Tuesday, June 22, 2010
6/23/10 Break On Through
Unbelievable. I return from a day away from the markets to find that my early $452 gain would have exploded well into 4 figures had I simply left my positions alone.
Which brings me to the question of how Cheapy 'Luciano' Bob manages all these 4-figure gains while complaining they're not 5-figure gains. It's all relative.
I need this market to break on through to the downside. Take it down to a 4-figure DJIA and stay there for a few months.
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David- You seem have made up for lost time the entire month of June. Fantastic! I agree- we need to sell off for longer than a day. 90 days, maybe.
ReplyDeleteAfter a pretty good run, today just felt like a good time to stuff the chips into my pocket and grab a cold beer.
ReplyDeleteMan, that was a 30pt. swing from yesterdays high to today's close.
ReplyDelete2nd_ave -- I think the reason my OptionsHouse account was up almost every day since May is that I was heavily short in early May, but as the correction was progressing, I was closing my long June SPY puts while at the same time selling more and more puts on the energy sector, and then those puts were melting away steadily during the June rebound. So I wasn't just wasting time in June -- I was watching from the sidelines my short puts melting away. :)
ReplyDeleteI knew it. I shoulda rebought TBT sub $38 near the close. I saw the panic, but didn't ante up...
ReplyDeletecheapy, why do you think that TBT won't gap down tomorrow? I saw many times a small "correction" after hours after a strong directional move during the day, only to be followed by yet another move in the same direction the next day.
ReplyDeleteMy "goal" this year is a $500 to $1000 a day average. If I make that on my trading accounts, I at least won't be saddened.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am always wanting to do better with my trades, but that is something a lot easier said than done when you have little to no faith in anything but shiny metal.
David- Thanks for the info last night. Is your father really good looking also :)??... Your fathers view is about what I've been able to put together. I never eat/drink sweats, so I'm going to have to attack the white carbs I love so much. I actually eat very well, so it will be hard to push that number around much, but I'm committed to trying! I might even go as far as using diet tonic with my Stoli, but no need yet to do anything that drastic :)!
ReplyDeletecheapy- I don't get your TBT comment either.
ReplyDeleteTBT I dumped at 38.16. I was watching it at the end of the day, and it got to 37.91. I had the opportunity to reload or partially reload at 37.92/38.73 and basically chickened out. Earlier I said that not reloading on the end of day panic was usually a goof that I would make because at that point fear is rampant. And after hours, there it went, up to 38.14. Ok, liquidity wasn't great, but I could easily have bought say 2000 shares and been reasonably confident that I could have sold it before tomorrow's open. 2000 x 20 cents is $400 opportunity lost. I mean really, what is the downside risk on TBT at 38.93? About 40 cents to a double bottom at almost "free money for 20 yrs" rates.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, 2nd is right, I shouldn't piss and moan about not making enough, but its very disheartening watching everything go zoom immediately after you sell.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteNo offense, but when YOU sell out at a loss and I see support close by and an irrationally cheap price, I know I should be thinking of buying and turning off the screen.
cheapy- Got it, thanks. I almost bought the close today, but today felt a little different.
ReplyDeleteCheapy, after I bought TBT at $40, it rose to $41, and so I invoked the rule of not letting a profit turn into a loss and set a sell stop limit at $40. That stop got triggered and I exited TBT at $40 flat. Now I have a chance to reload it with a $38 handle, so that stop did serve its purpose. I suspect, however, that TBT will break out to a new low when S&P drops below 1000. The time to try buying TBT is AFTER a major move down in stocks, as was the case in late May.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the TBT chart for double bottoms is deceptive, since TBT is an ultra ETF that decays with time. TLT is still 20% below its high in December 2009, and if it gets there, TBT will be down 40% *from its current level.*
Mark, I also thought that I ate really well, and the only change I made in my diet, I think, is substituting plain yogurts sweetened with honey as a late night snack instead of the flavored yogurts (that have much more sugar in them). I also used to eat just a little sweets every day, which I stopped eating completely. Looks like these small changes, however, were enough for me to lose 10 lbs in one month (13 lbs in two months), something that I could not do with any other means.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteThat was something I didn't know. Sounds like I didn't read your other post correctly, either. I'm always looking for capitulation. It doesn't always work.
Landry-
ReplyDeleteRandom Thoughts:
The market continued to slide from its overbought condition. This action, at the least, suggests that it has the potential to challenge the bottom of its recent trading range.
Most sectors still look questionable. Even somewhat stronger areas such as the Transports were hit hard. This action has them stalling short of their old highs.
Oil Service and Retail were whacked pretty hard. Trail and scale if you took trades here.
I think that we should continue to focus on the short side. As usual, standard disclaimers apply though: honor your stops just in case, take partial profits as offered, wait for entries on new positions, and in case of rash, discontinue use.
