Testy Tuesday Morning – The Spin Is In!
by phil - August 18th, 2009 8:21 am
We did get our stick save yesterday – only it came at 7:45 pm!
That's right, on pretty much no news at all and without any global markets open, the US futures all took off in synch at 7:45 last night and went up and up and up into Asia's open. There was no particular news and Jim Cramer had just finished telling his viewers that the markets may be overbought. Cramer also is now targeting a "3-5% decline," which is amazingly the exact decline I predicted last week and he also swiped my BBT pick as his "find of the day." So good morning Jim, nice to have you back! We don't mind Cramer stealing our buy picks because we have a full day advantage over his flock so welcome aboard suckers – er, fellow Cramer fans…
Anyway, so the after-hours markets were flat but the ubiquitous futures market took off as soon as all the retail traders had their trading accounts turned off for the night and you would have thought something huge was happening to watch the relentless, non-stop, 3-hour climb in the Dow, the Nasdaq, the S&P and even the Russell futures that led into the Asian open. Did this blatant manipulation of the indexes fool Asian investors? Of course it did! The Nikkei opened at 8pm EST and had gapped down to 10,200, exactly 4% off the high of 10,620 on Friday. As I said to members in yesterday's chat, that 4% line is critical in the follow-through day on the 5% rule as it represents our expected bounce off 5%, so holding that line is still bullish.
Well, never let it be said that Mr. Stick doesn't know how to paint a bullish picture and the Nikkei was rescued from failing that 4% line by the relentless futures buying between 8pm and 10:30, which coincided with 9pm to 11:30 on the Nikkei, which just so happens to be when they close for lunch. What happened at 11:30 Tokyo time? Well, suddenly everyone lost interest in the US futures and they fell ALL THE WAY BACK to where they started in just 60 minutes. Please Congress, whatever you do, don't look into this nonsense – better to just sit there in your little offices and say "the market forces are too complicated for me to understand" and…
Monday Market Melt-Down
by phil - August 17th, 2009 7:33 am
Yee-haw!
We love the smell of pullback in the morning. It smells like – victory! After extensively reviewing our bearish positions in this week's wrap up and after calling for cashing out our bull plays last week and after taking a whole bunch of short positions – I would have been in a very bad mood this morning had we gone up 150-points instead of down so forgive me for being pleased with myself.
Although we called the stick-save at Friday's close, even when I predicted it at 12:40 I said that: "getting back to there would be fake, fake, fake and failing there would be very bearish going into the weekend." In my closing Alert to Members at 4:04 I said: "12:42 targets were: Dow 9,350, S&P 1,005, Nas 1,990, NYSE 6,540 and RUT 570. We got 9,321, 1,004, 1,985, 6,537 and 564 so let’s hear it for the 5% rule and Mr. Stick, who’s program is playing our tune. This was, of course fake, fake, fake, so we still expect our sell-off next week." See, this stuff isn't too hard to follow – targets set at 12:42, targets failed at the close, stay short into the weekend…
Speaking of targets, our first downside targets, which we went over in last Wednesday morning's post, should be tested this morning at Dow 9,100, S&P 980, Nasdaq 1,950, NYSE 6,400 and Russell 550. As that post was an extensive discussion of levels and ranges we expect and is still fresh, I won't get back into into it here other than to say how mean you are for not using THIS LINK to get a free trial of the PSW REPORT (just 2 weeks left on summer offer) and then using THIS LINK to refer 2 friends and lock in your own discounts. We're starting a new $100,000 Virtual Portfolio this weekend and only members will get those trade live and I'll also be continuing the $5,000 virtual portfolio and it's a great time to start following now that we are back to cash there.
While we are nowhere near as bullish as Cramer (seen here in Thursday making fun of us for being too cautious), we are also not perma-bears. A nice sell-off here is not only long overdue but it's also healthy and, if we hold 80% of the move up…
Chinese ETF Options Hint of More Nerves Ahead
by Option Review - August 14th, 2009 5:04 pm
Today’s tickers: FXI, NUE, BBT & NTAP
NUE – The manufacturer of steel and steel products edged onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner this morning after call activity was observed in the January 2010 contract. Shares of NUE have suffered a 2.5% decline to stand at $46.48. The bullish ratio call spread established by one investor suggests a recovery in the stock up to its current 52-week high of $53.46 or above by expiration. The spread involved the purchase of approximately 5,000 calls at the January 50 strike price for a premium of 3.70 apiece against the sale of 10,000 calls at the higher January 55 strike for 2.07 per contract. The trader receives a net credit on the transaction of about 44 cents and may bank additional gains if NUE rallies 8% higher to surpass the $50.00 level by expiration. Maximum potential profits of 5.00 (excluding the credit received) will be attained by the investor if shares surged to $55.00. The risk undertaken by the trader in this situation is that he is holding a short position in 5,000 calls. Potentially unlimited losses would begin to amass on the call options if the stock blows through the breakeven point to…