What the $%@&* Trading!

Well my drop-n-pop scenario almost made it. But then Alan Greenspan came on CNBC and brought it back down The Nasdaq showed strength most of the day. Even the others were acceptable consolidations after a run-up. …and by others I mean the S&P, DJ30, Russell. Except for the DJ, they all were still able to close above the 8ema.

Even with the crummy red indexes, there was a lot of green on my screen and I just happened to make some good entries and exits on NKTR, DELL and SCA. ASTI was an early entry that got busted right away and got out a few pennies below entry.

There still seems to be quite a few nice charts out there. Now to see if I can pick the right ones.

What an ugly day for the markets But, it has been good if you’re a trader, a stock picker.

My good picks made more than my bad picks lost. My winners today: STEM PEIX SIGA IDMI RFMD URZ. My losers today: LMRA CNTF SCA DVAX. So, I call it a good day…even though the Dow was down 370 points, on increasing volume, and accelerating into the close.

The Nikkei has been open 2 hours and is down -567. Futures are only down a little, but there’s 12 hours for a lot of change. Looks like momentum may take us down again tomorrow, maybe enough to bounce back.

I had fun trading this week. I hope you all did as well. I did add to SCA and MNTA and then got out at the end of the day. I’m just too scared to hold over the weekend. I can always get back in on Monday if they get going again. In the mean time, the money’s in the bank

The Dow has had a 1,100+ point run in the past 8 days, and am looking for another 230 points, where it will bonk its head on the 50 ma. Of course it will pull back, but the question is will it keep going down or re-try the 50 again.

Next week looks fairly active with economic reports, Fed speeches and plenty of earnings.

Have a “Super” weekend everybody and Go Browns! (maybe next year )

Today I even impressed myself

We had an immediate 192 point drop in the Dow and then a stair step climb up 452 points, and taking out yesterdays post-Fed spike, before fading 52 points in the last few minutes to close at 12,650.36, up 107.53 for the day. Even better, I took advantage of some of the buying and selling opportunities, even though that last minute dive at the close caught me and I left some money on the table. SCA ININ and MNTA were my big winners today.

After hours, GOOG is taking a big hit at the moment (4:30PM EST) with the less than stellar report. It’s probably heading for 515, but remember what AMZN did today. They (Amazon) just announced they are buying ADBL…pop there. And, we all better be drinking Bud Lights tonight…since BUD missed

All the winners from yesterday continued…and more. Of course, I took some off the table as they worked there way up. I still have positions in them all. LMRA' >LMRA continued up from my last note eventually reaching 55%, but then fading back to +38% for the day.

I had entered my position at $2 and got out at $3.63. I got in on Jan 23rd as it popped open at the 8ema, but then proceeded to go straight down. My stop was the middle of the preceding day’s bullish engulfing candle. It never hit the stop loss. The next was an up day, but again was repulsed by the 8ema and again never hitting the stop loss. After that, well, you can see.

You’ll also find similar patterns on DVAX on Dec 11th and SCA on Jan 22nd. I still have positions in both after taking some profits.

Haven’t had one of these for a while. A big up day (that’s a personal up day, not an index up day) can sure make up for the bad days…as long as you honor those stops….which I don’t always do.

• Winners: WON DVAX SCA MVIS PEIX CNTF MNTA
• Loser: LMRA

Soon I’ll try to explain why I got into these stocks. And when I get into a groove, I’ll try to tell you before I get into them.