Disheartening to see palladium prices dropping.
ReplyDeleteFeels like "sell in May" all over agin:)
still in pal though
ReplyDeleteYou know, bearish sentiment is so prevalent that.....
ReplyDeleteThe path of least resistance is still up:)
If sentiment is so bearish, why is the DJIA still 500 points above recent lows?
ReplyDeleteAnd why is Landry referring to 'overbought' conditions?
ReplyDeleteStill hanging in there (foolishly), will add if/when I see capitulation.
ReplyDeletein order to help all the other longs I sold my PAL right here at 3.40, merely in order to make the stock go up:)
ReplyDeleteEarly action could easily be a bear trap, sucking in short positions prior to a rally into FOMC...
ReplyDeleteIt's really amazing to be to see the swings in some of the main stocks I trade. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but damn, if I didn't sit here and trade day to day, there's no way in hell I'd "invest" money in the market right now.
ReplyDeleteToday could be black Wednesday
ReplyDeleteHousing, as I have been saying for years, is a complete dead duck. As an asset class, stick a fork in it, it's done. If you owe money on a home I genuinely feel sorry for you.
I took a loss but I'm glad:)
ReplyDeleteFuck this country...I'm sorry I know that's very unpatriotic but this country is also a dead duck. Washington plotiticians helped kill what once made this country great. We ruined America faster than any other developed nation in the history of the world.
We need strong central planning....the kind you never get in a Capitalist country. Businessmen have been killing this country and I think they've finally killed it off.
We are now officially a third world country, and you didn't hear it here first.
I thank the good lord I have no kids. I have a cat and I worry about her future:)
Your kids are all going to be greeters at Wal-Mart...Hello!
Unless you're rich...in which case your kids will truly never work a day in their lives, because there will be no jobs.
ReplyDeleteHey Bob...not too early to teach your kids to trade:)
G20 - Wonder if they'll put the hammer down on China if China hasn't complied with requests?
ReplyDeleteWill the FED reduce or eliminate interest on excess reserves, which would reverse shrinking money supply growth to the upside?
What will today's fake news be?
Sold any remaining longs I had, including GOOG at $482. I also smartly closed my SPY $110 June 30 Calls (part of my call/put straddle/hedge) prior to the housing release and kept my SPY $112 June 30 puts which are now up a cool 85% from yesterday. I put an order in to sell half of them at $4 or double my entry point and will let the rest ride, although I'm on the lookout for a reversal. I was targeting 1,085 as an initial downside target and since we're hear it's only prudent to take a little off the table.
ReplyDeleteSharkie - 1/4th of the world's population lives in China and we've been sending them our green strips of paper in exchange for finished goods for two decades now, we were willing to pay less for something not made in the US factory our neighbor works in and the factory his children would have worked in.
ReplyDeleteThat factory has since closed it's doors and moved overseas, we have no green strips of paper, no job, and now no credit(many among us who lived beyond their means are defaulting).
Wonder how we plan to feed our children, let alone where the children will work?
PAL - Anybody catch that low? It just wasn't low enough for me to buy.
ReplyDeletesmells like a bear trap to me.
ReplyDeleteNah...I am not looking for the lowest price. I am looking for stocks that are/will go up.
ReplyDeleteThis housing number is a real game-changer for the rest of the summer. It, plus the employment "scenario", actually calls the car-recovery into question.
And the Chinese 'aint goinna be buying any cars...not most of them anyway, not in this global economic climate. Heck, development is still yet-to-come to most of China; the developed/economically viable part is quite small still, and boy do they have their problems.
Hey 2nd...Did you ever wonder how the Chinese wound up with 3 times more people than any other half-continent?
(It wasn't by keeping their knees crossed...the Chinese are, no offense, a very horny people:)
Chicken,
ReplyDeleteTo buy the PAL bottom today would have involved holding your nose, shutting off your brain and buying merely what you see.
Of course, the way we buy dictates the way we sell, right?
So having just sold (and it's funny how often good, important sales should happen often within a short period of time vis-a-vis the repo) I wasn't really feeling so thrilled about buying the buyable bottom, as it happened within minutes of my sell, and like many, my outlook is turning bearish, in a macro sense. heard enuff bullshit? I have written enuff of it, so maybe I will go practice putting and wait till 2.
You know if the Freaking Beard had any balls at all he'd raise the Fed Funds rate today.
Obama can't fire McChrystal....
ReplyDeleteWhy not? Because if Obama fires McC, and then if some kid in Afghanistan gets a hangnail or a case of Chlamydia, it becomes totally Obama's fault. And since it pretty much looks like our mission there is bogging down into another Vietnam, this is one war that Obama already owns too big a piece of.
Besides, these Generals have been making fun of presidents since the beginning of time. You think they wouldn't make fun of this one?
interesting that the home builders are up today.
ReplyDeleteLong SPF at $3.73.
