Ahhh, what a relief that was!
An especially good performance when you take into account that LEN lowered guidance against a good (although possibly inaccurate housing report) but the commodities once again turned in a fairly strong performance and the SOX closed up just half a point (as did most indices) so I will still be waiting for some follow through.
Most of the buying came in the last half hour of the afternoon as our key inicators held their technicals but the Nasdaq had a choppy finish trying to gain 12 points and the S&P continues to treat 1,250 as resistance which is making 1,260 very cold and lonely as it has not been visited since June 9th.
GE gave me some hope at the day’s end but TXN was a big disappointment as it failed to break $30 on an otherwise good day. APPL also had a nice finish but the first 6 hours of trading were just awful for them. I was very glad to get $1 for my .80 TXN calls which was the only trade I made all day as they opened nice and low but I would have been better off just cashing out on the initial run at 11.
As expected, the NYSE was our best possible indicator, giving an early strong indication that buyers were coming in just around lunchtime. This coincided with the close of European markets as an uneventful Central Bankers meeting gave investors a sigh of relief. It looks to me like individual investors are bargain hunting and we will need to see today followed through with volume tomorrow before we can even begin to say we may be coming out of the woods.
Oil is up another $1 to $71.80 and we know that’s going to hurt down the road. Gold held steady at $587 which was good enough for the beaten down gold miners to make small gains.
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PD did indeed blow through the 5% rule to finish down 8% for the day while N and FAL both pulled back a little as the stock they are getting is devaluing quickly.
JNJ lost a whopping 2% today but opened too low to play.
XOM $57.50s only came down to $1.60 but finished the day at $2.20 (up 35%).
We can hope for a good day tomorrow but I’m still wary…
