Trading thoughts, ideas, tips, musings, and pontifications. . .not necessarily in that order.
Mondays continue to do their thing….acting strong. I wish the markets had closed closer to their highs, but you take what you can. GS was a winner for me as was TNA….cashing in within the first hour of trading.
Volume was way down from Friday’s and below the 10 and 30 day averages. That will probably continue to go down. 
Tomorrow brings us another reading on GDP and also Existing Home Sales. While you’re waiting here’s something to read:
Drop in inflation should bring Drop in crime
I really don’t like days like this, or for that matter the last couple days. All action is at the open and then chop, chop, chop. I bought TNA in the last half-hour of the day to take advantage of a perceived run-up…got in at 40.04 and got out at 40.34…it took about 45 seconds. I could have stayed longer and made another 20 cents, but Options expiration is all politics, psychology and luck….no technical setups to be had. Tomorrow may be even crazier….no economic news scheduled. So take profits, and small losses, quickly!
According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, November Option Expiration has been up 4 straight years and 6 out of the last 7. And remember last year? The Dow was up 494 points or 6.5%….now wouldn’t that be something!
The Advance/Decline issues and volumes were very negative today, even though the markets did recover off their lows. The small caps were hardest hit as the Russell had 1630 declining issues with a negative volume of over -11:1. Those are some bearish numbers and on higher volume than yesterday.
Tomorrow may be a dull day, even though it is OpEx. It’s Friday, no eco data, no big earnings reports….I guess the options players will be closing positions just to get on their way.
Here’s a crazy one….Yesterday it was announced that this property, built in 1975 at a cost of $75 million, with a replacement cost today of $750 million, was sold at auction: Silverdome. The price $583,000. Yes, 583 thousand dollars. If this is the state of commercial property we’re all in big trouble. I just don’t understand why SRS isn’t doing better. Maybe it doesn’t know yet. 
The markets ran this morning when the reports came out showing a decrease in the number of initial, as well as continuous claims and the more than expected increase in worker productivity. They then meandered for the rest of the day, closing near the highs of the day. Advancing isssues outpaced declining issues at 7 to 1. The bears were heard sniffling, “What happened?”
Now for the bad news….an increase in productivity means there is no need to hire more people, so the job picture to get better will be delayed a bit. And continuous claims decrease is probably from the long unemployed falling off the insurance rosters. Such comforting news.
I played the same repretoire today as yesterday: ES TNA and TZA. I had TNA from yesterday and was happy to see the markets open to the upside. In my jubilation I cashed out too soon. If I had held on to TNA for another hour I could have doubled my money, but a profit is a profit! Better than chancing a reveersal. Oh well.
This week’s big kahoona report, the Non-Farm Payroll report comes out Friday morning. It’s not very often that the NFP comes out just 2 days after an FOMC meeting, and it has a wild reputation as well for making crazy markets. So watch out 
Some articles to explain the day:
U.S. Worker Productivity Jumps
This was an exhausting day. I actually worked up a sweat while trading the last 2 hours of the day. What can I say? Wild, wild. The main partners in crime: ES TZA TNA. Trades lasted short times and I sprained my mouse finger. 
Here’s some interesting reading: Market Moving Closer to Its First Significant Pullback Since Last Spring
Watch out for the Initial Claims report in the morning. Futures are saying we continue the down move. Going to bed….maybe Phillies will rally. 
If you had slept through Thursday, the markets only went down a little bit on Friday. But if you got suckered in on Thursday’s trap, you probably got upset.
Remember that many mutual funds had their year end take place on Friday, which surely contributed to the selling pressure as they locked in gains and reallocated their portfolios. But Monday starts the historically strongest 3 months of the trading year. Of course last year wasn’t very inspirational. 
Reading articles and blogs over the weekend, it sounds ominous out there. But, when everyone gets scared, it may be time to pick up some cheap stocks. Looking at some charts, we look to be close to support in the S&P500, around the October lows.
The Russell has already cut through its October lows, after putting in a double top, and is approaching its September lows.
