"Man check out UNG. friggin A. One would think that is a ultra ETF as well."
Well, at least now there is no contango in NG futures for the foreseeable future. So buying UNG now would be a fair bet on the recent strong drop in NG futures reversing. If I had any spare cash, I might have started scaling into UNG now...
I meant "if I had spare cash that I was not allowed to invest into junior miners" :), since I think junior miners offer a MUCH better risk/return profile than UNG over the next year.
The Fly's comments on futures.Too funny. Too true. "I suppose you want to talk about the stock market, don’t you? I was afraid this blog would boil down to this. The futures are cordially higher this evening because people want to feel good when it doesn’t count. We are in the off-hours aka “fantasy time,” when investors day dream about German Santa Klaus’s and free money dropping from Bernnake air force jets onto a joyous Wall Street crowd. Obama in a Santa hat and Geithner dressed as an elf, making toys. In the off hours, we dream about a market that was supposed to be, but just didn’t happen because we destroyed the fucking planet."
I was driving down the Silverado Trail around 1230 pm yesterday when I heard the DJIA was down about -100, and briefly considered buying back in to the SPX. I turned into Zinfandel Lane, fired up the cell phone, but ultimately decided that prudence dictated no action on a day when I wasn't following the markets.
MITK is kinda weak today Mark, huh? They have been pushing it down with tiny little sells. The question is: is this yet another shakeout? There are a lot of people sitting in this sucker and getting frustrated.
Pop the stock and then sell it off to get people to capitulate and then rocket it higher...
"David- Time to wake up and smell the bacon, bro."
I am a long-term investor now, bro. Now that I have my $26 strike GDXJ puts in place to protect my ass in case the miners drop to new lows, I don't have to rush and take profits on any little rally. I went through all this shit with AUMN so as to catch THE low, and if I did, I just have to sit tight now and watch it grow to the sky. THAT'S where I'll need titanium cojones...
MITK - Okay, I've got a stink bid in at $6.50 but doubt it gets hit.
EEM iH&S had a lot of upside gaps that were warning signs, yesterday those gaps were all filled.
Hopefully some Merkozy bozo in Europe doesn't have anything more bearish to say, someone send them a zipper for their lips, or slip them a valium or something please...?
There are plenty of EU-LTRO skeptics saying the market is being fooled again into believing the situation is suddenly under control.
We'll see, doesn't seem we're out of the weeds at least until the dollar can move under 80?
"There are plenty of EU-LTRO skeptics saying the market is being fooled again into believing the situation is suddenly under control."
This suggests that if tomorrow more than the expected $100-$150B get borrowed from ECB, the market will surge higher yet again. Or maybe today's surge is due to smart money anticipating tomorrow's move...
Right. If we could learn to set aside the regret, it would make us much stronger traders. That fact alone kind of motivates me to try to do it. One of those 'if you REALLY want to get stronger, try this' moves.
Mark - You can find it on google: mobile bill pay and danske. I saw a link to Danske Bill Pay months ago but Mitek wasn't referenced. Maybe it's an error by the writer?
2nd, think back to the downdraft you side-stepped a couple of months ago.
If you're going to move your money in and out of the market, you'll win some and lose some. You have to remember the winners as well and know that this type of stuff will always happen. Best thing is to track gains and losses from this and either you'll see your gains are making you incremental profits (or, if not, stop doing it).
So what if you put on the trade and it didn't go the way you wanted?
I am no where close to fully invested and I won't be until I see the market stabilize and trend. These little wiggles, zigs and zags are designed to demoralize. In cases like this (draw that big blue arrow) NOT trading is trading.
Today could have as easily been down 300 as up 300. Sure, I woke up late and saw the futures were up big and I put on a few trades with some high volatility holdings and scalped some cash, but we all know how this ends. It's up 300 today and tomorrow some A-hole in Europe pops the bubble, dashes our hope and it's down 400. There was no way for anyone to know the outcome yesterday afternoon. When this market finally decides where it's gonna go there will plenty of time and many more opportunities. Up 300 on light volume before the holiday break isn't the place to get emotional. This is just one hand of a marathon game. Throw in your chit and wait for the next deal.
I can't take a lot of credit, I pay a professional to whisper in my ear and keep me out of trouble....but I'm learning.
Even though I pay for good advice, I get the free stuff each morning from the same guy:
"Got Random Thoughts:
"Most issues were hit harder than the Ps would suggest. Rusty (the russell), which was down around 1 ¾% paints a better picture of what really happened on Monday.
The selling keeps the short-term downtrend intact. It also keeps the market below short-term resistance and longer-term overhead supply. The most important thing to know now is the longer-term trend remains sideways. So, if you're a trend follower, there's not a whole lot to do. Have I said this before?
