Perfect! Just what we needed – a bullish consolidation.
GE did a nasty fade at the end of the day but INTC had a strong finish and a huge drop in oil earlier in the day did not send the markets down.
Unfortunately DELL just lowered guidance significantly and may trash the markets tomorrow and is costing Intel most of what it gained today in AH trading. I will take advantage of a drop tomorrow as this is a cost problem for DELL as Lenovo is getting to be serious low-cost competition for them while HPQ has been winning market share as more people just pop down to the local computer store and buy a box rather than wait for their Dells.
Either way plenty of INTC chips are being sold so this knee-jerk reaction will be a good buying opportunity as long as it doesn’t plunge the whole market into a correction. Dell cut prices to move more boxes – they moved more boxes but made less money – how is this bad for Intel? Perhaps it’s a pricing issue in the long run but the reality is that dual core chips and the new Windows (if it ever does get released) will shift demand back to the high end where everyone makes money.
Oil was down .42 for the day after being down as much as $1.50 earlier thanks to a last minute buyer who just had to buy oil up a full dollar in the last hour of trading.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=USO&t=1d
I wish gold had a protector like that! It traded down all day but not enough to cause any serious damage beyond a 1% pullback in the sector:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=1d&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=&a=&c=&s=gld
My charts say oil hits $68 this week, possibly lower depending on inventories. I think BTU is setting up for a high dive from a point of great denial:
http://stockcharts.com/gallery/?btu
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Any of the oil plays from Friday worked great in the morning and gave all the time in the world to take profits when VLO turned at 12:30 and they are all in play again tomorrow as long as oil gets back below $69.
AAPL was a disaster but it had the good manners to go down all day and never look good enough to buy – thank goodness! Maybe those fleeing execs know something…
AQNT was a nice roller coaster ride today into earnings but we are rewarded after hours with a very strong report. We’ll see where the Jun $30s end up tomorrow but they were as low as .20 today.
EBAY was riskier than I planned but in comments we switched to the Jun $32.50s which I feel pretty good about at .90 but we’ll see how much damage the we suffer tomorrow.
AA had a heck of a day and the Oct $37.50s are now $2.35 (up 20%).
N never went higher than the open at $70 but 3,000% profits should really be taken off the table don’t you think?
SKS had a perfect day with a low open and a strong finish. I didn’t expect it to move so fast but the Nov $16s are already $2.05 (up 35%).
EXPE flew up today but pulled back in the afternoon and the $20s are getting close to the wire with earnings coming up on Thursday! I moved into the Jun $22.50s for .35 with half my profits from the $20s for a free look at earnings.
FS had another huge day and I took it off the table a little early as the Jun $60s we picked up for .60 on Friday closed at $7.80 (up 1,200%).
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FS&t=5d
THQI is doing what we want and the Jan $25s are up to $5.50 (up 80%).
GME turned down again and the $45 puts are back to .40 (up .05).
KO went crazy today, jumping 1.5% and running the $42.50s to $1.05 (up 300%). It was $1.40 earlier and shame on you if you didn’t stop out – even though it may go higher, it may not too…
MOT could care less about DELL’s problems and they gained another point today, pushing the Jul $22.50s up to $1.20 (up 85%).
MS ran all the way up to $65.80 before dropping back and the $65s closed at $1.15, still up 20% but 30% lower than we should have been out at!
NAK is undeterred by a drop in gold stocks and they picked up another 3% to $8.50 (up 40%).
S had a nice day and the Jun $25s are now up to .85 (up 70%) but this looks very strong!
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I’m really liking HPQ (5/16) tomorrow. HP doesn’t give away shipping, HP doesn’t have to send out a Billion flyers a month, HP doesn’t throw cheap monitors and printers in with purchases or give cheap memory upgrades, HP doesn’t have to hire their own salespeople to sell every single customer a computer, HP doesn’t have to service and support every single computer they sell, HP has a profitable little printer business on the side and HP did not issue a warning!!!
Now that Dell has lowered the bar, HP will not even have to beat so let’s see how tomorrow’s retest of the 50 dma of $33.25 goes and look to take advantage of the Jun $35s which already were a 50% gainer for us when we bought them for .65 a week ago!
Dell’s weak earnings indicate that they will not be pushing for a price war with HP and HP does not depend on the Asian markets where Lenovo is applying pricing pressure to Dell.
