Yuch! If not for a 2% rise in the oil sector and a 3% rise in commodities that would have been one ugly day today. You could have just watched GE and known this was not a day to buy…
On the bright side, the Nasdaq is holding 2,300 and the Dow is holding 11,000 and the S&P, although down to 1,285, has not fallen off a cliff yet (but is now resting BELOW the 50 dma).
So right now any up move in the S&P will be bullish while any move further down by the Dow or the Nasdaq will be quite bearish.
Oil finished over $70 and gold at $618 so I sold my gold stocks (except BVN) but, given the global outlook, I kept those XOM $62.50s one more day (after selling 25%).
I cannot explain the lack of movement on NAK and MRB on a day when NEM gained 6%. The mining strilke in Mexico may be winding down so watch out for a pullback in copper but I’m not sure it will drag gold down with it as copper is up 75% since Jan 2005 and gold is up “just” 50%.
There was plenty of day trade money to be made today but pretty much everything was down by the afternoon if it wasn’t a natural resource.
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C opened nice and high but drifted all day, even if you didn’t get the premium earlier in the day, you can’t be too unhappy with the $47.50s at .95 (up 90%).
Today was a great day to roll the DIS to May $27.50s as the stock was week all day and the new calls only cost .90.
INFY had a monster day, gaining 13%, stopped only by the closing bell. The July $65s we picked up for $9.60 way back on 2/21 are now $19.90 but I wasn’t this patient.
I’m sorry I sold those RIMMs! Down another 2% today.
I thought we were onto something with Yahoo this morning but then it dropped .70 after 10:30.
Of all the stocks to short today, DISH just would not die! I suppose the lawsuit may be factored in at this point but the $30 puts fell to .25 (down 30%).
ALKS was a huge disappointment as well, retracing almost all of its late Thursday gains and the May $22.50s dropped to $1.05 where I did a ‘mon back! I don’t care what kind of market it is, this shot lets alcoholics stay sober for a month. Piper gave them a nice note in the after hours so we will see what tomorrow brings:
http://www.forbes.com/2006/04/17/alkermes-vivitrol-0417markets13.html?partner=yahootix
Well, the MOT May $25s came down to .40 but I’m not sure I want them the way today’s chart went!
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MOT&t=1d
UNH May $55s opened at $1.20 and it was all downhill from there. I ended up with an average $1 but it’s still down to .85, off 33% from the open! This will be an exciting one tomorrow morning…
GLW May $25s are already off a shocking 18% from the open to $2.20 so there is a lot riding on TXN’s report.
FLEX opened very high with the Jan $12.50s now .80 (up 33%), too rich for my blood!
BDK gapped up, driving the May $90 puts up to an unplayable $3.50 (up 300%). I give up on this one, it just got away…
You have to love a company that has $30M in sales and $7M in Net Profits with doubling sales while the CEO lives well on a $30K salary (she owns 5% of the stock). For some reason, wall street doesn’t love BBC, they don’t hate them, as they are up 250% this year but with a forward p/e of about 15, they sure don’t love them… They had a nice test of $16 today and Forbes ranked them the 16th fastest growing company in China (which is growing at a 10% pace).
SIRI reports next week and the May $5s are .40, it’s an outrageous premium so you just need to have restraint and act like you own shares and that’s the amount of loss you are willing to take when you are wiped out, then consider anything you end up with a bonus!
Cramer is on the Tonight Show tonight so it will be interesting to see if he puts it on the line for Google into earnings…
