Things are looking pretty good again.
Asia was mixed but that’s fine after a good run, Europe is up across the board and our futures are pointing up on pretty good earnings.
Gold is up to $645 so someone is worried about something and oil in Europe is close to $74 and I think we are likely to head that way too at this point. Notes have pulled back a bit to just around 5% which is tolerable and the dollar has stopped falling for the moment.
Had it not been for changes in compensation rules, Ebay’s profits were up 20% along with a 35% increase in revenues but they are being punished regardless. This behavior seems capricious as some companies are suffering as others are forgiven so it will be hard to guess which will be which.
Coming into option expiration tomorrow I will be leaving little on the table as we may get some big pullbacks for no reason. There is also the major Google wildcard to be played tonight so let’s trade carefully out there!
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PLAY is in total collapse this morning as they got the boot from some new IPods. Although I think the 40% drop is a bit overdone, I certainly won’t want to get in the way of it. The same thing happened to SGTL last year and they never recovered although I may take some Jan $17.50s for .10 just in case:
http://stockcharts.com/gallery/?sgtl
NOK had great revenues and MOT sold plenty of phones, although disappointing so I am liking VZ May $32.50s for .85 and T (4/25) Oct $27.50s for .45.
We finally get rewarded for those MRK $35s we bought last week for .35 as the company announces an 11% jump in profit on flat sales indicating good cost cutting.
It only cost NEM $280-295 per ounce to sell gold and their profits doubled this quarter to .46 a share vs. expectations of .32! It is astounding to me that the stock is not flying up in pre-market so I’m going to grab the May $60s, which were $1.95 last night. The company expects to sell 7.7M ounces of gold this year and has a market cap of $26Bn yet the forward p/e is currently estimated at 32. When gold was $550 an ounce this stock was at $62. Need more reasons?
ABX (5/3) is a bigger producer of gold than NEM with just a $17Bn market cap so I love the May $32.50s for .70 coming into their earnings.
GM “only” lost $323M last quarter so Kirkorean will be breaking out the champagne! I’m happy to see it run up again so we can short it later…
INTC May $20s for .55 might make a nice play but watch the momentum.
CPS $45s for .50 might make a nice momentum play for the day as they had an unexpected beat.
EBAY has demonstrated that people do indeed buy things online, 35% more than last year in fact. The question is can AMZN (4/25) make money on it? I’m covering the Jan $40s for $3.20 with the May $35 puts for $1.05 but I feel really good about the upside.
UPS did well so we will have to wait to see how guidance shakes out.
It’s all about Google today and this will be your last chance to chicken out on any calls before they become either worthless or one of the best trades you ever made!
