Will We Hold It Wednesday – S&P 1,440 Edition – Again
by phil - October 3rd, 2012 8:18 am
1,440 – Again.
That's right, we have made not one inch of progress since we had the same exact title in last Wednesday's post, when I said: "This is the part where the MSM begins to realize that Manufacturing is slowing down, stimulus won't create jobs, earnings are not going to be as good as expected, Europe is not fixed, housing is not as strong as expected andthe stock market is being manipulated. Yep, all the stuff I've been telling you for months." Our plan was to buy into the dip and that's what we've been doing the past week as our short-term virtual portfolios are now much more bullish than they were a week ago.
As you can see from Dave Fry's weekly SPY chart, we're still in an uptrending channel and still over the major support line at 1,420 and we tested 1,430 at the end of last week but have, so far, held 1,440 this week.
Last week we were all worried about Spain because they were rioting in the streets and this week we are all worried about Spain because they haven't requested a bail-out yet. "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose," as they say in the country next to Spain…
In Member Chat last Wednesday, we took advantage of Oil Futures (/CL) testing $90 to go long and by the end of the week it was back to where we liked to short it at $93 and this morning, ahead of inventories, oil is at $91.22 but we're not long today as we don't expect the bulls to have much to get excited about but, if we get a dip to $88.50 that holds – we'd like to go long there. As you can see from this USO chart – we're pretty well stuck in the channel but the bottom is about $89 so I'm thinking a build this morning takes us just below the $33 line on USO.
AAPL was at $666 last Wednesday and they closed at $665 yesterday but we've worked ourselves into a more bullish position there (we had several long-term bullish trade ideas on AAPL in Member Chat that day). XLF was holding $15.50 and we went longer there – now $15.69. We added QQQ Oct $70s at .30 and yesterday we had the chance to add them again…
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Friday – QE Fever Turns To QE Forever!
by phil - September 14th, 2012 8:28 am
$85Bn a month!
Oh boy was I wrong when I said Ben Bernanke wasn't crazy enough to ease into a bull market. Yesterday, he exercised the full power of the Federal Reserve to confiscate your wealth and hand it over to the bankers. That's right, by engaging in what many consider reckless money-printing practices and announcing there is no end in sight, Bernanke caused the Dollar to fall below 79, down from 84 (6%) before all this QE talk began.
That's like taking all $100Tn worth of US Assets – everything you worked for your entire life – and just devaluing them by 6%. Many of our Conservative friends decry the 1% tax on wealth imposed by the French – but at least they are honest about it. At least they debate it and vote on it. Not Bern Bernanke – the Federal Reserve Chairman simply decrees that you will contribute 6% of your dollar-denominated assets towards more bank bail-out and there's no cut-off if you are below the top 2% – this is a confiscation from every man, woman and child in America.
How far down will Dr. Bernanke take your Dollars? That's the beauty of it – there's no limit! He warned Corporate America yesterday that he will continue to give them FREE MONEY as long as they keep refusing to hire more workers. The less American workers they hire – the more money he will give them. Sure, they can hire and spend overseas (most are) because that won't affect US unemployment rates but, if they start hiring Americans – THAT's when he will begin to take away the punch bowl.
See how this scam works?
It is hard to see how another round of QE would help the economy. Long-term interest rates are already at historic lows. With rates this low, even if QE put effective downward pressure on rates — a dubious proposition — the economy would be unlikely to benefit. If a 3.5% mortgage rate is of little consequence, there is no reason to believe that a 3.4% or even 3.3% rate would suddenly produce results.
Nor would quantitative easing result in a burst of money creation, as per traditional monetary policy, because the Fed now pays a quarter-point interest on excess bank reserves. With little growth in the demand for…
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Wednesday Wheeeee – Can the Markets Handle Rejection?
by phil - August 8th, 2012 8:30 am
Rejected!
After hitting our lines ON THE BUTTON across the board (see yesterday's perfect predictions), we're taking a little pre-market tumble this morning led lower by our favorite short – PCLN, which has negotiated their way to a 15% drop on an earnings miss that didn't surprise any of our Members as it's been a focus short of ours for ages and is in both of our $25,000 Portfolios as well as our Long Put List with the Oct $540 puts, which we rolled into from the $510 puts for a net of $7.
With PCLN dropping to $575 pre-market, we won't do as well as we did on CMG last month (another focus put of ours) but we should get about $25, which will add, at 5 contracts, $9,000 to our $25KPs! When asked why we were shorting PCLN in yesterday's Member Chat, my response was:
Because the exchange rate sucks for one thing (PCLN is very big in Europe), because a great Q is priced in as PCLN has zoomed up with EXPE from last Q but are now outpacing EXPE (who are a much better company) by 20% over the past year. Also, PCLN has been diversifying into regular travel and cannibalizing their own business and, of course, because PCLN has a p/e of 30, which is a good 50% above the rest of the sector.
