, MSFT got an analyst upgrade and popped a good 5% today. But, like the futures, the banks were showing weakness in the after hours session.

So I’ll leave you with this: the Trader’s Almanac says “First day in April, Dow up 11 of last 14. Up 300 points in 2000 and 400 last year (2008).” Sounds good, yes? But it also said “Last trading day in March, Dow down 10 of last 14.” And we know that didn’t carry today. We’ll see. Happy Trading :!:

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!

Looking Forward…

Published on March 1, 2009, 11:08 pm in Trading and Weekly. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

…because looking backward is ugly! Let’s see, we just had our worst February point drop ever….along with the worst 6-month performance ever. Whoo boy, hasn’t this been fun ;-)

This past week we’ve had terrible selling at the end of the day, which reminds me of last October and November. Gee, I thought most of the hedge funds would have been out of business by now, heehee.

Be quick, be nimble and you can jump all those candlesticks. That’s why buying and holding, even for a couple days, much less a couple weeks, has been a killer of equity. Just look at Friday…up and then down, up a little then down a lot. Did you see those last few minutes of volume bars?

S&P futures are continuing that down move this evening, and Dow futures are below 7000. Hopefully they’ll get it all out of their systems by morning. I’ll continue to keep my eye on the financials, both long and short, via FAS, FAZ, UYG, SKF, HBAN, FITB, BAC. A few other stocks came up on my scans that I’ve added to my watchilist: ITWO, HMA, STSI, LAMR, S, AYR. Do your due diligence! See you on the playing field.

Ugly Close….again

Published on February 26, 2009, 10:23 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

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 8)

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 :cry:

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!

Seen any good banks?

Published on February 25, 2009, 10:30 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

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 :oops:

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.

Some good lookers for Monday

Published on November 9, 2008, 9:41 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Going through some charts, I’ve found quite a few good lookers setting up for a good week including: VLO, CVS, CRUS, HBAN, MAT, NSM.

Of course, don’t forget to do your own due diligence ;)

Timing is everything

Published on October 27, 2008, 11:18 pm in Tidbits and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

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…..

Sucker’s Bet

Published on July 22, 2008, 6:59 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

In the pre-market I was lining up a bunch of stocks to short today. At the open they gapped down or were going down pretty hard…XL, FNF, CAKE, BARE to name a few. I didn’t go short today at all. Within 15 minutes the bottom was hit and it was up up and away…slow but steady, until the last hour when it took off :)

Had a great time with CPSL, DNDN, IAR, and CHINA, which I’m still holding.

To me, today was amazing…I didn’t expect it. Actually, I was looking for a much harder down day….like I said yesterday, a panic…with maybe a slight recovery near the end. I didn’t think the marketplace would discount the bad earnings last night so fast. Did you see that recovery on AAPL ? I didn’t have the kahoonas to buy in at the open. And with oil coming down, the airlines were magnificent!

But, always a big but, can the financials continue? Some of them have doubled in a week! Take a look at HBAN, PFBC, CBON….like wow! Even XLF has been nice to us. When they turn, we go test the July lows….and hopefully we bounce.

Remember, this is the biggest week of earnings announcements this season, and Thursday will be the biggest (greatest number) day of the week. Be nimble…and practice safe trading :mrgreen:

That was fun!

Published on July 8, 2008, 10:17 pm in Daily and Trading. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Was that a bounce I saw? Finally! :lol:

I’d have to say that after the several weeks we’ve had recently, this was a fun day in the market. I had fun with ABAT, VVUS, QQQQ and SSO. And looking through the charts this evening, there are a lot of nice looking setups…at least relative to those same lousy weeks mentioned earlier.

It was still a very sloppy down morning until about 2PM when it seemed that the bulls were let loose….the Dow did a 165 point rise in a steady uptrend….in 2 hours time…yeah baby! Volume was above average also. But, our pop was not as big as oil’s drop.

My scans are bringing up a large amount of stocks. Just the bullish engulfing scan brought up 288 possibilities! Looks like I’m gonna have to tighten this up a bit by putting in some more stringent criteria. Anyways, here’s a couple additional stocks I’ll be watching in the morning: MBLX, BBW, EWBC, HBAN, CHP.

Looks like Asia is having a positive reaction to our markets. By morning we’ll see how Europe likes it and how the futures respond. Here’s to a jam-packed trading day on Wednesday…Happy Trading!