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Posts Tagged ‘DDM’

Technical Tuesday – Twelve Thousand Two Hundred or Bust!

Our winning streak continues! 

With 335M barrels of oil still on fake order at the NYMEX, yesterday’s early morning short play at $100.60 gave us a ride back to $99 and that was good for as much as $536M pre-market.   In the morning post, I said "hopefully we’ll get another crack at shorting oil at $100 or higher" and we did – right at the open – and that was good for a ride back to $99 for another $335M of potential gains (just following through with last Thursday’s plan to break the NYMEX speculators).  

We took the money and ran on those USO June $40 puts at $1.40 (up 22%) in Member Chat at 10:53 but the next rebound in oil didn’t quite get to $100 ($99.88) and we missed the run down to $98.50, which is where it’s sitting this morning.  

Of course, we don’t only short oil…  In my 9:58 Alert to Members I, of course, reminded them that oil was at $100 and shortable again but we also grabbed the QQQ weekly $56 puts for .33 and those finished the day at .55 for a 66.6% gain (the mark of the Blankfein), which is not bad for 6 hour’s work (or so I am told).  We also had a more complicated spread with DDM offsetting SPY as a sort of arbitrage on two spreads.  

Thanks to David Ristau’s guest appearance in Member Chat pre-market, where he mentioned he was jumping on our short oil bandwagon, we selected HAL for a short trade in Member Chat at 10:10 along with our planned PCLN short play (mentioned pre-market in the morning post) and both of those were, of course, huge winners already so thanks for HAL David!  

It wasn’t ALL bearish, we went long on XLF as it hit $14.90 with some short put sales along with a very long-term bull play on HOV but we took a loss bottom-fishing on IWM as the June $79 calls stopped us out after falling from $2.07 to $1.95 (down 5.8%) but we had to try something long to get a little balance or risk being too bearish.  Our bullish sentiment didn’t last long though and we decided to short the Nasdaq futures at the 2,300 line at 11:42, those gave us a spectacular run down
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TGIF – Stop the Week, We Want to Get Off!

This week cannot end soon enough for the bulls.

While it’s no shocker that we are finishing the week where we started and, in fact, finishing the options expiration period where we started last month (July 16th), it’s still very disappointing that we are making no progress.  This weekend I asked if it was "Time for a New, New Deal?"  I went to DC over the weekend and I’ll write about that this weekend but let’s just say I’m not seeing the political will to actually do something major to put Americans back to work and, as I said last Friday, when I said "Hoping the Weekend Brings Perspective":

Weekend stance – off this disappointing two-day run I’d say as neutral as possible over the weekend.   I do think we need a good blow-off bottom now because we blew our chance to turn it around on volume yesterday. 

Trading Range – I was counting on QE2 AND a stimulus announcement by next week.  After the weekend we may have neither so it’s really going to be all about watching our levels in absence of any fundamental market forces.  Monday we have the NY Fed and NAHB Housing Index.  Tuesday is Housing Starts, Building Permits and a PPI that will also be BTE along with Industrial Prodcution (probable disappointment) and Cap Utilization (dragged down by refiners).  Thursday is Leading Economic Indicators and the Philly Fed and that’s it for the week so, once we get past housing, the newspaper is more likely to move the markets than the data points.

We got so-so Leading Indicators yesterday and a TERRIBLE Philly Fed, leading me to send out a 10:03 Alert to Members saying:

Whoa!  Philly Fed is disaster!  -7.7.  Leading indicators are up 0.1%, which is in-line but Philly was expected at +8 so this is TERRIBLE!  We should test yesterday’s lows at least on that.   

DIA $103 puts give good bang for the buck at .74 to stop the bleeding – just keep in mind thay have a ton of premium and need to be taken off quickly when momentum stops

While that play worked out very nicely, the bleeding I referred to was my 9:43 Alert to Members where I reiterated my "small gambles" on SSO, QLD, DDM and USO – but I did say at the time: "Don’t forget we get Leading Indicators and Philly Fed at 10 and
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Will “THEY” Hold It Wednesday – Veteran Scammers on the Loose!