FOMC meeting this week and lots and lots of economic data with the monthly Non-farm Payroll report on Friday topping it off. The futures this evening have already put in a 10-point range and looking up. Should be the start of an exciting week. I’m going to concentrate on the ES futures this week and also watch the 2x and 3x ETFs like TNA / TZA, BGU / BGZ, QID / QLD. I’ll let you know how that pans out. 
Boy, that was some Gosh Darn Pop…or sometimes called GDP! It beat the expected number and really beat the number GS leaked yesterday to help the market dive. Even another half million unemployed people couldn’t drag it down today. But we do need to see some follow thru on Friday to make it meaningful. I would think we at least make anothere new high for the year before we crash.
The TNA held overnight last night worked as planned. My only regret was I cashed out too early, but a profit is a profit. All the indexes bounced of their 50ma, except for the Dow, which hasn’t made it down there yet. But they all made up yeasterday’s losses plus more.
We’ve got Personal Income/Spending reports on Friday, the Chicago PMI and Michigan Sentiment…all out by 10AM. You can check in to see how the Asian markets are shaping up this evening: Asian Stocks Rise on Japan Jobless Data, U.S. GDP; Rio Advances. And ES futures have had a narrow range of less than 3 points. So let’s hope the markets don’t get scary tomorrow. 
Happy Halloween!
Boy oh boy, lots of people wanted out of the market today….scattering for the exits! Funny I made more on my longs than I did my shorts. While I was trading today, I noticed that, at times, I had both TZA and TNA positions working. So I was both long and short the market. TZA was a position I held most of the day and TNA I was in and out four, maybe 5 times….all moneymakers, except for the small TNA position I am holding overnight, but I think it should get better tomorrow.
We’re down about 6% from the top just 6 days ago, which is the largest correction since this bull started back in March. It’s also one of only 3 times since then when we have had 4 down days in a row. We haven’t had 5, so tomorrow may be a “special” day. I’m thinking it is time for a bounce…maybe not a big one, but a bounce…thus my holding some TNA.
Some other ominous moves were GS breaking thru its 50ma, as did the S&P, Nasdaq, QQQQ. The Dow is still hanging tough, or at least tougher than the rest. This all started when GS lowered it’s GDP estimate, so Thursday morning will be exciting. And don’t forget Initial Claims!
So let’s get ready to rumble into the end of October. If we don’t move up in the next 2 days, we’ll finally have a down month, the first since February. Keep your finger on the mouse and happy trading.
The bulls were corralled today, letting bears play, but they came out to play several times. I spent my day looting the market, sometimes known as scalping, grabbing counter-trend moves during a trend day down. Using TNA BGU SSO I was able to spend a few minutes at a time just grabbing some pocket change. What the hell, a profit is a profit! ESZ9 was also fun but I traded the e-mini in the direction of the trend….down that is.
Financials should move around on Wednesday as WFC MS USB report before the open. BA should have some impact also. But the play to watch is the U.S.Dollar, at least for now. If it continues up, the market should confirm a down move.
For your reading pleasure, a short one and a long one:
Despite Bullish Momentum, Could Bears Be Regrouping?
It was another day for the gold bugs as fear of economic woes continues and Unemployment claims not decreasing, confirms the fear. But eventually, as in the last hour of trading, some optimism was evident as all the indexes closed in the green.
AIG reversed its course and started back up during the day and continued afterhours…up almost 14%. If it makes it back up to $50, I’ll be looking at puts again, because there is no way it can continue up. C is in a similar worthless position, and its got some screwy plans in the making. Read Citi, Big Brother and the Stock Price to try to figure out what’s going on there.
Again my trades were few and far between….it’s hard to figure this market out. This morning I traded SRS, more of a scalp, and came away with 25 cents. Then, late in the afternoon, figuring the market was going to end up, I scalped TNA for $1.01, not bad for an hour’s worth of work.