It was a textbook inter-market technical analysis type of day--Dollar up, bonds up, stocks down, commodities down. See last week's webcasts for more on inter-market technical analysis.
HEY!, looks like they fixed Europe (again). Futures are super strong pre-market. Yeeaaahh! I'm gonna tell all my friends!"
Thanks Dave! So today was a shits and giggles type of day, throw on a few day trades, run on a minute chart and get out with a few clams. A few thousand shares of MITK at the open and out at 7.80 was more than an expensive lunch and SPPI was a decent trade. I think I paid for Christmas shopping and I don't have to sit around for the downside.
Hopefully TOF (and Mark) took some partial profits on those monster MITK positions so they can reload lower. I think it goes a lot higher but it's one of those high historic volatility numbers so it's gonna make you giddy and sick, sometimes in the same day.
FD: I did buy some of the SPPI yesterday afternoon, but only a small position. I added more this AM then got out. I think most of my trades lately have been in the first half hour of trading. If I goof around any more than that I'll just give it back and that pisses me off more than missing the move entirely.
Dave - thanks but no thanks man. My MITK is still down from when i bought it and I'm kicking myself for not buying CSTR/TZOO/OPEN, all of which are at least flat from last Wednesday.
I've thought of making at least a partial lateral move into TZOO but every time I think of the potential that MITK has over the next year it makes it hard to pull the trigger.
Think of it this way: MITK had about 20 to 25 banks deploying mobile check deposit in 2011. Revenues grew over 100%. The currently have 161 banks signed on (most are signed but not deployed) and grew that total by 80 banks just last quarter. Currently less than 5% of banks have mobile check deposit deployed. By the end of next year 80% of banks expect to have one deployed or in pilot. At this time next year MITK could have 500 banks signed on. Think what that will do to revenues.
TZOO is very interesting to me here too. Every time I look at GRPN I cant help but think TZOO is worth a ton more. They also have the URL www.fly.com which gets a ton of traffic and I think they will be able to do something good with that.
Besides all the good things happening to MITK internally, I am also betting on the fact that the stress on the banking system will ease tomorrow after "free" cash will be given out by ECB.
2nd - I hear ya man, but if you believe that we will just kind of muddle through this then you should do fine if you find undervalued stocks to invest in.
David - Good luck man. Only issue I have with options is they expire. For all we know MITK could go to $6.50 again before it goes to $20. I mean, nothing has changed since it hit $13, in fact things have gotten better. Stock is the only game in town for me from now on. I've been burned too many times with options.
That is the trouble with choppy trendless markets. Remember we had this type of action in 2007-2008 and it was basically a day trading environment?
A lot has to happen to get out of this either way. We have the overhead supply and the 200 dma on the upside and we don't have anyone giving up or major bad news to the downside.
2nd, you have the BEST sense of sentiment I know, but it requires a lot of patience in this type of action. When it happens you will feel it.
"David - Good luck man. Only issue I have with options is they expire."
That's why I chose to go with deep in-the-money calls for MITK. I paid very little premium for these calls, and thus my absolute loss on that position (if MITK starts trending down from here) will be almost exactly the same as the absolute loss on 1000 shares of MITK. However, my absolute loss is capped below $5 on MITK. So by paying only 30 cents of premium, I am getting all the potential upside of owning 1000 shares of MITK with a smaller maximum downside. Why do I need to pay that 30 cents of premium in the first place? Because I ain't got no money left to buy 1000 shares! :) Otherwise, if I had any money left over, I would have definitely bought shares instead of options.
Just because the overall market is choppy and trendless doesn't mean you can't pick your spots and make $$. Look at how well CSTR has resisted $40. Look at how MITK bounced right off $6.5. OPEN went all the way down to the point where it broke out to in February 2010 and where it peaked at in 2009.
I think if you can find those support levels and just force yourself to wait you can make gobs of money. The key is waiting. TZOO around $20-$21 was another one. The resistance from the spring of 2010 was $20/21.
It appears we are getting closer to the end of this stage of the Euro-crisis and I think markets continue to rally from here. They've effectively implemented QE over there now with the 3 year funding of banks to get their hoses in order and now the good US news is no longer being drowned out.
It seems that there is some selling of winners as well as tax loss selling going on this year which is helping keep the markets down, but I really think we are ready to break.
Add in the seasonality effect, the fact there is very little optimism or belief in the markets, underperforming hedge fund managers trying to keep their jobs and we are ready to go.
From Crossing Wall Street:
I took all of the historical data for the Dow Jones from 1896 through 2010, and found that the streak from December 22 to January 6 is the best time of the year for stocks.
