The Oxen Group is looking for a short sell on Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) tomorrow. The market may move green or red, and it really comes down to Bank of America, Citigroup, and GE. Those three giants release earnings tomorrow. If all three are splendid, the market will really take off, even Southwest Airlines.
The issue for Southwest is that even if that does occur, this stock is going to come down. In after hours today, Moody’s Investor Ratings commented that they were putting LUV on a possible credit downgrade due to the weak demand and market for airfare. The airline industry has been struggling, but Southwest Airlines always seems to be a step in front of the competition. This news of a likely downgrade spells bad news for Southwest, especially because the stock has really no upside right now.
What will Southwest do? If the market is looking to trend down after the earnings reports, LUV will drop right away and continue to trend down on a red day. If, however, the market jumps out of the gate and looks bullish, LUV will most likely have some type of small gains into the day, but it will not be able to sustain those gains and move backwards. Further, one has to wonder even if the earnings are positive, how much more this market has to go with four straight days in the green and a lot of quickly overvalued stocks. Additionally, if CIT goes bankrupt it could add more fuel to a downward market. LUV technically is, outside of its upper bollinger band, way overbought. So, its technicals all point towards downward movement.
Entry: Recommend selling 15-30 minutes into session if earnings are good, right away if bad. Exit: We recommend exiting after a 2-4% increase. Stop Loss: We recommend a 3% stop loss on all entry in prices Upper Resistance: 6.60 (lower) Oxen Rating*: 5
Here’s some recent news about the real estate markets in China. I think it is fascinating watching how these things unfold. This proves once again that the lesson of history is that we don’t learn the lessons of history.
I predicted over 2 years ago that the Chinese stock markets would implode dramatically, much to everybody’s disbelief and skepticism. It began a few months sooner than I thought, but, that is exactly what has happened. Now for the last year or so, I have predicted that things will get VERY bad in the Chinese real estate markets over the next several years. Again, most people I have talked to about this (especially Chinese) have almost universally dismissed this notion as absurd.
But this is not just a guess. When you read these articles, you will see just some of the evidence that leads me to this conclusion. There are a lot of data on this, and most of it comes from statistics issued by various Chinese government agencies. But it is not advertised by the mainland press or TV. So, many Chinese are not at all aware, and think that everything will soon be wonderful, because that is pretty much what they constantly hear from the official media.
That is one thing I noticed immediately about China: there is a constant barrage everywhere you turn—-TV, advertisements, magazines, newspapers, billboards, etc.—-that essentially suggests that everything is wonderful and getting more wonderful all the time, and everybody is just happy, happy, happy, and China is getting better and better and stronger and stronger. I was really struck by this. It was like living in a never-ending infomercial. Maybe some go to China and are not very aware of this, but to me it was like a constant din.
Actually, at least some of this data is readily available on the mainland. But it requires digging. The official news agencies like Xinhua and the People’s Daily just keep repeating the same mindless mantra in endlessly varying ways every day: “Everything is good, there are only a few small little problems, but the Motherland is unstoppable and will just get mightier and mightier.” If the Falun Gong would just chant that mantra, they would get to keep their organs and they would have no more problems in China.
The Oxen Group, for Thursday, is optimistic to hope for a good day from the market. Too many red days even in a bearish trend, means a correction every few days. Tomorrow, futures are already up as investors may be getting excited about jobless claims, which have been bullish for the past few weeks. Additionally, Research in Motion will be releasing earnings that are expected to be very positive for the tech sector and TARP paybacks were successful.
The market is due for a fundamental correction, as there are some bargains presenting themselves again. One of these is oil, oil service companies, and oil ETFs. After oil prices have slipped, with a late small gain today, oil may be ready for a move on Thursday. Gasoline wholesale prices have continued to slip, which is signalling a pullback in gas prices. Further, oil may get a boost from a very bullish Chinese inventory announcement that shows the Chinese economy is pumping again, helping to increase oil prices in the Asian market. We like Ultra Proshares Oil &Gas (DIG) to rally, with major holdings in Exxon and Chevron, which have both been hit with losses for the past four days. DIG has lost 13% in the past four days and moved down too quickly, presenting an opportunity for money to pour into the stock. If jobless claims are bullish and gas prices rescind, investors will push this stock up as inventories really did not get a chance to increase the oil market, which was a bullish indicator. Oil looks ready to rise, therefore, BUY DIG!
