Weekly Wrap-Up

February 24, 2006

206

I am so glad we stayed out of that one!

At least the markets continued to hold on, with the Nasdaq and S&P coming back strong in the afternoon. The best thing about today is that the markets seem to be at that fear saturation level we talked about where even all this horrible news didn’t keep them down.

Of course most of the market gains came from the oil sector and the commodities exploded in general (hmm, who said that would happen Thursday morning?) so it’s nothing to get too excited about but we’ll take it.

We had to call off the oil trades and I’m very glad we did as they were beyond tricky to make money on – never buy into a strong open!

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Since we are supposed to be almost entirely in cash at the moment, except for longs that are working well (like my Toyotas, CBHs, Apples, CYs, YRCWs and Pfizers) or spreads we are waiting on, I’m not going to do a big review this week.

I grabbed the BTUs I missed yesterday for the price I wanted yesterday ($1.50) because the oil action did not look very sincere. If all they could get out of today’s events was less than $63, then I think we have a huge sell-off if the weekend turns out calm.

I am holding the Golds, of course, as follows:
GG (+3.25%) $22.50s at $3.40
ABX (+2.4%) $30s at .30
BVN (+4.1%) $30s at .55 (up 30% today)
NAK (+2.7%) $6.08
MRB (+10%) $3.12

PD and the miners also had a heck of a day but they’ve been too erratic for my tastes.

RIMM and PALM both had wild days but, as I thought, no resolution. I did successfully short RIMM at $78 mid-day as the run-up was just way too overdone for what little good news they got.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=RIMM&t=1d

Speaking of overdone, Apple’s last 2 days are exactly the reason I like to sell against my long positions! http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AAPL&t=5d&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

BF looks good for next week, it’s held up well the last 2 days.

CME continues to look very good while Google continues to show weakness. GOOG has analyst day next week and they will be facing a hostile crowd who wrote “GOOG” on their fingers with permanent markers…

With oil up $3 the SU $75 puts are only down to $1.95 (.20 less than Weds open. This is a truer indicator of that market than anything you will hear said over the weekend.

After a bad start PETS took off today of all days (up 5.6%).

Fri TOTD IMAX only gained 1.34% today, my stop out was good as it’s up just .06 from where I turned it into cash yesterday.

While I may have gotten off the LNUX train right at the top, the NWRE has not been a good place to put the profits so far.

How can INTC get killed over losing market share but AMD stays flat all week? Is some other chip company stealing all the business?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5d&s=AMD&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=intc

I haven’t mentioned last Wed’s TOTD BIIB because it was a long spread and I hope it occurred to you to sell the put earlier than this! The Apr $45s are now $6.10 for a clean double anyway!

CSCO still can’t beat that darn $20 barrier!

The message boards are all crying foul on LVS, they may have to let it slide back before the SEC gets curious. No insiders have officially bought any stock since Shelly bought himself a million shares for $5.64 on 1/11/05 (hell, I would have bought them for $5.64 – I have to get his broker!).

DIS is really rockin and rollin’ – I sold mine too early yesterday.

SHFL posted yet another week of consecutive gains!

TXN is on some strange little trip, hopefully it will bottom next week. The Nasdaq needs them and INTC to recover in order to break up to the next level.

Well, I hope your week went well – next week should be very exciting, especially for me as I left myself with Google puts as I didn’t like the offers I was getting near the close!