ReplyDeleteHey Guys,
ReplyDeleteWhen we write "Long whatever" can we state our intended timeframe, be it a ten minute scalp, a possible all day trade, or the initiation of a longer term hold?
It would be a lot more informative.
SPF does look pretty damn appealing here Team.
You know what's doing really well and looking good is...Rubicon
ReplyDeleteSPF, the stock is off -47% in 60 days. Technically it is a total wreck.
ReplyDeleteMay I be so bold as to ask what your catalyst for a buy is?
Shark's long whatever (timeframe)has merit, but after awhile you get to know peoples trading preferences. Generally, I look at almost every stock someone mentions here, but definitely do my own thing.
Euro Zone
ReplyDeletehttp://www.screencast.com/users/Telestar3d/folders/Jing/media/73c6baa3-c153-450e-ad44-0dbd01ff9c35
How does the US compare?
hey guys - timing > I have no freaking idea. SPF was on my watchlist for the past several months and its down almost 50% from the peak. housing is what it is but there has to be some kind of bounce here, no? the company's financials actually look pretty good. balance sheet is much improved and they are break even/actually earning profits. I think a bounce to $5 is definitely doable.
ReplyDeleteIn playing the bear trap, I also bought 3 x SPY June $107 Calls at $2.73...time frame on this could be 20 minutes if I get the bounce I want.
Sold all of my SPY Puts at a 70% profit. Keeping the calls/puts positions very small and only trading for bottles of wine/cases of beer.
ReplyDeleteOk, got it, the catalyst is that there has to be some kind of bounce. Thanks.
ReplyDeletet3d - its that and the fact that i think they have one of the stronger balance sheets in the industry and the sentiment surrounding homebuilders is awful. kinda a contrarian pick.
ReplyDeleteTOF, thanks, we all see the market through a different prism.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which I have been doing very little other than taking off risk over the last few days with gold my major holding. Basically, it is my insurance policy.
They sure are ripping oil shares ever since the judge lift the moratorium except for the initial little bounce that lasted about 90 seconds.
Looking out this seems inconsistent to me as shutting down gulf oil production has to put pressure for higher oil prices six to twelve months out in a world that drinks about 85 million barrels of oil a day and has very little ability to increase that rate with current infrastructure.
So the question is, what does the oil market know? It does look like we are heading for a double dip or as I prefer to say the continuation of the depression for a significant part of our (US)population.
The part that keeps me optimistic is that the US has always had a unique ability to come through these types of problems before.
t3d - i kind of had a waking up moment yesterday on my bearishness. i started looking at the population growth numbers of the u.s. by decade and it struck me that people just keep yearning to come to our country, no matter what is going on with the economy in the short run. and people keep on having babies. look at this:
ReplyDelete1930 123,202,624 16.2%
1940 132,164,569 7.3%
1950 151,325,798 14.5%
1960 179,323,175 18.5%
1970 203,211,926 13.3%
1980 226,545,805 11.5%
1990 248,709,873 9.8%
2000 281,421,906 13.2%
2010 309,162,581 9.9%
i think this population growth will just continue and more people means more demand and more mouths to feed, which feeds into more jobs to make the goods those people want/need. so as we sell less and less homes and the population continues to grow it tells me that we are going to have a pretty significant imbalance between supply and demand at some point. when? i have no idea. but if we grow our population another 10% in the 2010s, then we will have another 30 Million people in our country. let's say 4 people live in each house. that's another 7.5 million houses/condos/etc that need to be put up to house these people.
i think the long term positive demographics / population growth are more powerful than any short term negativity.
Population growth, I seen a study that says the planet will have 9 billion people by 2050 (I have to check that figure, do not take it as gospel).
ReplyDeleteSomeone did a very good presentation on this, I'll post if I can find. At the moment cannot even think of the authors name.
SPF, LPX & HOV all look interesting
ReplyDeleteby the way, check out this link to the 10 year financials for SPF:
ReplyDeletehttp://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/Income10.aspx?symbol=SPF
while there was clearly a bubble from 2003 to 2005 in earnings, way back in 2000 and 2001 the company earned $1.70 to $1.80 per share. Granted they now have about 60% more shares than back then but even if you count in the higher shares you're talking about a company that has the potential to earn over $1.00 per share. it seems to me that a $8 to $10 stock price is certainly achievable.
dont 4get pcx
ReplyDeleteim thinking of going long pal
ReplyDeleteOWOW Obama DID can McChrystal...
ReplyDeleteNow the next time a soldier catches scabies it's Barack's fault.
I hope he relieved him not because of the insubordination, but rather, for the fact that McChrystal is doing a lousy job in Vietnam.
I mean Afghanistan
ReplyDeleteDon't forget to throw WY into the mix if you guys are thinking of playing the home builders. I think they are the 3rd largest, along with all of the other stuff they do.