That pretty much sums up PCLN's earnings report. They are not a terrible company, they were simply over-priced into earnings and we took advantage of it. Now that we've had our little correction, we're moving on. We pressed our bearish bets yesterday as we expected a rejection at our Must Hold levels and my comment to Members on the way up was: "If you are going to be bearish – days like this are when you dig in your heels and shore up your positions – not the day you capitulate!"
As you can see from Dave Fry's SPY chart, the "rally" looks a lit less impressive if you notice the volume, which is lower now than it was before we went off the cliff in May or August or July of last year. Traders never seem to learn that these resistance lines are very hard to cross when there is a lack of participation but it's not because of any…
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Friday Fake Out – The Bear Trap is Sprung!
by phil - June 1st, 2012 8:26 am
Oh you people are such suckers!
You panic out of positions at rock bottom prices and you'll sit there like a deer in the headlights when we bounce back until we're already too high again and then you'll chase the top – only becoming fully invested after we've already exited. Don't blame me – I try to warn you, but no one listens to me.
This morning the markets are in full panic more and that's fine with us as not only are we still "Cashy and Cautious" but what did we tell you Wednesday morning? "TZA July $19/25 bull call spread at $1.50, selling $18 puts for $1.05 for net .45" along with EDZ at $17.23 and SQQQ at $51.80. SQQQ is at $53.79 (up 3.8%) and EDZ is $17.90 (up 3.9% and the TZA hedge is already at net .80, which is up 77% in just two days (so far) – now that's a hedge! When you have your hedges in place, THEN you can bottom fish with impunity and boy is the fishing good out there!
Today we get our Non-Farm Payroll numbers and there's a rumor out there that it's a big miss at 120,000 or lower. CNBC has been pretty much reporting it as a fact all morning and Europe is freaking out for that and many other reasons so I had occasion to look back at last month's NFP report, where we predicted it would be a miss with the the title: "The Blow Jobs Deal to the Market Could be Huge." That was 10% ago on our indexes are back to testing last week's lows, where we began to get bullish with our Twice in a Lifetime List of stocks that are back at their 2009 panic lows which we still like enough to sell puts in (giving us an additional 15-20% discount on initial entry).
That post capped off a week of bearish picks as we followed through with our plan to cash out into the April rally – it's those bearish profits we're now GAMBLING with as we bottom fish but, as noted above – we're hedging our bullish bets because there's no limit to how badly investors can freak out in the stock market – CASH remains KING!
A quick review of the week leading up to the last NFP report is a nice view of…
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Free-Falling Thursday – Facebook Faces Fatal Friday Follow-Through
by phil - May 17th, 2012 8:04 am
What a week to do an IPO!
Will Facebook save the markets tomorrow with a successful roll-out of the largest IPO of all time or will it be the straw that breaks the camel's back, with a disappointing open that sends the Nasdaq off a cliff along with their entire over-priced sector? Either way – this is going to be fun.
We can argue the merits of Facebook's value (or lack thereof) all day long but, scam or not, it's very likely FB will set off a buying frenzy in the space and we finish the week off with a bang. If that doesn't happen – I will be very, very bearish but from what I'm hearing and the way they are extending the offer and raising the price – it's way oversubscribed. Also, we have to consider that people are cashing out 1-5% of their holdings to raise cash for FB on Friday – sure it's moronic, but that's what people do so you have to put yourself in a position of someone who wants to put 5% of your portfolio in to Facebook (the way you wish you had put 5% into Google at $80 when they IPO'd) tomorrow – what would you be doing with the rest of your portfolio today?
Meanwhile, the rest of the World is falling apart with Europe turning sharply lower as Spain sells bonds at record high yields (5.106% for 4-year notes) this morning after announcing that their Q1 GDP was -0.4% at the same time as Moody's indicates they will be cutting the credit ratings of 21 Spanish Banks this evening AND, to top it all off – there is a run on Bankia, which Spain nationalized last week – with $1.3Bn pulled from accounts this past week! This sent Spain's markets down 1.6% and Italy (who is next) fell 2%, sending the Euro down 1% to $1.2668 and the Pound followed it down to $1.5832 (while EUR/CHF holds steady at 1.2009 in the most blatant currency manipulation ever witnessed).
Wow – that's a lot of bad stuff! Maybe too many bad things – as in a bit suspicious that all this bad stuff happens at once – as if maybe someone WANTS to force a panic bottom? If so, I applaud them – we certainly needed to shake things up a little…
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Will We Hold It Wednesday – NOW It’s May
by phil - May 2nd, 2012 6:40 am
Yesterday did not count.
