What the $%@&* Trading!

Nice rally into the close. Unfortunately the advance-decline line was still a negative number (-519 NYSE). Negative ADs on up days were a symptom seen before the ‘87 crash. Looking ominous, but I still made some $$$ on QQQQ calls today.

The Naz looked the strongest today, leading the market around. But the Dow looked real impressive in that last hour. And volume was up today

As I said yesterday, I’m treading lightly in this market. I was out much of the day today, so I placed a few orders at the open with trailing stops. The stops didn’t trigger and I was able to play along in the afternoon, cashing out at the close. Yeah, still too antsy to hold overnite.

I’ll scan for charts later tonight. If anything grabs me, I’ll let you know.

Today is starting off with giving us everything back from yesterday We’ll have to see if the FOMC announcements this afternoon continues the uptrend or gives it the kabosh. I’m at a disadvantage this morning because I didn’t do my homework last night…opting instead to celebrate my wife’s birthday….hic! But with oil being down big, the airlines and other transports are doing well. I usually don’t buy in the first hour, so I doing my chartwatching now. Happy Trading!

It was a fairly boring end to the week…a nice stop to the dramatic pullback on Thursday. There was a mix of good economic data and earnings reports. But now on to a new week….and a crap load of more data. We have some market movers, as in: Auto and Truck Sales, Payroll reports, Unemployment, GDP and the usual oil and gas inventories….and another fairly big load of earnings.

A lot of nice charts out there….having problems whittling them down to a reasonable number….a few I’ve added to the watchlist: DEPO, ABAT, and ARQL.

Summer Mondays have been lower volume than the Fridays and I don’t think it will change much. But as always, we’ll see how the markets want to act and go from there.

Yes, the indexes were down anywhere from 1% to 3%…and financial stocks were down big, but look how fast we came up the past week. We quickly became overbought and now we will quickly reset for a continuation up. Let’s take a breather for a couple days.

Individual stocks were good to play. I had luck with IAR, CRUS and ARBA….after unloading the banks I had held over from yesterday. Tomorrow being Friday, I’ll be going to cash, or mostly cash, sometime tomorrow…either early or late…depending on how the markets go.

I’ll put some of the ultra-shorts in my watchlist just in case it all goes to hell…SDS, DXD, QID, along with some short stocks HANS and AXL. For longs I’m liking the action in QDEL and ABAT.

I’m ready…bring on the markets

That’s all you had to do today….play the airlines and the financials. Did you make money? The best day since May for me

The first hour was choppy with good earnings and lousy inflation data, but once the build in oil was announced, we never looked back. Will we follow through on Thursday?

I’m still in my financials, ABK and MBI and was in and out of the airlines, UAUA, CAL and AMR. The QQQQ Sept calls are still percolating.

Big, big earnings tomorrow that can push and pull the market in any and all directions. Some of the biggies are GOOG, MSFT, KO, JPM, MER, IBM and a whole bunch more….one of the biggest earnings day. And the news: Building Permits, Housing Starts and Unemployment Claims..May be a crazy one….hang on

There was a gap down on the open and new lows, with a new high test on oil, and Freddie Mac and Fannie May with huge downside pressure and the stocks off over 50%. After floundering all day, the Dow had a quick 200+ point move, a spectacular recovery. Then, the markets went into their usual Friday afternoon sell-off.

Rumors were the big action today…and rumors is what everyone traded….rumors of bankruptcy, Fed takeovers, Fed relief…it was crazy. I sat and watched, too tired to play, too bewildered to know what to do.

Financials were a great play if you had the balls to get in on the lows. There was some good action in other stocks, but I didn’t get in: HYGS, CFW, ANH, to name a few. Do you have an inkling that there might be some action next week? It is option expiration week. We’ve got a weekend to mull it over….Happy Trading!

