What the $%@&* Trading!

(AIG) and oil prices brought down the DOW almost 1%, but the Nasdaq was only down a quarter point and the Russell 2000 and the S&P Midcaps closed in the green So I’m not sure what the market is telling me, but the stocks I watched and played were not too bad: (IAR), (DVAX), (CTDC), (XRM). They made up for the losers (BCON) and (SIGA).

Oil went ballistic, but I’m wondering if that’s an exhaustion gap up ending in a hammer. All the airline stocks suffered today and (FDX) took a tumble after hours when they warned oil prices will cut into this quarter’s earnings. And the market has been doing not too bad with all this bad news. Let’s see if anything happens during the weekend.

Have a great weekend and spend some time looking at charts. It really doesn’t matter what the news is, it’s all in the charts

Anybody playing the CNBC Millionaire’s Challenge?

The indexes kept building all day, and then, just like yesterday, with about 2 hours left in the trading day, they started to crumble. Except this time, they put the brakes on and started back up until closing time. Not a decisive gain, but green is better than red.

A couple of nice movers today were (SIGA) and (AVII). But I only watched (XRM), (DSTI) and (CTDC) make big gains.

Tomorrow I’ll keep and eye on (BCON), (CDL), (SYNM), (NURO), (ORS) and (LOCM).

That’s about all to do, except for watching the grass grow or the paint to dry. We are teetering, swinging gentley and slowly, side to side, waiting for 2:15PM EDST Wednesday when the Fed tells us they are cutting another quarter point before they stop …or maybe they will take the high road and say they are done. We can wait another day and a half, but we do have a whole bunch of earnings reports tomorrow that has just got to put some waves into the market. Doji’s all around for the markets today on very low volume…and I expect the same for Tuesday.

Some indiviudal winners: (NURO) (SYNM) (MVIS) (XRM) and losers: (SIGA) (STEM).

Anybody signing up for CNBC’s Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge?

Two big up days in one week…yeah baby! The Nasdaq and Qs had a big gap up …which held and the Dow and SP500 had nice big candles on increasing volume. Some profit taking at the end of the day, but for an option expiration Friday, it was a great ending!

My plays: I dumped COCO and OPWV early for a gain and got out of KNOT at the 50 ma for 15%. My watchlist from yesterday were all doji’s, but I am holding HYTM over the weekend, along with SSCC and SIGA. Over all a very good week. I hope you had a good one as well

We went up today as much as we went down yesterday. If you look at a 2-day chart, what do we have?…….Yes! Another doji….bouncing off the 8 ema. Tomorrow is Friday and we’ll have to see what traders decide to do for the weekend. Let me guess…..a doji day? And I’ll hope for an upward bias

Most of the news this morning was bad, but the markets headed up and were up big. In the final hour though, there was a pretty sharp sell-off with a recovery in the closing minutes. Today’s winning volume was bigger than yesterday’s losing volume.

My good trades: SIGA HYTM. My big loser today was yesterday’s winner…MVIS. Oh well.

We haven’t lost any of Tuesday’s run up. The last 2 out of 3 Tuesdays when we had big runups, we always gave it back. Even all the bad news did not bring the markets down. Big gain, lower volume consolidation…are we getting ready to move up in a tradeable rally? Markets up 3% for the week.

Steel stocks and tech look to be moving up. And did you see the 1st quarter biggest percentage gainer was a homebuilder? Yes, PHM, Pulte Homes was up 47% And it added another 3% the first week of the 2nd quarter. The other big homebuilders were up 20+%. The Steel Index, STQ.X, has been a double since Jan.’07 and AKS is up 75% in the last 12 months.

Earnings season begins Monday after the bell with AA. If earnings start showing some consistency with an upward bias, we may be in for a good rally

Some profits I took last week: SIGA IDMI NSTR USU. All in all a good week. Now, to make next week even better. Happy Trading!

ORCL dragged most of the technology stocks down today, and thus bringing down the Nasdaq and the QQQQ. Looks like the 50dma has broken, except maybe for the Qs, so the next hope is for the 20dma to act as support.

In the mean time, individual stocks, on both the short and long side, are making us a few bucks. VNDA has been good all week, and even DNDN was nice. Both are in the biotech industry. SIGA took off early, but retreated throughout the day. The RMBS pullback was good for 2 bucks and even GOOG shaved 3% off the top.

The Dow has been down the last 3 days on below average volume….and tomorrow is Friday. Hope the mood is better

Well wasn’t that fun? It was an all day bull. Only issue was that the volume was not so great.

My big mistake today was DNDN. I bought it since it gapped open above the 8ema and rode it up with all intentions to be out by the end of the day. But, at 2:15 came a report that Congress would not open a special meeting into FDA inconsistencies until the FDA was done with their approval process of Provenge, the miracle prostate cancer drug. The stock collapsed and couldn’t get out fast enough…took a loss.

But there were some winners that were bigger than the loss: SIGA VNDA CNTF LMRA PEIX. I suspect selling will increase going into a 3-day weekend and Friday is options expiration. BIDU had a good earnings report that will probably help tomorrow.

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.