Over the 16 day run from December 22 to January 6, the Dow has gained an average of 3.23%. That’s 41% of the Dow’s average annual gain of 7.87%.
cp - funny u mention btu i was looking a bit at that yest. is the thinking they r gonna get hurt bc of a china slowdown? or is it increased regulation? either way i cant believe i was trading it in the 60s and its half thay now.
Seattle's Best is owned by Starbucks but CSTR could own the machines.
ReplyDeletecc yeah i think thats how they split it up...cstr could really be a much bigger investment than i was thinking. now i wish i was in it
ReplyDelete"Man check out UNG. friggin A. One would think that is a ultra ETF as well."
ReplyDeleteWell, at least now there is no contango in NG futures for the foreseeable future. So buying UNG now would be a fair bet on the recent strong drop in NG futures reversing. If I had any spare cash, I might have started scaling into UNG now...
I meant "if I had spare cash that I was not allowed to invest into junior miners" :), since I think junior miners offer a MUCH better risk/return profile than UNG over the next year.
ReplyDeleteThe Fly's comments on futures.Too funny. Too true.
ReplyDelete"I suppose you want to talk about the stock market, don’t you? I was afraid this blog would boil down to this. The futures are cordially higher this evening because people want to feel good when it doesn’t count. We are in the off-hours aka “fantasy time,” when investors day dream about German Santa Klaus’s and free money dropping from Bernnake air force jets onto a joyous Wall Street crowd. Obama in a Santa hat and Geithner dressed as an elf, making toys. In the off hours, we dream about a market that was supposed to be, but just didn’t happen because we destroyed the fucking planet."
ECB LTRO?
ReplyDeletehttp://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/12/19/806091/the-carry-trade-and-the-goldilocks-ltro/
CSTR/MITK...Short term MITK has much more potential. Much more.
ReplyDeleteBAS- This one needs to be watched. Damn it moves.
ReplyDeletei totally agree mark...thats why im all in on mitk. i wouldnt be surprised to see 13 in a couple of weeks.
ReplyDeleteI'm beginning to think this market is very predictable...anytime it drops below a support level just buy the shit out of it.
ReplyDeletevery cool...stockcharts.com added a most active / % up / % down feature: http://stockcharts.com/
ReplyDeleteThe P&F chart on the DJIA at stockcharts has flipped from bear to bull about 5 times in the past month.
ReplyDeleteToday I made my first trade in a couple months. Sold UXG at $3.25 which I had purchased at $2.95 the day before.
ReplyDeleteNice work, illini!
ReplyDeleteDavid- Time to wake up and smell the bacon, bro.
ReplyDeleteI was driving down the Silverado Trail around 1230 pm yesterday when I heard the DJIA was down about -100, and briefly considered buying back in to the SPX. I turned into Zinfandel Lane, fired up the cell phone, but ultimately decided that prudence dictated no action on a day when I wasn't following the markets.
ReplyDeleteSo I'll kick myself for missing an easy +2.5% move for a few seconds, and move on.
ReplyDeleteMITK is kinda weak today Mark, huh? They have been pushing it down with tiny little sells. The question is: is this yet another shakeout? There are a lot of people sitting in this sucker and getting frustrated.
ReplyDeletePop the stock and then sell it off to get people to capitulate and then rocket it higher...
"David- Time to wake up and smell the bacon, bro."
ReplyDeleteI am a long-term investor now, bro. Now that I have my $26 strike GDXJ puts in place to protect my ass in case the miners drop to new lows, I don't have to rush and take profits on any little rally. I went through all this shit with AUMN so as to catch THE low, and if I did, I just have to sit tight now and watch it grow to the sky. THAT'S where I'll need titanium cojones...
Yep, it's weak TOF. How did you find that article last night?
ReplyDeleteMITK - Okay, I've got a stink bid in at $6.50 but doubt it gets hit.
ReplyDeleteEEM iH&S had a lot of upside gaps that were warning signs, yesterday those gaps were all filled.
Hopefully some Merkozy bozo in Europe doesn't have anything more bearish to say, someone send them a zipper for their lips, or slip them a valium or something please...?
There are plenty of EU-LTRO skeptics saying the market is being fooled again into believing the situation is suddenly under control.
We'll see, doesn't seem we're out of the weeds at least until the dollar can move under 80?
It's funny how 'missed opportunities' can ---- with my mind so easily. I don't why I'm wasting time regretting my inaction yesterday.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly why trading is so difficult. The mind game.
ReplyDelete2nd- Missed opportunities grind on me harder than anything else.
