Ah this will be easy to summarize…
As expected it was a crummy day where not much happened of note. Oil was up a dollar for not very good reasons and everything else just sort of sumpbled around looking for direction. The end.
I was pleased that our indices held up but it was a shame the Dow could not hold 11,200 but interesting that the NYSE finished within 12 cents of my morning mark but unfortunately only the Nasdaq even threatened to go positive today and that was only for about a half hour early on. If we don’t get some positive movemet tomorrow we may be in for a nasty second half of the week.
Oil climbed for all the reasons I mentioned this morning but the Russian pipeline will be a non-event (you don’t keep pumping oil into a broken pipe). We missed the UN resolution putting an 8/31 deadline on Iraq to suspend uranium enrichment, that’s good for 50 cents right there, Israel cancelled the cease fire, and this heat wave accounted for a big spike in coal and natural gas that drove oil back over $74 again.
My bad for not repicking BTU today for the same reasons we picked them last week. We were disappointed with our 50% return last week as natural gas broke $7 but today it flew through $8 and BTU picked up 8.5% on the day. The $50s are now well in the money at $2.50 (up 150%). Not only that but, much like my Apple non-play, I was too cheap to stick to my guns and by the $45s on the dip!
The tail end of earnings reports is not exactly lighting a fire under the markets and I’m still not ready to commit but let’s see how the geopolitics plays out tomorrow.
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There were no buys today as we got no signals to do so but let’s keep our eye on the picks in case we can get some real bargains later in the week!
It was a good day to pick up the XOM Sept $70s as that half of our split jumped to $1 (up 25%) while the $65 puts (I know I said $70 but I meant $65 – sorry) exactly hit my mark at $1.
WFMI was exactly as bad as I thought and they are still blaming Katrina! The stock dropped 7.5% in the AH as sales are dropping off.
AQNT tood a big hit today ahead of earnings and I might find them irresistable tomorrow.
ELN and EK got away from us already which indicates optimism isn’t completely dead.
Gold did nothing as the dollar continued to drift down on mixed Fed messages and rates stayed low as the prevailing sentiment is that they would be crazy to cut again (get the straight jackets ready!).