Until the end of day, the volume was low and, as you can see from Dave Fry's SPY chart, the morning pump was mostly erased by the end of the day. In fact, on the Russell and Nasdaq – it was entirely erased. What a friggin' joke, yet no one will investigate it and few will even question it.
As we often say at PSW – We don't care IF the game is rigged, as long as we know HOW the game is rigged and get to place our bets accordingly. In my Morning Alert to Members at 10:05, my comment on the move up was:
Not too many markets are open so super low-volume means we can pretty much ignore whatever's happening. Some wild gyrations at the open already with AAPL popping $10 to goose the Nas and they are spiking us up and down at will on this low volume.
At 12:02 we made our planned adjustments to our 4 active virtual portfolios, taking advantage of the big, bad spike to move to cheap June bear positions and cash out our long plays and just get generally more aggressively bearish at what we thought was going to be the top for the day. The most aggressive move was made in our most aggressive, $25,000 Portfolio (pictured here from its 10am status BEFORE many changes were made), where we flipped our protective TNA hedge from bullish to very bearish – shifting the balance of the portfolio much more bearish with a single move:
TNA – $60s are now $4 so let's take that and run on 5 (1/2), as that's more than we paid for the spread and we'll ride the $63s half-covered with a stop on 5 at $3 (now $2.25). Also, a stop on the 5 remaining $60s at $3, at which point we would reset the stop on the $63s, of course.
Needless to say, that trade worked out huge already as the $60s all stopped out at a $3.50 average ($3,500), which is $500 more than our max potential gain on the spread and the $63 calls already finished the day at $1.10 ($1,100) for a net of $2,400 (so far) off our $1,450 entry on 4/26 – so up 65% in less than a week on the trade we used to…
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Thank GDP it’s Friday – Reality Check?
by phil - April 27th, 2012 8:32 am
Will the GDP be bad enough to be good?
As I said yesterday, bad news is now good news as Bernanke promised to crank up the presses if the economy stumbles and yesterday we had terrible jobs numbers and an absolutely awful Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey and Eurozone Economic Confidence continued to decline and that was capped off with an S&P downgrade of Spain.
RALLY TIME – of course! The markets broke right over our 50% lines, forcing us to add a few bullish positions for purely technical reasons while we wait and see when or if the madness will end.
We've already had a few hours of extensive conversation about the economic situation in Member Chat so let's just focus on how we can play the next half of the retrace back to our highs at Dow 13,300, S&P 1,420, Nas 3,200, NYSE 8,300 and Russell 850. We'll still be watching those 50% lines (see yesterday's post for levels and chart) but it was easy money this morning grabbing Nikkei Futures (/NKD) off the 9,500 line in Member Chat and already (8:23) the index is back to 9,550 and, at $5 per point per contract – the Egg McMuffins are paid for.
The BOJ dropped 10,000,000,000,000 Yen on the economy this morning, expanding their asset purchase program to 40Tn Yen and it DISAPPOINTED the market and the Nikkei fell from 9,700 to 9,500 but we were up nice and early and, since the other Global Indexes seemed happy enough to ignore Spain's double downgrade (in fact, Spain is up 1% this morning on the bad news), we figured it would only be a matter of time before the Nikkei futures came off the floor to join them.
As you can see from David Fry's charts, the Nikkei has been tracking the S&P very closely and the divergence was a bit silly. What's actually silly is the way the S&P is going but we'll take the quick 50 points and run ahead of the GDP, where we HOPE the markets get a cold slap in the face from a GDP report that I predicted would be a miss from 2.9% expectations.
8:30 Update: 2.2%! That is TERRIBLE!!! Not just a little terrible but TERRIBLE!!! Business investment is crashing, structures are down 12%, Government spending down…
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Whipsaw Wednesday – Apple Today Keeps the Fed at Bay
by phil - April 25th, 2012 8:28 am
Yay AAPL!
A meteoric 10% rise pre-market is being celebrated by the Global markets even though it's really only part of the way back to the $644 high that was, very recently, supposed to be a stepping stone on the way to $1,000. Are we really going to get all excited just because AAPL's earnings didn't suck? That seems kind of silly as I'm pretty sure they were never going to get to $1,000 by just earning $10 a share per quarter, were they?
I have nothing bad to say about AAPL. We were bearish on them at $640 but $550 was our buy target and we didn't take direct action on AAPL yesterday as we were worried they might disappoint so our 1:31 bullish trade idea for Members was the QQQ June $60/63 bull call spread at $2.35 and those should be well on their way to $3 this morning as the Qs are up 2% to $66 pre-market already.
