Not even HPQ’s acquisition of COMS was enough to get the bulls running. They were too tired with 8 up days in a row. They just had to take a break…all that rallying can be tiring!
Stocks did try to move up in the morning, but the strength of the dollar was too much. You would think that a report stating another 500,000 people were laid off last week would be a downer, but the market rallied in the pre-market before running into the strong dollar. But now, how far do we go?
I tried to stay on the sidelines again, but the itch got to me. I had some mild success with the ES emini contract both up and down. My big winner was QQQQ puts which by a lot of luck I got in low and sold high all in about 60 minutes. For the S&P, that double top we talked about before seems to be working just like the books say. 
Looking for follow-thru on Friday the 13th. Watchout for ladders and black cats. 
All the indexes closed about even, no big ups, no big downs…..and where did all the traders go? Volume has been coming down for more than a week, along with the VIX, as it did go sub-30, closing at 28.8. So less volume and less volatility….daytrader’s hell. 
My activity was tame as well. All I did was add to my BGZ position and started a small TZA position on the market rallies. And with that last half-hour stumble, both positions went green.
After hours, HPQ had a mediocre report, the UK has a scandal in its House of Commons, BAC reported they have diluted their shares to the tune of 1.25 billion shares, and futures reacted downward. I’m still looking at overbought markets and see a downward move….sometime this week….but we’ll take the market as it comes.
Published on
February 16, 2009,
2:21 pm in
Trading.
Tags: BIDU, BRCD, CEG, CHK, CVS, DE, DRYS, GM, HPQ, JCP, LOW, NGS, RIG, RIO, TSO, WMT.
…this week may cause a stir…..besides being options expiration week. On Tuesday look for WMT, RIG, CHK; Wednesday is CEG, BIDU, DE, HPQ; Thursday find GM, CVS, NGS, BRCD, RIO, DRYS, TSO; and on Friday JCP and LOW. Yes, there are a whole bunch more, but these will be noticed enough to move the market, if not the stock.
The S&P futures, ES, took a tumble for the few hours Globex/CME was open, down 11.25 points…but only 115k contracts traded today in a product that usually has 2 million plus. Futures open up again at 5PM today, so a better read can be made later.
