Monday Mop-Up

Good golly what a mess! The Dow took a nice bounce off 10,850 to finish at just under 10,900. Nasdaq, on the other hand, just seems to be giving up, now treating 2,250 like a level it can’t reach. S&P has moved down below 1,270 and seems happy down there. Worst of all, the AMEX is now all the way down to 50 dma support at 1,789. It’s the AMEX that will make or break the market tomorrow – whichever way that goes, we go (looks down though). If the market can’t rally on $61 oil I’m not sure what it will take… HPQ and DELL need to knock the cover off the ball to get the Nasdaq back on track. Today really knocked a lot of optimism out of me, luckily I got a chance to cash out those Google puts and oil puts so I have cash ready to go whichever way the market takes us. ===================================== LVS was irresistible today with a mystery gain of 5%. With the p/e back at 200 I took the March $50 puts for $2.40. XOM $60 puts were a great intraday comment trade as they flew from .60 at 12:30 to $1.15 when VLO made me nervous at 3:20. When you make 100% on a day trade, you really should take it!!! CHK was great today, the $27.50 puts finished at .30 (up 50%) but were a clean double this afternoon (again, never be greedy!). GOOG was stopped by the 5% rule but never tested the 200 dma at $335 so I think it still needs to get there but this is an option expiration week and I hate to take any chances in the overnights so we will have to wait for tomorrow. Note that BTU was stopped by the 5% rule for the last 5 consecutive sessions! The $90 puts we picked on Friday for $2.50 are already up to $4.90 so I took that money and ran. AAPL is determined to follow Google to the grave but CME actually broke away today. This could be a good signal for the markets but I’m not acting on it just yet. DOW held up well, as expected and should continue strong as long as oil trends down. PCU continues to plummet. The Sept $85 puts from Friday at $11.50 are all the way up to $15.20 (30%). If you haven’t done so already, you should certainly sell the Mar $80s for $3 for another 25%. SYMC barely budged today, a very good sign! TM actually went up, I doubled up on my July 100s from Friday. Thurs TOTD X dropped another 3.4% – if you sold the March puts they are in the money but you are already up 28% on the long put plus you have their $3.80 (another 40%)! GSK bucks the market with a 1.2% gain today. The Jan $45s have gained $1 (15%) since Thurs. and looking very nice. EDS also gained against the market. The Jan ’08 $30s are up 25% but still attractive at $2.55. My old pick AIR was up 1.8% today and looked very good. I like the March $22.50s for $3.50, a small .90 premium. RIMM was a disaster today but if you sold the Mar $70 call you are even and there is no reason to panic. That same Fri RIMM trade is valid, I think the stock is being forced down for options. PFE weathered a downgrade nicely today, the March calls are still attractive. BUD held up, a very good sign. HD was a strong call today, up 1.2%. TOTD GE held up well but we own this until 2008 so I’m not going to worry this one along. ===================================== On the whole, a terrible day but pretty good for our stuff! Just because our stocks hold up doesn’t mean they will continue to do so. Keep stops in place and keep 75% in cash and you’ll sleep well at night… There are amazing opportunities all over the board but we have to be patient, forcing trades is never a good strategy. Tomorrow should be a good day for retail, hopefully SHLD and TGT (2/16) will pop and give us a good sign. I really blew one today as I forgot to look into JAKK this morning. Look in the comment section from the 2/11 google article where I noted it to myself. Darn thing’s up 6.5% today! Actually most of what I was noting worked today, just too busy to track it all.