ReplyDeletegreen close unless bernanke says something unexpectedly neg
ReplyDeleteTeam,
ReplyDeleteThe case you state is a commonly advocated one.
Past performance being no guarantee, I really don't expect people to stop having kids, although I did:)
However, population growth is likely to face the realities of constrained economic potential...
Meaning perhaps (someone) will eventually put on a rubber, pull out, or spring for The Pill, which is a lot cheaper than having kids. I won't say who that (someone) is, but you all can bet a had a few choice, and incredibly funny ideas:)
Hell, Saran Wrap....Aluminum foil...all these household products can be useful:)
GREEN CLOSE BABY>>>>>>>>>>>>
jr. gold miners going nuts.....must be xpecting uncle ben......
ReplyDeleteNice little break out in AONE.
ReplyDeletethat didn't sound very good...
ReplyDeletealmost sounds like everything is jacked up doesn't it???
ReplyDeleteBill Gross is calling no joy for TBT....
ReplyDeleteI wonder: what was the market was expecting from Uncle Ben? Looks like it didn't hear what it wanted to hear...
ReplyDeleteJPM has really been bucking the trend lately.
ReplyDeleteJust as I typed it, the market jerked up. Doing fakes at this point is not very nice -- it is tough as it is already...
ReplyDeletebear trap was set as soon as that housing report came out. market is too technical right now. tested 1,085 on the pullback. this pullback is just that at this point and nothing more.
ReplyDeleteYeah...Having missed good entries, I think I will wait and see what develops.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a red close too eh?
holy freaking volatility.
ReplyDeletefor the record, I entered a buy order about an hour ago that didn't get hit and then I didn't feel like chasing.
ReplyDeleteDo you ever feel like your being fucked with?
I will wait and buy that motherfucker on a retest of the 3.29 (or so) low.
ReplyDeleteReally anything in the mid 30's.
And you know, it's funny, because if you were teaching someone how to really win big trading, you would teach them to do the exact opposite of what makes sense.
ReplyDeleteYou would say, buy after the worst, most hideous news comes out.
So the way the market really works is everyone positions long and then get shaken out by bad news etc spikes.
That's the reason it makes sense to buy when there's "blood in the streets", because all the stunads will of course, once the pieces scatter and get picked up, position themselves long.
So PAL is good right now for basically no other reason than that a lot of people are taught to buy only at/near the 20 day moving averages. Can we expect palladium the metal to follow through to the upside in anticipation? One would expect it.
I have to admit, my prism is definitely a Fresnel lens. The beautiful thing about it are the infinite number of aberrations. Okay, maybe it's actually a kaleidoscope...
ReplyDeleteOn the cover of the Rolling Stones!
Boy they really love that hammer shape at the 20 day.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I forgot to mention before. It's the hammer, the higher low (maybe), the fact that it's at the 20 day and they don't give a shit about the price of palladium.
I almost have that fucked up feeling that I should buy some but I won't it seems imprudent to buy now, which is why it would probably work out:)
We must be getting near yesterdays resistance/pivot so perhaps the fun will be over for PAL.
ReplyDeleteAlso buying at/under round numbers often does not work out well (3.50 is significant psychological resistance.)
Those computers sure do bang the tape around, when are they gonna sell the shit of the market so I can buy?
ReplyDeleteNeed to find the ass-end of their algorithm and bump uglies with it.
No positions it's summer.
ReplyDeleteGoing to the beach.
Today is a rare day when my OptionsHouse account is down. GLD and UCO are big holdings there and both are down today, bringing the account down by $400 for the day. It was up $800 yesterday, though, so the trend still seems to be up. :)
ReplyDelete8:37AM General Moly announces milestone in Mt. Hope permitting effort (GMO) 3.45 : Co announced that it received contingent approval by the Bureau of Land Management of the co's hydrology modeling study, pending incorporation of final comments from the BLM and cooperating agencies, paving the way for the drafting of the Preliminary Draft Environmental Impact Statement (PDEIS). Incorporation of the final hydrology study comments, which are minor in nature, is anticipated to be completed this week. Co anticipates that the PDEIS will be completed next month and provided to Cooperating Agencies.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow's action: Computers buying and selling to each other all day long.
ReplyDeletei tell ya...i think there is a solid chance we go back to the july 2009 levels if we break 1085. why 1085? i don't know but i think that's a big turning point in whether or not we go back down to 1040 to retest the previous lows. i don't think triple bottoms hold so if that happens then i think we go lower. i was thinking 950 a while ago and i think that's still reasonable.
ReplyDeletethere are a shitton of stocks that are right near breaking points...look at BBBY (after hours at 39), BBY, FDX, GE
XCO- Very interesting right here. Filled a little gap to the penny, and right above the close on the day all the energy stocks broke off their lows. Might be worth a look.
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