I mentioned in yesterday's post that we had already played TQQQ (ultra-long Nasdaq) the day before and that one was the more aggressive May $103/110 bull call spread at $4, selling ISRG Jan $350 puts for $4.40 for a net .40 credit on the $10 spread. Any offset would do, of course but we REALLY wouldn't mind owning ISRG for $350 if it goes on sale (now $560) but, if not, we'll take the free money. As a 3x ultra, TQQQ will be up 6% this morning, already at our $110 goal and, if they can hold it, we're looking at a very nice 150% gain on just the bull spread with a 2,600% gain on the full spread – either way, not a bad way to play!
We had also taken the QQQ MAY $63/66 bull call spread at $1.90 on Monday and that deal was so good we didn't feel we needed an offset. That's the difference between catching the bottom, like we did on Monday and chasing a run, as we did with the Qs on Tuesday – the rewards of being contrarian investors!
One trade that may not be going well for us was the AAPL weekly $575 calls, which we bought for $20.75 against the sale of the May $590s for $22 for a net $1.25 credit. We didn't think AAPL would pop $600 so fast, so we're a…
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Monday Market Meltdown – Global Wheeee Edition
by phil - April 23rd, 2012 8:08 am
Now THIS looks a little more realistic, doesn't it?
Last Monday we pointed out that the run-up, that was coming DESPITE a myriad of Fundamental negatives we were tracking, was essentially a load of crap aimed at bringing in more suckers before they pull the rug out from under the market. To keep ourselves from getting sucked in by the hype, we drew some very simple lines across our mult-chart which were 50% retacements of the month's dip. Not making those lines during last week's actions kept us from making poor decisions as the market hype continued all week. My warning was:
"How many times will the bulls be sucked in by the same empty promises? How many times will they reach into their pockets and BUYBUYBUY the snake oil valuations sold by the Reverend James Cramer?"
Tuesday I got a lot of sheeple angry by calling them sheeple for falling for Cramer and the rest of the Mainstream Media hype and we discussed a few of our hedges that were working already, like TZA, TLT and SQQQ as well as two that were still playable: CAT May $95 puts at $1.10 – up just 15% from our initial entry and DXD May $12 calls at $1.35, up just 12% from when our Members got the Trade Idea. Despite the market moving up, I reiterated my sell-off targets of Russell 775 and S&P 1,325.
Wednesday we tried to find reasons to be bullish, presenting both sides but judgment was once again for the bears after weighing the evidence as I pointed out that the lack of economic improvement for the bottom 90% could not be ignored – something Nick Sarkozy just discovered this weekend. In the morning post, I mentioned going back to the well and shorting oil again as it dared to reach for $104.50 again – another lovely pay-off last week and we caught it again this morning at $103.50 (/CL Futures) for a quick $500 per contract – so far.
Thursday we were having great fun and we had a bullish spread on CHK at $17.20 that may still be playable this week as the market dips again. We discussed our goal of re-shorting PCLN (back in the July $560 puts at $8.50) and we added a nice CMG spread in the morning post, selling the May $475 calls for…
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Friday Follies – Come and See the Show!
by phil - April 20th, 2012 8:17 am
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends We're so glad you could attend
Come inside! Come inside!
There behind a glass is a real blade of grass
Be careful as you pass.
Move along! Move along!
Come inside, the show's about to start
Guaranteed to blow your head apart
Rest assured you'll get your money's worth
The greatest show in Heaven, Hell or Earth. – ELP
What a long, strange week it's been in the markets.
I know we've been having fun. See that turn in the S&P at 2:35? My 2:46 comment to Members in Chat was:
$25KP/StJ – Keep in mind it's an aggressive portfolio BUT, in the $5KP, we're going to take $1.80 and run for the DIA $127 puts on the whole thing and 1/2 out in the $25KP.
That's two days in a row we nailed the turn almost to the minute (Wednesday it was USO) and those $127 puts cashed out with a 50% profit in 2 days (we picked them up on the 17th). I put it to you – are we simply amazingly good at picking tops and bottoms or is the market, in fact, a total scam and we just happen to be good at identifying criminal patterns of behavior?
Since our premise for making these calls is that the market is a scam and since I said just yesterday morning "Every morning we have a pump job to short into and every afternoon there is a BS stick-save to re-establish our shorts" – you have to at least consider the possibility that the markets are, in fact, fixed.
So it should come as no surprise that our ultra low-volume Futures are back up this morning with oil once again giving us an entry at our $103.50 shorting spot (see yesterday's post). We caught a $1,300 per contract ride down to $102.20 yesterday and then all we have to do is wait and let them pump it back up to $103.50 and we short it again and already we're back to $103.25 (7:30) for a quick $250 per contract gain and now we wait for the next run-up and see if we can short them again – maybe at $104 this time. If people are going to manipulate the Futures – that's fine…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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