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Posts Tagged ‘SOX’

Goldilocks and the 300,000,000 Bears

Talk about feeling outnumbered!

As the guy in Airplane kind of said – "Looks like I pricked the wrong week to get bullish!"  Of course, as I often tell people I am neither bullish nor bearish – I’m rangeish – and our range is the 5% band between around Dow 10,200 and S&P 1,070, which takes us as low as Dow 9,690 and S&P 1,016 and as high as Dow 10,710 and S&P 1,123 before I really "flip flop" my positions.  Despite the fact that this is the range we predicted last October and is the range we’ve been in (other than a brief trip to 11,200, which we shorted the hell out of) all year – people still seem to find it necessary to call me either bullish or bearish as we navigate the channel.

I suppose I have been HOPEFUL for the month (now heading into day 14) that we will finally make a little progress and establish a higher floor at our usual mid-points while, at the same time, the MSM have decided that we are all going to die.  That does make me kind of bullish by comparison doesn’t it?  We are mainly in cash and we are well hedged to the downside so, unless we are REALLY heading much, much lower, there is little profit in speculating to the downside, other than our quick trades.  As PT Barnum once said:

"A man who is all caution, will never dare to take hold and be successful; and a man who is all boldness, is merely reckless, and must eventually fail. A man may go on "’change" and make fifty, or one hundred thousand dollars in speculating in stocks, at a single operation. But if he has simple boldness without caution, it is mere chance, and what he gains to-day he will lose to-morrow. You must have both the caution and the boldness, to insure success." 

Balance is the key to long-term success and we’ve had many conversations about that in Member Chat.  Our goal is to be neither bullish or bearish but rather to sell premium to both the bulls and the bears when conditions permit us.  As Ravalos said Friday in Member Chat:

"Ever since I became member (actually before I became member I was already following your newsletter for quite some time) I find it hard for me to BUY PREMIUM. Over time, I’ve realized that buying the


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Global Chart Reveiw Shows Key Inflection Point

Chart Review by Michael Clark

“By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”

    -- John Maynard Keynes

SO, IS THIS FINALLY THE ‘REAL’ CORRECTION?

What a week it was.  The Bears gave the Bulls some payback.  Obama got a wake-up call.  And the banks got a well-deserved scare (and we hope they will get a well-deserved hair cut).

The markets reacted, as one might expect, with selling.  Actually, the selling began before the Massachusetts election and before Obama sent a shot across the Goldman Sach’s bow.  Last week Intel announced surprisingly strong earnings; and the stock started up and then sank.  For the past half-year investor behavior had been the reverse: a buying spree for any stock that did not lose as much as it might have — beating ‘Street expectations’ that had been dumbed down over and over again during a quarter so that the company could report ‘surprising’ strength.  Suddenly, now, even good earnings are being greeted with selling.  Then came Massachusetts — wasn’t that a Bee Gees’ song?
 

All the lights went out in Massachusetts

Anyway, readers want to know where the markets stand today, after the sell-off this week.  My view of it — my ‘view’, not my gut-feeling — is that we are, so far, merely correcting from an over-extended rally.  This rally has been bizarre, to say the least.  This has been a ‘fear rally’ — usually the ‘fear’ side of the equation is when selling comes in, ‘greed’ driving the expansion.  But fear of systemic failure has driven this rally; and Ben Bernannke has been the captain sailing the ‘Boat of Fear’,   Ben’s logic — that more debt will solve the insolvency crisis — has a shadow side, the logic that a collapse in stock prices will result in systemic failure, international chaos, revolution, repression…made him believe that preservation of the status quo was requiired, at any price.  A ‘make-believe’ recovery could be jump-started, perhaps, if the Fed could just stimulate (and simulate) another asset-bubble.  After all – that is how his mentor and predecessor, Alan Greenspan, had become the darling of the coctail party crowd, leading member of Time Magazine’s ‘Committee to Save the World’; and that was how he, himself, had become Time’s ‘Peson of the Year’.

Logic was thrown…
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Dr. Strangebear

Here are a few quick posts by Tim Knight at Slope of Hope. - Ilene

Dr. Strangebear

Or……..how I learned to stopped worrying and love the bull.

I bought a very large position in SSO earlier today for a couple of reasons:

  • I don’t get my jollies out of losing money;
  • The OPEX week clearly has import;
  • I was impressed and convinced by Fujisan’s post last night, calling for – if memory serves – a push to 1086 by Friday.

I am having fewer and fewer compunctions about buying select stocks. That is evident from my watch lists.

One cause for concern for the bulls remains…………..volume! Just take a look at the volume graph; it’s simply pathetic.

0916-sso 

When Does the V Exhaust?

It is generally true that prices climb higher at a far slower rate than they drop. This rally, however, has been a remarkable exception. The push higher has been explosive, and it has pushed higher with just about the same timetable and force as the drop itself.

0916-V

The question, of course, is: when (if ever) will it end?