ReplyDelete"There are plenty of EU-LTRO skeptics saying the market is being fooled again into believing the situation is suddenly under control."
ReplyDeleteThis suggests that if tomorrow more than the expected $100-$150B get borrowed from ECB, the market will surge higher yet again. Or maybe today's surge is due to smart money anticipating tomorrow's move...
Right. If we could learn to set aside the regret, it would make us much stronger traders. That fact alone kind of motivates me to try to do it. One of those 'if you REALLY want to get stronger, try this' moves.
ReplyDeleteMark - You can find it on google: mobile bill pay and danske. I saw a link to Danske Bill Pay months ago but Mitek wasn't referenced. Maybe it's an error by the writer?
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the stuff I tell the little guy. 'If you REALLY want to compete at the top someday...'
ReplyDelete2nd, think back to the downdraft you side-stepped a couple of months ago.
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to move your money in and out of the market, you'll win some and lose some. You have to remember the winners as well and know that this type of stuff will always happen. Best thing is to track gains and losses from this and either you'll see your gains are making you incremental profits (or, if not, stop doing it).
BB- Agreed. The ideal stance is buy-and-hold, simply b/c no one knows when the market will make a +3% move.
ReplyDeleteAs David points out, the skepticism with which today's rally is viewed is a positive.
So what if you put on the trade and it didn't go the way you wanted?
ReplyDeleteI am no where close to fully invested and I won't be until I see the market stabilize and trend.
These little wiggles, zigs and zags are designed to demoralize. In cases like this (draw that big blue arrow) NOT trading is trading.
Today could have as easily been down 300 as up 300. Sure, I woke up late and saw the futures were up big and I put on a few trades with some high volatility holdings and scalped some cash, but we all know how this ends. It's up 300 today and tomorrow some A-hole in Europe pops the bubble, dashes our hope and it's down 400.
There was no way for anyone to know the outcome yesterday afternoon.
When this market finally decides where it's gonna go there will plenty of time and many more opportunities.
Up 300 on light volume before the holiday break isn't the place to get emotional.
This is just one hand of a marathon game. Throw in your chit and wait for the next deal.
CC - Well said. I'm right there with you. The next big random move is only a few minutes away...
ReplyDelete"There was no way for anyone to know the outcome yesterday afternoon."
ReplyDeleteExcept for TOF, who clearly called it yesterday afternoon. :) Our secret weapon! :))
I can't take a lot of credit, I pay a professional to whisper in my ear and keep me out of trouble....but I'm learning.
ReplyDeleteEven though I pay for good advice, I get the free stuff each morning from the same guy:
"Got Random Thoughts:
"Most issues were hit harder than the Ps would suggest. Rusty (the russell), which
was down around 1 ¾% paints a better picture of what really happened on Monday.
The selling keeps the short-term downtrend intact. It also keeps the market below short-term resistance and longer-term overhead
supply. The most important thing to know now is the longer-term trend remains sideways. So, if you're a trend follower, there's not
a whole lot to do. Have I said this before?
It was a textbook inter-market technical analysis type of day--Dollar up, bonds up, stocks down, commodities down. See last
week's webcasts for more on inter-market technical analysis.
HEY!, looks like they fixed Europe (again). Futures are super strong pre-market. Yeeaaahh! I'm gonna tell all my friends!"
Thanks Dave! So today was a shits and giggles type of day, throw on a few day trades, run on a minute chart and get out with a few clams.
A few thousand shares of MITK at the open and out at 7.80 was more than an expensive lunch and SPPI was a decent trade. I think I paid for Christmas shopping and I don't have to sit around for the downside.
Hopefully TOF (and Mark) took some partial profits on those monster MITK positions so they can reload lower. I think it goes a lot higher but it's one of those high historic volatility numbers so it's gonna make you giddy and sick, sometimes in the same day.
FD: I did buy some of the SPPI yesterday afternoon, but only a small position. I added more this AM then got out. I think most of my trades lately have been in the first half hour of trading.
If I goof around any more than that I'll just give it back and that pisses me off more than missing the move entirely.
Dave - thanks but no thanks man. My MITK is still down from when i bought it and I'm kicking myself for not buying CSTR/TZOO/OPEN, all of which are at least flat from last Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteI've thought of making at least a partial lateral move into TZOO but every time I think of the potential that MITK has over the next year it makes it hard to pull the trigger.
Think of it this way: MITK had about 20 to 25 banks deploying mobile check deposit in 2011. Revenues grew over 100%. The currently have 161 banks signed on (most are signed but not deployed) and grew that total by 80 banks just last quarter. Currently less than 5% of banks have mobile check deposit deployed. By the end of next year 80% of banks expect to have one deployed or in pilot. At this time next year MITK could have 500 banks signed on. Think what that will do to revenues.