Entry: Recommend buying within first 10-25 minutes. Exit: We recommend exiting after a 2-4% increase. Upper Resistance: 30.50
Our last Beige Books came out Jan 14th (down 250), March 4th (up 100 ahead of huge drop) and April 15th (up 100) so we are anxious to hear what the Fed has to say today in their anecdotal report of economic conditions through the end of May. On May 20th we had Fed minutes and the market didn’t like that one bit. so let’s hope they’ve cheered up since that last meeting.
Oil has cheered up, hitting $71.50 in pre-market trading. All of our indexes are flying as Asian trading rocketed higher on a RUMOR that China’s Friday Industrial Production Report rose 8.9% in May and Tomorrow’s Fixed Asset Investment Report will rise 37% for the month. This came from the Ming Pao Daily, who cited "unnamed market sources." This information is stunning, especially in light of the ACTUAL PPI falling 7.2% for May and the ACTUAL CPI, that showed a 1.4% decline but, since we have long ago entered the "no thinking zone" (in fact, on Mad Money yesterday, Cramer made fun of us for thinking!), so happy rumors trump ugly facts every time.
Perhaps it’s true, perhaps China did increase Industrial Production 9% while driving input costs down 7% during a month when commodities rose over 20%. If so, all the more reason the Republicans should shut up and let us go Communist ASAP because those guys REALLY know how to get things done! We’re already giving them Hummer and it’s very likely, by 2011, we’ll be importing 2M Electric Hummers a year from China. Boy that joke will be on us, right?
China is leading the global stimulus bandwagon, of course with a massive increase in debt financing this year. "There is no such thing as a free stimulus package. There is a huge amount of unreported government debt, and we’re adding to it now clearly," said Stephen Green, an economist for Standard Chartered in Shanghai.
The stimulus package in China is working so well that there is now a 2-month wait to buy a car in China as direct subsidies and a cut in retail taxes has pushed millions of Chinese into auto dealerships. Gee, rather than give the auto companies $30Bn three months before they went bankrupt – do you think the US could have offered $5,0000 incentives on 6M cars…
Here’s the REAL DEAL NO BS Situation with Europe (Warning What Follows is EXTREMELY BAD).
The media is rife with misrepresentations and analysis of the EU. Here’s the real deal.
The ECB is tapped out. Having provided over €1 trillion in funding via LTRO 1 and LTRO 2, taking on over €700 billion in PIIGS debt putting its own solvency at risk, it simply cannot launch another LTRO scheme for th...
"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud. The behaviour that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis of 2008 was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident...And yet none of this conduct has been punished in any significant way."
~ Charles Ferguson, Inside Job
"I know that my retirement will make no difference in its [my newspaper's] ca...
The S&P 500 got off to weak start and, after retracing a modest morning rally, spent most of the day in the shallow red with an intraday low of 0.63%. But in the last seven minutes of trading, the index recovered enough to a make a small gain of 0.14%. This is the fourth advance, the first was Monday's 1.60 surge, but the last three have ranged from 0.05% to 0.17% with today's close near the high of the miserly three-day series.
The index is now up 5.02% for 2012, which is 6.93% off the interim closing high.
From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 95.2% above the March 2009 closing low and 15.6% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.
Below are two charts of the index, with and without the 50 and 200-day moving averages.
TIF - Tiffany & Co., Inc. – A surprise earnings miss and a reduced full-year profit and sales forecast from luxury jewelry retailer, Tiffany & Co., took some of the luster out of its shares today, with the stock trading down 8.5% at $56.55 as of 11:50 a.m. in New York. Options activity on Tiffany this morning suggests mixed sentiment on the st...
RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK) today announced that it has reached an agreement with the Washington State Attorney General over discontinued e-commerce practices. In accordance with the settlement agreement, RealNetworks has committed to:
Discontinuing the use of pre-checked boxes for purchases of RealNetworks subscription products; Spelling out more clearly the material terms of RealNetworks product offerings; Offering online cancellation of subscription offerings; Enhancing RealNetworks customer support guidelines regarding cancellation. Statement from Thomas Nielsen, President & CEO of RealNetworks:
"About two years ago, the Washington State Attorney General's Office contacted us regarding concerns they had with some of our e-commerce practices.
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...
First we'll go to the technicals. Back in mid April I had opined a 'bear flag' formation was being created. [Apr 17, 2012: Potential Bear Flag Forming] But the market being the difficult beast it is, head faked everyone and rather than a break down from said flag it first went UP and nearly touched yearly highs. This caused everyone to think the bear flag had failed…. only to lead to a horrid May in the market. Generally a bear flag will resolve relatively quickly but the longer...
Despite the fact that U.S. equities are well-positioned and well-supported to go up, once again it is the headlines out of Europe—especially Greece—that are scaring off investors. Some are saying that it is now likely (and even desirable) that Greece will default on all its sovereign debt, withdraw from the euro, and severely devalue its domestic currency (Drachma?). This will allow them to operate a balanced budget while pumping cash into growth initiatives, rather than suffer the ravages of Germany-mandated austerity.
Some say, so what? Greece makes up only about 2% of the Eurozone’s overall economy. Nevertheless, you might say that t...
Markets died and then rallied to flat again as European leaders “prepared contingencies” for a possible Grexit
Markets died hard and fast earlier today as major indexes registered as much as 1.5% of losses after news that Euro zone officials were unofficially “preparing contingencies” for a Greek exit from the Euro. Unofficial statements were not enough to keep markets down however, as major indexes rallied back to flat levels by the end of the day.
So the world continues to wait on Europe, as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEACA:SPY) gained .05%, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEARCA:...
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In this article, please revisit an article written two years ago titled, "The Calm Before the Storm." This article focused on the patent cliff that was looming in the pharmaceutical industry, that was later picked up by the New York Times and several other bloggers! Subsequent articles were written about big pharma company's revenue streams, and the pros and cons of of their later stage pipelines. Other articles have also attempted to identify smaller biotechs with the potential to reap big reward...
My last weekend update is dated from January 30 so after a long hiatus, here is an update of our virtual portfolio. Since the last update, we have closed the AA Money portfolio due to a lack of enthusiasm (and activity) and I have stopped tracking the FAS strangle as the low VIX makes it hard to get rewarded for the risk! But we have added a small $5KP virtual portfolio which does not use any margin.
FAS Money
We have had to recover from a big move up by FAS and a low VIX which keeps option prices low. But the portfolio has gaine about 10% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $5499.00
IWM Money
Not a lot of activity in this portfolio where the main focus is on the large IWM BCS. But the portfolio has grown over 20% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $1998.00
$5KP Portfolio
This is the virtual portfolio that replaced the AA Money portfolio. It does not use margin and we will keep holdings under $5K.
AAPL $50K P...
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Oxen Pick (SHORT SELL): LUV
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By Terence Doherty, guest author
The Oxen Group, for Thursday, is optimistic to hope for a good day from the market. Too many red days even in a bearish trend, means a correction every few days. Tomorrow, futures are already up as investors may be getting excited about jobless claims, which have been bullish for the past few weeks. Additionally, Research in Motion will be releasing earnings that are expected to be very positive for the tech sector and TARP paybacks were successful.
The Fed’s Beige Book comes out at 2pm today.![[The hidden costs of China stimulus charts]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/AI-AV646_CDEBT_NS_20090609124030.gif)
China is leading the global stimulus bandwagon, of course with a massive increase in debt financing this year. "There is no such thing as a free stimulus package. There is a huge amount of unreported government debt, and we’re adding to it now clearly," said Stephen Green, an economist for Standard Chartered in Shanghai.
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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
(