There are as many opinions as there are traders, but a few general camps would be, using the example of the Russell 2000 above:

  • It has another 10% to go, and it will happen quickly. That would be painful for the bears, but I would hasten to point out that, at that level, the Russell would have completely retraced to the neckline of a head and shoulders pattern spanning three years whose beauty would make bears (if there are any left by then) weep tears of joy.
  • It’s done climbing and will start falling. This has been uttered so many times by so many parties (including, I admit, a few times by me) that it’s not even worth considering anymore. The entire, "OK, now………….errr………OK, NOW!………..oh, wait…………….errr, NOW!" gets really, really old.
  • We’re in a major new bull market and it’s simply going to keep pushing its way through to progressively higher prices.

For the bears out there who would like some encouraging news, the semiconductor index – which is a helpful bellweather – is looking like it is approaching a huge area of resistance. This is why I bought SSG yesterday.

0916-sox  

Snark and Despair All the


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Testy Tuesday Morning

Our levels are holding so far

We came right back to 1,000 on the S&P yesterday but it held like a champ and that gave us the confidence to take a bullish cover on our longer DIA protective puts, right at 3:04, ahead of the usual 50-point stick save but it was a move we initiated right at the bottom at 2:30, catching almost the dead bottom on our roll.  Of course it’s total nonsense but it’s total nonsense we can count on with 8 stick saves of at least 50 points in the last 90 minutes coming in the last 10 market sessions accounting for 400 points of Dow gains or ALL of our gains since July 20th when we "broke out."

As illustrated in David Fry’s SPY chart, the only exceptions to the stick save were the last two Fridays and I said to members in yesterday’s chat, perhaps that is somehow significant that the collective we call "Mr. Stick", does not feel confident enough to make bullish plays into the weekend anymore.  Today we should head right back to re-test 1,000 on the S&P but we are much more bearish overall, having taken profits yesterday and covered our unrealized gains in our $100KP - the plan we discussed in yesterday’s morning post.

We got a re-test and a re-failure of the Russell at exactly our 574 target right at 11:15 and the the Qs never even mounted a serious threat on our 40 line so it wasn’t a tough call for us in the morning.  The other levels we are watching, Dow 9,297, S&P 1,000, Nasdq 2,017, NYSE 6,438, Russell 562 and SOX 308, are looking shaky and may not stand up to another test, especially if we get any bad news on our upcoming data with Wholesale Inventory and Productivity Reports on deck this morning.  Our bearish additions were an ERY spread (3x Energy bear) and COF Sept $40 puts, which are already up 10% from our 12:17 pick.  It wasn’t all negative, we liked a couple of buy/write plays and we took a very bullish spread on FRE, which should do very well this morning.  At 12:57 we had noticed FRE moving up and, in Member Chat, we were discussing the merits and my take was this:

FRE/Ifl – The float of FRE is just 650M shares and they are capable of earning $5Bn a year in a


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GDP Friday – How Much Will Be Enough?

Can the S&P make 1,000 today?

As we can see from AlphaTrends chart, that’s going to be a tough breakout and, even if we do make it, can we hold it?  In yesterday’s post I said we were ready to switch off our brains and BUYBUYBUY the rally and our breakout levels did all hold yesterday but I decided, in Member Chat, that we needed to raise the bar slightly before we started shutting down our thought processes into the weekend.  We simply used the 2.5% lines of Dow 9,297, S&P 1,000 (interesting!), Nas 2,017, NYSE 6,438, Rut 562 and SOX 308 in my 10:16 Alert as our official buying breakouts but those same levels gave us a great indicator to get out of our longs and press our shorts as they ALL failed by 11:09.

Personal Consumption Q1 09

It is going to be very much up to the GDP report and we have a pretty low-bar expectation of -1.5% but that’s a heck of an improvement over last quarter’s -5.5% and this earnings season has been nothing if not a celebration of "getting worse more slowly."  As we all know, personal consumption makes up 70% of the GDP while government is about 18% and business investment just 12%.  Durable goods are only 8% of the GDP while consumables (which includes clothes and, obviously, food and fuel) are 20% and 40% is "services" but 1/4 of that number is Real Estate so that’s a little confusing. 

As we know, not much is actually getting better but that’s not the issue with GDP as we are measuring "growth" compared to the prior 4 quarters and our prior year was a disaster!  This is like when a raging fire causes a house to collapse and you stand there looking at the wreckage and say "at least most of the fire is out now."

The good news is the comps just keep getting easier and easier the worse things get so, at some point, you are bound to improve!  As you can see from Briefing.com’s Real GDP chart on the left, there’s a pretty wide disparity between the Real and Nominal GDP and that’s because the Real GDP meansures the production of goods and services valued at constant prices.  So we aren’t producing that much less, we’re just getting less for it… 

We’ll get the scoop at 8:30 but our global partners weren’t waiting with…
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All About Trends

Mid-Day Update

Reminder: David is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Click here for the full report.

