Published on
August 22, 2009,
10:00 am in
Opinions, Trading and Weekly.
Tags: 200ma, AIG, BAC, C, FNM, FRE, markets, UBS.
I stretched my luck just a bit too much. I was pummeled by the time I got up Friday morning. And since I was already in a bunch of hurt, I just went fishing (and a little bit of drinking, hic). Sure I was still positive for the week, but I was struck on how illogical it was for the market to go up. Existing home sales went up because a bunch of foreclosed homes were selling for under $100K and speculators could by them up for cash or 1st time buyers buying for some government money….the cash for 1st down payment program.
What else was crazy? Penny stocks, yes those pink sheet securities, have had their volume go up by 60 times what was trading at the March lows. And 25% of the entire stock market volume is in government stocks: C AIG BAC FNM FRE. Except for BAC, which may have some value to it, these are junk stocks. 
Speaking of junk financial institutions, Guaranty Bank Is 81st to Fail ….read about the latest four banks to fail, as Friday’s are now FDIC Failure Fridays as bank failures are announced Friday afternoon after the market closes. Guaranty is the 10th largest bank failure in U.S. history.
Back to the markets….If you look at any chart of any index you’ll see that they have traveled pretty far from their 200 day moving average. And it seems that they like to hang around the 200 plus or minus a few percentage points. 
Here’s the S&P 500, click on the image to get a bigger one. We’ve had 2 breakouts from resistance levels in the last 5 weeks and we closed on Friday about 17% above the 200ma. My thinking that it is scared of heights and will need to get closer to its ground before bouncing up again. Now it won’t have to fall that much because as you can see, the 200ma is moving up…and even if the indexes come down a bit, the moving average will continue to move up. They don’t have to meet, just get a bit closer.
Finally, all you rich folk better close those Swiss bank accounts.
American citizens, who bank in Switzerland with UBS, have been given until September 23 to reveal their assets prior to facing possible criminal charges including jail time.
I’d ask for payment in chocolates and watches. 
Some money was made on short positions held over the weekend, but after that first hour, trading got back to a low-volume, boring kind of day. As usual, the last hour brought out the bull in all of us and the markets tweaked out a green day.
Earnings today were not glamorous, but the New Home Sales report was better than expected….but still way down from last year, but better than last month. The indexes have been up a lot of days in a row and sure are overbought, but as well all no, they can stay that way for a long time. I would still feel better if we had a slight pullback to reload longs.
Profits are hard to come by in this market, so I’m grabbing every hundred bucks I can….and again going to cash by the end of the day….because you never know what may happen overseas. I’m also not trading as many shares or dollars because I’m getting myself into some summer doldrums. But I’m still looking through a bunch of charts each day for practice if not for actually buying. Happy trading.
After a day of lackadaisical trading the markets ended with a wow And the synopsis over at Zero Hedge says it all:
….the complete tape painting volume spike at the very end of the day speaks for itself. And as computers now simply issue forced stock recall orders to each other, painting the tape wet with manipulative intent and volume spikes into the last 20 minutes of trading every day, their human creators are left on the sidelines, trying to outshout each other as to the reason for why the market keeps rising while the economy keeps tumbling. Is there ever going to be any transparency in this market again?
Check out the entire blog entry at Zero Hedge…..and have a great weekend.
Another rescue plan for our Sunday evening entertainment. C gets a bailout and markets are lovin’ it. But it makes me wonder….is the market setting us up, sucking us in, just before it crashes…again?
Awww, who cares….take advantage when you can. You can’t keep a trade longer than a couple of hours anyway. Happy 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.
Published on
July 24, 2008,
9:37 pm in
Daily and Trading.
Tags: ABAT, ARBA, AXL, CRUS, DXD, HANS, IAR, markets, QDEL, QID, SDS.
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 
Published on
July 16, 2008,
10:00 pm in
Daily and Trading.
Tags: ABK, GOOG, IBM, JPM, KO, markets, MBI, MER, MSFT, QQQQ.
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.