An early strong sell-off…a strong rally…today was interesting. Volume was not “capitulation grade” on the sell-off, but it did increase into the closing rally. The markets did close near their highs. I’m looking for some upside on Wednesday…and maybe for the half-day session on Thursday. It should at least let us unload any longs that you may be hurting on….and maybe present some shorting opportunities…or even longer longs. Remember it is a long weekend and you never know what may happen (ie., Middle East). Cash is a position

Okay, okay….I’ve been talking about a bounce since last week. I’m on the prowl for longs…even if it’s just a few scalps. It’s gonna have to be one hell of a bounce for me to stay long the weekend. Happy trading.

Although I was not in front of the computer all day, the charts show another uneventful day in the markets. Oil went up and down and equities went down and up. Encouraging was that volume increased on the up move.

Oil related stocks, as in ROYL and FPP, took a hit. On the other side, the airlines took off to the moon…just check UAUA, LCC, DAL, NWA and AMR.

Options expiration on Friday…let’s see if that brings up the volatility and volume some more.

Another one of those red - green - red days on lower volume. The only fun I had was watching Callaway Golf (ELY) go up when it looked like Rocco Mediate might beat Tiger. ELY closed at its high, but about an hour after the market closed Tiger Woods won his 3rd U.S. Open, beating Rocco in a sudden death playoff after they were still tied after 90-holes.

Oil popped up early, but then just kept coming down, which was why the equities seemed to recover. It was definitely an inverse relationship tick by tick. Tomorrow may bring some excitement with PPI, Housing Starts, Industrial Production and GS announces earning.

Some of the stocks on my watchlist were active to the upside: GRO, BCON, IVAN and LSI…among others. Held those overnight, so I’ll see how the morning goes. Happy Trading

The Dow ended up for the week….not by much, and the other indexes, that is, Naz, S&P, Russell, ended down…not by much. The economy was a bit more definitive…inflation up, oil up, comodities up, and consumer sentiment down. Technically though, the indexes are showing a strong candlestick signal…the MorningStar breaking through the 8ema…and stochastics oversold and turning up. I’m thinking at least a couple days to the upside

Besides the usual economic reports, as in oil inventories and unemployment, there are a few zingers in the mix, like May PPI and May housing starts. Also, all the major investment banks report earnings this week…and it’s options expiration week with June options expiring this Friday! We should expect some volatility along the way.

Most of my watchlist from last week is still active, but I’m adding a few: LSI, AACC, and CMLT.

My active trading CNBC portfolio is still behind my “inactive” portfolio that only gets cash from answering trivia questions. I lost money in the first week of the contest and haven’t recovered…of course I haven’t dumped the losers yet either. If I could only pretend it was real money I know I’d do better. I guess that’s why I’m not an advocate of “paper trading.”

The markets started green and kept going for about 2 hours, but then the air started leaking out of the balloon. By mid-afternoon it was a lead balloon. And then the the bulls said “no more” in the last half hour and started buying. Still a disappointing day considering we ended up 125 points below the morning’s high.

There was some good luck with SHFL, LNET and PDLI, but my activity level was down…just watching and worrying. I added AIXD and ASFI to my watchlist, but considering it’s Friday the 13th, I’ll let my superstitions play out. What makes that even worse is Annabelle, my black cat, hangs around the office all the time while trading

The major indexes traded mixed, as a pullback in oil prices encouraged equities investors to try to recover some of last Friday’s losses. Now, before last week, if oil dropped $4+, we would be using superlatives like “plunged” and “crashed”…but no more. This was just a little pimple on the butt of oil. It’s like being at the South Pole and hearing the weatherman say we would be “warming up” 40 degrees from -100 to -60. Big whoopdeedoo!

On the other hand, the market did like that the sales of homes and Big Macs were better than anticipated.

I didn’t do much trading today. I could never get a grip on which way the market was going. Tried a few scalps, but they didn’t do much. I ended the day a little in the red.

There are some charts setting up nicely…or at least favorably: GRO, SURG, AVR, VSE, FMD, SHFL. And a few short candidates: CLMS and STAR. Let’s hope tomorrow gives us a little bit more direction