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Market Montage

Bridgewater’s Views Still Gloomy on 2012

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

Ray Dalio has created a machine at hedge fund Bridgewater – not only have assets surpassed $120B, the fund continues to churn out some fantastic results for investors.  Through end of August last year, the fund was up 25% YTD (and that was after an awful August for markets, and before the stampede upward of October); this after a 44% gain in 2010.  Longer term, ...



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Chart School

December 28th, 2011 Market Analysis with Gold Update

Courtesy of Blain.

The US Dollar was up and the market was down on minimal volume. And yup, that's about the extent of today's action. The biggest gainer on my watch list of 125 securities was Bankrate (RATE) with a paltry +0.8% return. Updated market charts below. See you tomorrow!

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ETF Selector

US Markets Drop On Italy Fear (EWI, DIA, SPY, QQQ, IWM, TLT, GLD)

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Major US Markets including (NYSEARCA:DIA), (NYSEARCA:SPY), (NASDAQ:QQQ), and (NYSEARCA:IWM) dropped over 3% each on Italian bond fears and an increased worry that Europe will not be able to bail out its 4th largest economy. Furthermore, the iShares MCSI Italy Fund (NYSEARCA:EWI) wiped out over 9% today, further illustrating the dire situation in Italy and the European Union: ...

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Phil's Favorites

Markets Drop On Economic Reports, G-20 Meeting, Greece (GLD, USO, MF, SPY, QQQ)

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Markets dropped slightly lower today on G-20 news, mixed economic reports, and Grecian woes.

After the confusing market action on Wall Street this week, it seems that markets cannot make up their minds after last week’s euphoric rally and Euro-zone compromise.  It appeared that markets were on a meteoric rise that could have possibly carried us into Christmas, however Prime Minister Papandreou’s referendum call for Greece and MF Global’s bankruptcy soured the mood.

The SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca:GLD) dropped half a percent today; the fall likely represents the current troubles of MF Global Holdings (NYSEArca:MF), which filed for bankruptcy earlier this week.  MF Global has ...



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Zero Hedge

Dallas Fed Latest Economic Contraction Confirmation; Survey Respondents' Gloom Soars

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

The second economic disappointment of the day comes from the Dallas Fed, which dropped from -2.0 to -11.4 on expectations of -9.0- this was the 4th consecutive negative print month. The report was, in a word, horrible, with just 2 of the 15 constituent indices posting an increase, and the bulk solidly in the red, led by Unfilled and New Orders which dropped 16.8 and 11.2, respectively: not good for economic growth. On the employment side there was nothing good either, with both employment and hours worked declining by -...



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Insider Scoop

Diana Containerships Files To Offer Stock Up To $172.5M -Bloomberg (DCIX)

Courtesy of Benzinga

Bloomberg reports that Diana Containerships (NASDAQ: DCIX) files to offer stock up to $172.5M. Diana Containerships says that Diana shipping will also buy $20M of stock.

Visit Benzinga >

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Sabrient

Sabrient Risers - 3/12/2011

Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisVLOSTRONGBUYAn increasingly positive growth rate of past earnings, along with improving expectations for long term growth, make Valero a good prospect for high returns.KROSTRONGBUYKronos Worldwide has been gaining recognition from analysts as a good canditate for achieving higher than expected earnings along with higher overall projected valuation.SFIBUYiStar is one of the top candidates projected to achieve both higher than previously projected earnings in the short run and a higher earnings growth rate in the long run.AMATSTRONGBUYApplied Materials has been...

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Option Review

Bulls Scoop Up Sprint Nextel Corp. Calls

 Today’s tickers: S, FTR, JTX & SBUX

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OpTrader

Swing trading virtual portfolio - week of March 7th, 2011

This post is for live trades and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current virtual trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).

We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options. 

Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.

To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here

Optrader 

Swing trading virtual portfolio

 

One trade virtual portfolio

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Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly

NEW: Elliott and Ilene are available to chat with Members regarding topics presented in SWW, comments are found below each post.

Here's the newest Stock World Weekly:  Illusion Based on a Fantasy 

Comments welcome... share your thoughts.  

Download Newsletter 3/6/11


Stock World Weekly archives here >

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Pharmboy

Biotech Junkies Update and Momenta Pharma Moving Forward

February is now past, and the Biotech Porfolio is loaded with winners and a miss (PLX).  MRK is down a bit, but I expect that trade to recover, and one could be more agressive and double down on it, or play another round at the Jan13 $30 options for roughly the same price.  Below is the summary, and note the grey boxes are ones that did not fill.  I am still a fan of BMRN, and like DEPO as well.  Now let's look at a few others.

Table 1.  PSW Biotech Plays Since January 2011

 

Our newest play is Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA), who is pursuing a three-part business model which includes complex generic equivalents in partnership with the Sandoz division of Novartis, proprietary compounds, and follow-on- biologics (FOB).  It seems that this company is tied up in competition/litigation wit...



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