And again I didn’t carry anything overnite. Tomorrow, with the Non-farm Payrolls report, we find out what number the government wants to put on our unemployment. And no matter what number is published, it is made up…..and we should see some fantastic swings at the announcement. I’m looking at an up day until the afternoon and then traders selling whatever they have to go flat for the long holiday weekend.
On that note, have a wonderfully fantastic weekend….eat, drink and be merry. Enjoy your family and friends. Don’t worry…the markets will be back on Tuesday. 
…can’t trust that day, as the Mamas & Papas sang. The markets were still hungover from that Friday drunk of housing magic and Benny cheerleading. But eventually the buzz wore off and it looks like it may be a couple days before we can party again. The bulls were happy happy this morning, but got tired real fast and started falling over by afternoon.
Of course me sitting in 3x short ETFs made for an uncomfortable morning. Sure I nickeled and dimed myself going for some longs like ERX and TNA, while still holding ERY and TZA, but I made some realized profits while still enduring unrealized losses. Near the close I added BGZ to the mix.
So far the futures are agreeing with my prognosis of some downward momentum, but 11 hours is a long time. Let’s see what the rest of the world thinks.
Yesterday, I wrote a diatribe on the supposedly optimistic housing number. Then today I see in the Wall Street Journal this little article: Fewer Delinquent Mortgage Borrowers Are Catching Up.
Because borrowers are less willing or able to catch up on payments, foreclosures are likely to remain a big problem. Barclays Capital projects the number of foreclosed homes for sale will peak at 1.15 million in mid-2010, up from an estimated 688,000 as of July 1.
That’s not a housing boom. Is it?
Okay, so after the non-farm payroll announcement I went short, thinking that this was not “good” news….I mean a quarter-million people got laid off in July!! I was thinking a pop, yes, but I also thought that sanity would quickly set in. But no! The markets kept going up and I was stopped out of BGZ and TNA fairly quickly.
Then I sat and watched….and got my courage back to TNA again…and I got my money back and then some. The fun for me today was AIG. I took a few trips both up and down…yeah, it was fast and furious!
I ended the day taking a short market position via QID and EDZ. We’ll see how Monday turns out.
Later this weekend I’m hoping to find out why GS and BO (that’s President BO to you!) knew the numbers the day before. Do you think their doing some front-running 
No matter what side of the market you are on, there is no follow-thru in either direction…and there hasn’t been for a couple months. We are at the same place we were in early May. We’ve been stuck between 880 and 945….and this week it’s been 915 to 930. My, how exciting
Economic reports today were worse than expected. You still have to wonder why we are up after reports that mortgages applications are down and a half million people lost their jobs? I think things started to weaken in the afternoon when traders noticed no one was selling cars and that several states were having budget problems.
I thought I was going to be happy when I heard that mortgage applications were down. And then I was almost ecstatic when I heard that ADP Employment report sucked…but no! Markets moved up, I couldn’t see why, but they did. I did shave shares off as the markets went up for a loss, taking almost half off. But I also scalped some long ETS like TNA and BGU, taking $50 here and a $100 there several times. It soothed the pain from my short positions, but I never recovered all.
I’m still in small short positions using TZA and QID. I’m looking for a spike after the Employment Report comes out at 8:30AM EDT to maybe come out breakeven for the week. After I unload my remaining shares, I’m looking to go out and buy enough beer to last the long holiday weekend
| DJIA | 10733.67 | |||||||
| NASDAQ | 2389.09 | |||||||
| S&P 500 | 1166.21 | |||||||
| ^RUT | 683.98 | |||||||
| QID | 17.18 | |||||||
| QQQQ | 47.67 | |||||||
| QLD | 63.90 | |||||||
| UYM | 36.43 | |||||||
| URE | 8.33 | |||||||
| UYG | 6.75 | |||||||
| SSO | 41.91 | |||||||
| XLK | 22.97 | |||||||
| XLF | 15.92 | |||||||
| FAS | 95.61 | |||||||
| FAZ | 13.71 | |||||||
| SKF | 19.43 | |||||||
| NKE | 70.88 | |||||||
| BGZ | 14.12 | |||||||
| GS | 176.64 | |||||||