We are off to the races today!

Too bad I’m going to miss this, I’m away for the day but have fun on what is probably going to be the lowest-volume day since our top in mid-October.  Let’s call this a bonus rally as market pushers take advantage of the low, Veteran’s Day volume and lack of substantive news to goose us over our 5% levels, which will now give us some critical bullish lines to hold

Yesterday I said we would be looking for retraces before breaking higher and clearly we are not getting them as the market is up almost a full point in pre-market trading as the Dollar falls below 90 Yen and now a full $1.50 is needed to buy a Euro, up from $1.25 (20%) in March.  Does it bother you that your bank account has lost 20% of it’s buying power compared to the rest of the civilized World in just 8 months?  Does it bother you that your wages (if you are one of the 89% that are not already unemployed) have lost 20% of their buying power?  If you are the average American citizen – Not at all!  No one seems to care and it’s too complicated for the MSM to explain because it requires math. 

We are still too bearish (55%) for a move over our range tops as I underestimated the ability of the pumpers to stir enough excitement on low volume to get us over the 5% lines we discussed in yesterday’s post (Dow 10,206, S&P 1,086, Nas 2,152, NYSE 7,087 and Russell 588) let alone the 25% upside levels we targeted in Monday’s post (Dow 10,250, S&P 1,100, Nasdaq 2,187, NYSE 7,000 and Russell 600) – which is where we planned on getting more bullish.  Will we hold it?  That’s the question of the day and, even if we do hold it today on low volume – it won’t matter until we get a proper test.  As you can see from Mojo’s S&P chart, we are now into our bonus round of upward movement that may last until next Wednesday but, more likely than not, 1,100 is a great shorting opportunity on the S&P this morning. 

I wrote an article earlier about the Global Oil Scam and the same techniques that are used to manipulate the energy markets are in play today.  We are hearing a…
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Testy Tuesday – Dow 9,650, Berkshire $60 Edition!

Wheee, this is fun!

Just two weeks ago, on October 17th, I warned in the Weekly Wrap-Up that it was "Dow 10,000 or Bust" for the next week and we failed that one and last Wednesday we were looking to hold NYSE 6,900 and THAT failed too.  Now we enter into the second phase of our limbo game where the deep-voiced guy asks the question "how low can you go?" and we’ll be setting our next bar at our long-standing 9,650 target for the Dow,  which we are already hitting in pre-market trading.  If that fails, we’ll have to look down to S&P 1,000.  As you can see from Jesse’s Chart, we took a nice bounce off serious resistance yesterday but we’re just not feeling it yet, even though the market is now as technically oversold as it was in March

Yesterday was like a roller coaster and my first Alert to Members of the morning targeted 9,775 as the on/off line for our bullish/bearish posture on our DIA covers.  We whipped past that line right about 10 am as we got good reports from ISM, Pending Home Sales and Construction Spending but by 12:45 we had broken back down so I sent out an Alert calling to refocus back to 55% bearish by adding the DIA Jan $100 ($5) and Jan $102 puts ($6.20), already covered by the Nov $99 puts ($2.50). 

The reason we mess around with our covers is we don’t want to flip in and out of our option positions, which are generally either straight bearish or well-hedged long positions, is because options carry a relatively large bid/ask spread and cost you money every time you get in and out.  So, on the whole, we’d rather let our over-riding cover plays, like our DIA spread, adjust our stance as conditions change, making a single adjustment that keeps us balanced as we ride out the market waves. 

It’s been a couple of weeks since we had a good, old-fashioned stick save but we got a mother of one yesterday (as seen in Dave Fry’s chart) which was right on schedule as Kustomz bought it up in Member Chat at 3:09 and I agreed at 3:19 that "It does feel like a pre-stick move" and we grabbed VIX $25 puts at .85 to protect ourselves from a sudden surge in complacency.

By 3:33, my next comment to Members was: "The stick lives!" but…
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Thrill-Ride Thursday: Jobs, What Jobs?

