As soon as I figure out what those funny green arrows are next to the indexes, I’ll let you know – I vaguely remember seeing something like that once…
Well, while this is nothing to have a party over, it certainly beats the alternative so let’s enjoy it while we can. Now we have to see if we can break barriers on the way up but we’ll worry about that in the morning.
Today I was encouraged by GE finally moving up, HPQ continuing up and YHOO just making a regular event of 3% gains.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=YHOO&t=5d
Speaking of Yahoo, my super patent pending market meter is going green again as Yahoo Financial is getting slow again, indicating interest is picking back up.
It’s still a minefield out there and if you don’t follow the trading rules and take profits quickly you still risk terrible reversals but, on the bright side, most of our picks are working which means we are getting a handle on this mess!
This was another big volume day where we didn’t turn down so a real bottom may be forming but Europe sure didn’t think so today and the Vonage IPO was a disaster (down 12%) but that may just indicate that people aren’t idiots rather than being a comment on market conditions.
EBAY suffered from the poor IPO showing as it makes their Skype acquisition seem not quite so smart but I think Vonage did poorly in large part because no amount of money is going to help them beat EBay, who can afford to give Skype away to their 300M users.
As I said this morning, we certainly didn’t miss much staying mainly in cash as most postions are still down for the day and, now that there are definate signs of life, we can pick the correct sectors to place our bets on tomorrow.
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The XOM spread payed both ways today with the $62.50s opening at .50 and jumping to .80 where they stayed most of the afternoon. The $57.50 puts opened at .75 and ran all the way to $1.35 before pulling back on the afternoon run up.
COP $60 puts were a thing of beauty peaking out with a head fake on the oil report and dropping all aftenoon but the .95 price was too rich for me and I missed the run to $1.60.
CVX $60 puts finished the day near their high at $3.20 (up 30%).
UPL $55 puts never had a doubt and even a late bounce left them at $3.30 (up 75%).
ACI had a big recovery ($1) and the July $50 puts finished at $6.30 (up 40%).
SU also had a huge recovery ($1.50) and the $75 puts finished at $2.90 (up 35%).
The Valero rule gave such a clear buy signal at 1:40 that I went long on oil then (but out at day’s end) so I just cannot emphasize enough how great it is to use this guidline to maximize profits!
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TM got off to an awful start and rebounded nicely but the Oct $110s never came down enough to buy. I will rethink this for a shorter play tomorrow.
LVS was my best trade of the day with the $60 puts finishing just off the money at $3.20 (up 175%).
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=LVS&t=1d
GOOG was all over the place and the $420s finished at $3.20 (up 30%) but I bought them, sold them, bought them and sold them again today!
GILD $57.50s opened at .90 and quickly ran to $1.40 where we sold in comments. I rebought them at .90 3 hours later and decided I can afford to sit on them overnight since they are still talking about the Flu every 5 minutes.
TXN once again returned my love with a nice low open and a huge day! The July $32.50s (sorry about saying puts in the morning but I hope it was obvious what I meant!) opened at .90 and quickly ran to $1.40 where I just had to take a 55% profit!
GE July $35s also returned the love with a down open at .40 and a nice, steady climb to .60 – these I have no reason to sell!
So, on the whole, not a bad day at all in a dicey market. As I’ve often said, I always have more fun picking winners in this sort of market than when everything is going one way or another.
Hope all went well for you, lets hope tomorrow confirms a turnaround!
– Phil
