What the $%@&* Trading!

Well looky there…oil down big today even while the hurricane clears the gulf rigs and Russia shuts down supplies to Europe…what a strange marketplace. Early U.S. market futures are up slightly. Not looking good for my USO spec play

Well that was a pretty lackluster options expiration week, and I see volume moving even lower for the next 2 weeks as everyone takes some time off heading into Labor Day. With the lower volume we’ll see chop-chop-chop in this non-committed market.

The indexes have had a nice up move since mid-July, so a small pullback or some consolidation makes sense. A bigger downtrend may bring us to retest recent lows…..and beyond! On the other hand we are up against a long-term trendline coming down from the May high. A close above that may continue this summer bounce.

Commodities are looking oversold, so I’m adding DBC to the watchlist so I don’t have to look at each sector separately. DBC is getting support at its 200 day moving average, so it looks like a bounce candidate. Some other stocks looking good for this week: ELN looks to be filling the gap; so does PAET; ABK just because it has been so good to me the past several weeks. Gold and oil stocks may be plays also…I’m guessing to the upside, but we’ll have to watch closely.

Happy Trading

It started down, almost a hundred points in the Dow, but we reversed and ended in the green. I guess you would say we saw some follow through to Tuesday’s big gains. All the major stock indexes were up, although on weaker volume. Nasdaq went through its 50 day moving average and the Russell 2000 made it to its 200ma. Oil was down, US dollar was up. Hey bulls! Can we keep going?

I had some good gains today with some of my “standard” stocks in my watchlist: DNDN, DVAX, CPSL and CHINA. I also picked up MPEL late in the afternoon. NHWK took a hit today, but I’m still in the green.

Some I’m adding to the watchlist for tomorrow are: RAME, EGY, and UXG. If you look at these charts, you’ll recognize the candlestick chart pattern that has developed….MorningStar. It’s one of my favorites, but we need to make sure it confirms. It may not be tomorrow. It could happen in the next couple of days. So watch it.

On a broader note, I see a lot of oil-related stocks, such as drillers and refiners, perked up today. EGY happens to be one of them, but so are: SUF, CMZ and EPEX. Check’em out.

Tomorrow we have some economic news, Unemployment Claims and Pending Home Sales. And let’s not forget some earnings reports.

I think I’ll catch some zzzzz’s this evening

The biggest up move since April Fool’s Day Two to three percent up on all the indexes….wow! And it’s not as if the FOMC said anything unexpected, three-quarters of the up move had already been achieved by the time we heard that there would be no change in rates. Oh yeah, oil went below $120 per barrel. The Dow, S&P and Nasdaq have formed morningstar-like candle patterns and are on their way to their 50 day moving averages. What to expect now?

There’s been a pattern that after a big move, the next day goes in the opposite direction…sometimes with a similar veracity. But we’ve been looking for a nice trade-able rally for quite a while, so I’m looking for a bit of continuation here. At least pop above this 2-week congestion we’ve been in and take a close look at their 50ma’s We can hope, can’t we?

CSCO had a good earnings report and popped another 2 bucks after hours, which in turn upped the Qs, GOOG and other tech stocks. Early futures looking good for Asia and Europe and US, so maybe, just maybe, we’ll have some follow-thru. See if XLF can break through its July highs and banking shorts may need to cover causing some more upside.

Tonight, with a clear head, I’m gonna look at charts.

Two-thirds of the day done and we’ve had a 140 point plus pullback….again brought on by oil. So when you see oil go up, the easiest way to play that is short an airline…which I did. UAUA did good, covering for about 2 bucks

Hoping the bulls come back after lunch ready to go!

An interesting story in the Financial Times, Tangled trading web in energy futures.

In his e-mail, cited in the lawsuit, Mr Dowson appears to be reassuring a colleague that a trading strategy they were allegedly pursuing would probably not be considered manipulation.

Yet the regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, thought otherwise and pounced.

The moral of the story? Think before you e-mail….and then destroy all records of it

Was that a bounce I saw? Finally!

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!

What the hell was that? The morning looked strong…and green, but soon we had a strong downdraft…then an updraft…then a downdraft Nothing to do but sit on my hands.

The Dow was up 110 points before it took a 275+ point trip down just to turn around and come up 200+ points….just before turning around again and retreating 100 points to close down -56.58. What the hell was that?

You’d figure with oil dipping under $140, that stocks would have been a bit more receptive for the upside…especially airlines and other transports. But no. It all tumbled down. Now I’m sure there are many much faster and smarter than me that made money as the market went up and down. Me…I just wished and practice on paper. The only thing I lost was my mind

I’ve been thinking bounce for over a week now, but still nothing. XRIT did okay today, but the others sank into the red. I’ll be going through charts for the rest of the evening, but I’m not sure what I will do even if I find some good setups.

Back in April the stock market went up when oil went up. Then sometime in May they diverged. So what’s the difference? Why has sentiment changed? I throw that out just wondering….

Spent the morning cashing out with small losses. Just sittin’ on the sidelines now

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.

There’s a good article at CNN that explains a lot of what has been going on with oil.

In its weekly inventory report, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said crude stocks decreased by 8.8 million barrels last week. Analysts were looking for an increase of 750,000 barrels, according to a survey from Platts, an energy research firm.

But the report issued online by the EIA said “the drop was due to temporary delays in crudoe oil tanker off-loadings on the Gulf Coast.”

He said the oil that was missing from the report could very well be floating in tankers on the Gulf of Mexico, where fog often closes ports this time of year.

Read the entire article here

Wow, look at oil go Over $127 per barrel. Wonder what it’s going to do to all the other markets? Maybe oil is setting up for an exhaustion run-up.

And my long-term hold (DVAX) is taking a dumper