Yesterday was very hard for us.

Our theoretically conservative $100,000 Virtual Portfolio dropped 6% in one day as we had a farily bearish position into options expiration that I stubbornly refused to adjust this week.  Surely, I thought, after running up 250 Dow points from Thursday, 10,000 would act as some kind of resistance?  We’re also up a neat 500 points for the month of October so that’s our 5% rule and to not get a 1% pullback, even in the most bullish of markets, is very rare indeed

So we stayed bearish yesterday and got crushed by the AMZN $90 calls we sold as well as UYG calls we sold and our PSQ calls we bought for protection got slaughtered as the Nasdaq flew up not 5% but 5.5% for the month and up 6.2% from it’s October 2nd low.  While we are disappointed, we’re not terribly concerned as we’re only going to roll the calls to November anyway and I did promise the members that, if we hold our breakout levels for 2 closes, then I’ll be shifting more bullish.  I’ve been trying to identify more bullish positions this week but our mix has still tended bearish as I’m just having so much trouble buying into this rally. 

In yesterday’s Member Chat, my comments on the current situation was:

I do wish we were more bullish, this is a very smart group of people and we’re pretty bearish but so is the general investing public or there’d be volume to this rally.  I have a hard time ignoring the fact that 600,000 more people lost their jobs this week and, even if it’s "only" 500,000, I still think that’s not really a sign of a healty economy.  I think the REITs are off in fantasy land and I think so is the government, who cannot keep borrowing money at these low rates.  The dollar has dropped 25% of it’s value since March so the market is only 25% ahead of the currency fall which means a flight back to the dollar, which could happen very suddenly if an EU nation like Spain collapses, could send our market down as fast a 9/11. 

That being said, we have no choice but to follow the technicals and now that we can look at nice, easy support levels like Dow 10,000, S&P 1,100, NYSE 7.200, Nas, 2,200 and RUT 620 and simply


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Market Montage

Whitney Houston Dead at 48

Submitted by Mark Hanna

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

Damn.  Two (MJ and Whitney) of the big 4 of the 80s gone – Madonna and Prince remain.  Probably the most well known Star Spangled Banner ever…

Disclosure Notice

Any securities mentioned on this page are not held by the author in his personal portfolio. Securities mentioned may or may not be held by the author in the mutual fund he manages, the Paladin Long Short Fund (PALFX). For a list of the aforementioned fund's holdings at the end of the prior quarter, visit the Paladin Funds website at http://www.paladinfunds.com/holdings/blog

...

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Zero Hedge

Europe: "The Flaw"

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

We have posted various extracts from this piece from Credit Suisse previously. We will post from it again, because, to loosely paraphrase Lewis Black, it bears reposting... especially in the context of the latest and greatest Greek "bailout" (of Europe's bankers), which incidentally, will achieve nothing and merely bring the country one step closer to a military coup and/or civil war.

The flaw

The market is essentially proceeding on the assumption, as we see it, that banks’ capital requirements can be met organically, through earnings and deleveraging. We ...



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Phil's Favorites

It's Well Past Time for Plan Z

It's Well Past Time for Plan Z

Courtesy of The Automatic Earth

Mario Draghi captured the utter ineptitude of him and every other Eurocrat out there when he said the following at today’s press conference in response to a question about a Greek exit: “To have a Plan B means defeat already. I am confident that all the pieces of this will fall in the proper places.”

Most 5-year old children in pre-school have already been told not to believe that they can always win and that “winning isn’t everything”, but Draghi & Co. still refuse to consider the possibility of failure even as it is staring them in the face. What’s really disturbing is that the stakes here are obviously much, much higher than they are o...



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Chart School

The Student Loan Debt Bomb

Courtesy of Doug Short.

Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.

It's interesting to watch some of the terms bandied about in headline news. For example, the LA Times headline reads S&P says student loan debt could be next financial bubble.

Next? Could Be?

