What is up with the Nasdaq? What is up with me? I saw this coming on Sunday and just 4 days later I have my rally googles on and I forget to listen to my inner bear. I said:
“The Nasdaq will not, can not rally without AAPL, MSFT, INTC, Semis in general and, Lord help us, Google and Yahoo. Maybe one can sit out but I’m pretty sure two will sink us for sure. The indices don’t always go up together but they sure as hell go down together so let’s just be very, very careful out there. I mean really, does this look like a rally to you? I’m not even sure it qualifies as a bounce, more like a bouncette(tm):”
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EIXIC&t=5d&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
This is a case where the me of the past had a better, unemotional view than the me caught up in rally fever.
So blame the Nasdaq for all our woes today. Google doesn’t look like it’s going to come back but you never know what can happen on an end of quarter options day. What’s very scary about this rally in general is that it is based on retail buyers jumping in. Retail buyers (that’s us, by the way) are often too late to the party and end missing all the good stuff and left with the mess.
Blame George Bush for attacking Iraq today (I thought they were an ally?). Were we teaching Iran a lesson or doing Iran a favor? Damage their enemies, drive up oil prices (63.50!) just when they were heading down, boosting anti-American sentiment at home for them… It’s a complicated World!
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SHLD continued its rampage unabated, gaining another 4.6% on the day to finish at an impressive $138. No split is likely as Eddie wants SHLD to be the next Berkshire Hathaway.
BSC was a disaster the Apr $140s opened at $2 and closed at $1. LEH went down 2 days in a row so I guess anyone who doesn’t earn as much as GS isn’t worth owning anymore. GS retraced 1% as well. It could be an options expiration thing as the stock was at $130 at the last expiration but I’m very unhappy with this one.
PALM opened lower and stayed there, the ratio on owning the stock and selling the calls actually improved!
CY went down with the semis as TXN lost another 3.6% today.
RIMM was perfect today, opening above $90 to trigger the Apr $85 puts at $3.10 (I didn’t quibble over the dime, + 3%) and then plunging down to $86 with the puts finishing at $4.20 (up 33%). Too bad I only got 2 10% orders in before it started dropping!
PD went nowhere but I still think this was a good entry.
TIE was a good call (always keep your eye on BA for signals here)
TOTD MOT had a great start (up .60) but pulled back with the Nasdaq to end the day up 1%. The Jul $22.50s finished at $1.55, up 10% but there’s a long way until July!
As we noted yesterday, BTU is fully disconnected from the oil sector, going down 1% while the OGX went up 1.7%.
Builders had a field day but rate hikes may not be as over as people think so I’m still staying out of them.
LVS was very tempting as it neared $52 but volume is now double the average so who knows what’s going on over there anymore.
I am absolutely going to be 75% cash into the weekend as the Nasdaq action today makes me worry that the rug may get pulled out from under us but I’ve been wrong all week so we’ll have to see.