Perfect timing.....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/12/psy-cycle-updated/
TZOO is very interesting to me here too. Every time I look at GRPN I cant help but think TZOO is worth a ton more. They also have the URL www.fly.com which gets a ton of traffic and I think they will be able to do something good with that.
ReplyDeleteTZA @ 27.11. For shits and giggles.
ReplyDelete2nd - If you want to buy and hold I think you can do well with TZOO man.
ReplyDeleteOut at 27.13.
ReplyDeletetof- Here's the problem. Try as I may, I can't get my head behind this rally. I just don't believe in it.
ReplyDeleteThat may be a contrarian signal- we may in fact move much higher. But I don't sense the kind of negativity it would take for that to happen.
ReplyDeleteTOF, Mark -- I decided to join you with MITK. Just bought 10 contracts of February $5 calls for $2.75 each.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the double bottom at $6.60-$6.80 between August 8 and November 29 held for MITK, and today's rally should make it very convincing.
ReplyDeleteBesides all the good things happening to MITK internally, I am also betting on the fact that the stress on the banking system will ease tomorrow after "free" cash will be given out by ECB.
ReplyDeleteLook who killed Dr. Copper last month (SOCGEN):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.businessinsider.com/socgen-dr-copper-is-dead-2011-11
2nd - I hear ya man, but if you believe that we will just kind of muddle through this then you should do fine if you find undervalued stocks to invest in.
ReplyDeleteDavid - Good luck man. Only issue I have with options is they expire. For all we know MITK could go to $6.50 again before it goes to $20. I mean, nothing has changed since it hit $13, in fact things have gotten better. Stock is the only game in town for me from now on. I've been burned too many times with options.
That is the trouble with choppy trendless markets.
ReplyDeleteRemember we had this type of action in 2007-2008 and it was basically a day trading environment?
A lot has to happen to get out of this either way.
We have the overhead supply and the 200 dma on the upside and we don't have anyone giving up or major bad news to the downside.
2nd, you have the BEST sense of sentiment I know, but it requires a lot of patience in this type of action. When it happens you will feel it.
"David - Good luck man. Only issue I have with options is they expire."
ReplyDeleteThat's why I chose to go with deep in-the-money calls for MITK. I paid very little premium for these calls, and thus my absolute loss on that position (if MITK starts trending down from here) will be almost exactly the same as the absolute loss on 1000 shares of MITK. However, my absolute loss is capped below $5 on MITK. So by paying only 30 cents of premium, I am getting all the potential upside of owning 1000 shares of MITK with a smaller maximum downside. Why do I need to pay that 30 cents of premium in the first place? Because I ain't got no money left to buy 1000 shares! :) Otherwise, if I had any money left over, I would have definitely bought shares instead of options.
Just because the overall market is choppy and trendless doesn't mean you can't pick your spots and make $$. Look at how well CSTR has resisted $40. Look at how MITK bounced right off $6.5. OPEN went all the way down to the point where it broke out to in February 2010 and where it peaked at in 2009.
ReplyDeleteI think if you can find those support levels and just force yourself to wait you can make gobs of money. The key is waiting. TZOO around $20-$21 was another one. The resistance from the spring of 2010 was $20/21.
David - gotcha. Well here's to MITK getting bought out as our New Years present!
ReplyDeleteBTU - If I keep saying this one's a buy, will it come true some day?
ReplyDeleteIt appears we are getting closer to the end of this stage of the Euro-crisis and I think markets continue to rally from here. They've effectively implemented QE over there now with the 3 year funding of banks to get their hoses in order and now the good US news is no longer being drowned out.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that there is some selling of winners as well as tax loss selling going on this year which is helping keep the markets down, but I really think we are ready to break.
Add in the seasonality effect, the fact there is very little optimism or belief in the markets, underperforming hedge fund managers trying to keep their jobs and we are ready to go.
From Crossing Wall Street:
I took all of the historical data for the Dow Jones from 1896 through 2010, and found that the streak from December 22 to January 6 is the best time of the year for stocks.
Over the 16 day run from December 22 to January 6, the Dow has gained an average of 3.23%. That’s 41% of the Dow’s average annual gain of 7.87%.
Opened ORCL @ 26.19.
ReplyDeletewow thats a crazy stat bb.
ReplyDeletecp - funny u mention btu i was looking a bit at that yest. is the thinking they r gonna get hurt bc of a china slowdown? or is it increased regulation? either way i cant believe i was trading it in the 60s and its half thay now.
new post
ReplyDelete