What with the word "next"? Also what's with the words "could be"? Without a doubt student loans are in a bubble and have been for many years. The source of the problem, as it always is with financial bubbles, is cheap money, loans to nearly anyone, and in the case of student loans, no way to discharge the debt, even in bankruptcy.

From the article:

"Student-loan debt has ballooned and m...



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Sabrient

Sabrient Risers - 2/11/2012

Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisICABUYThe projected value for Empresas ICA is still rising quickly even though past earnings have already improved significantly.XBUYThe projected value for US Steel is still rising quickly even though past earnings have already improved significantly.FEICBUYProjected value continues to rise for FEI while long term increases in earnings growth are also becoming more widely expected.ASBCBUYMany analysts are expecting higher than previously expected long term growth from Associated Bancorp, and its near-term earnings outlook is also improving....

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Insider Scoop

Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Friday February 10, 2012

Courtesy of Benzinga.

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Friday February 10, 2012:

Actuant Acquires Jeyco Pty

The Deal:
Actuant (NYSE: ATU) announced Friday that it has acquired Jeyco Pty Ltd (“Jeyco”). Headquartered near Perth, Australia, Jeyco designs and provides specialized mooring, rigging and towing systems and services to the offshore oil & gas industry in Australia and other international markets. Additionally, its highly engineered products are used in a variety of applications for other markets including cyclone mooring and marine, defense and mining tow systems. Jeyco generates annual revenues of approximately $20 million.

Actuant shares closed at $27.33 Friday, a loss of 0.18% on average volume.

...

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ETF Selector

ETFs Skid On Greece (VGK, EWG, FXE, DIA, SPY)

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Greece was “saved” for less than 24 hours but now major ETFs around the world skid into the weekend on Greek fears

After wangling for a week or more, Greek took their new deal to the European Ministers meeting, only to have it promptly rejected and so as we go into the weekend, major global markets and ETFs have again hit the skids on Greece.

After two years of wangling, the European zone is demanding yet more and deeper cuts for Greece to qualify for the next round of bailout loans that will keep the country from going bankrupt on March 20th.

Major European and United States ETF responded negatively to the new developments:

SPDR Dow Jones Industrial ETF (NYSEARCA:...



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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.




To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...

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Option Review

True Religion Falls Apart At The Seams After Earnings

 

Today’s tickers: TRLG, KR & IGT

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OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of February 6th, 2012

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

This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current  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 

...

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Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly: The Relentless Pursuit of Meaningless Metrics

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

Here's the latest Stock World Weekly, called "The Relentless Pursuit of Meaningless Metrics."  

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IRA Strategy/Income Trader

Weekend Virtual Portfolio Update 1/30/2012

Here is a quick update of past trades and our current position. AA Money No trade this week as we wait for AA to settle. Phil remarked last week that AA seemed overvalued. In the meantime, it looks like we might have to roll our Feb 9 calls. Good thing we sold only 5 of them against our position. Last week P&L - 310.00 We lost ground last week, but we still have 11 months to sell premium! FAS Money Very good week for FAS Money as we benefited from the large amount of premium sold the previous week. We covered most of the shorts in advance of the Fed speech, but sold another set of options on Wednesday after the speech - 2 FAS calls that expired worthless on Friday, 2 FAS put that we are still holding and 2 FAZ put that we bought back for a profit on Friday. A late stick comparable to last week's almost gave us problems at the end of the day though! Last week P&L - $4277.00 IWM Money A decent week in this virtual portfo...

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Pharmboy

Biotech Investing for 2012

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

Finding new and exciting Biotech companies that target novel mechanisms is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  Sure there are many companies working on cutting edge science, but investing in those companies to reap the rewards of their work is a very dangerous game.  More often than not, companies fail because the mechanism does not pan out, the compound(s) do not have pharmacokinetics (get into the body or last very long in the body), or an adverse event happens that knocks years off a development timeline.  In addition, the stock can be manipulated by market makers so investors don't know which way is up.  I approach investing in biotechs as a long term prospect.  I continue to like our current portfolio of biotech companies (join in chat for many of those plays), and we continually add/subtract shares and sell/buy options on ...



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