Not so Terror(ble) Tuesday

Another nice consolidation day on low volume. Virtually no change with just a little disappointment as the S&P fails to retake 1,300 but the markets held up very well against hawkish Fed speak from Guynn and Moskow: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115624661394042116.html?mod=home_whats_news_us This killed our builders just when they were gathering steam and threw my DDs under a bus – hopefully we can get back to normal tomorrow. Today we answered the question as to whether a butterfly flapping it’s wings in Africa can affect the price of oil in the US as oil traders went wild over the naming of an African storm gave them hope that another US city could be wiped out (Yipee!). The fact that there is less than a 10% chance that this storm will track to the Gulf seems to matter little. Oil finished up in hopes that the other madman will weigh in with sabre rattling and make some crazy comments that will push the world back to the brink of war but Bush won’t make his official statement until tomorrow! Gold was not as excited about the storm but traders there still cling to the fading promise of Jihad, even after the Imam pulled a no-show this morning. Keep those scimitars sharpened though as we can debate the exact date for a while now but I am very happy with the way this is progressing so far. We said it wasn’t a good day to play the markets and it wasn’t with low volumes and lethargic action eroding a lot of premium out of options. There were many false starts and reversals and the only play I really liked was taking our oil puts this afteroon. ====================================== WY exploded today and I was so surprised I sold half for $1.80 (up 100%) as we only picked it on Sunday so it seemed like too much, too soon. The $60s finished the day at $1.95 after bumping up against the 5% rule on the initial run. NEM $50 puts turned against us to finish at .55 (down .10). Hopefully I picked to bottom on GOOG at $375, Tom disagrees but I’m holding the $400s for $2.90 even though the CME didn’t follow through (yet). SU $80 puts came in at $1.90 but oil is hanging on tough in a scary way. CHK $30 puts seemed like a good deal at .30 but finished at .25 on hurricane hopes. Initiated NDAQ $30s for .85 and they quickly dropped to .70. We got in a little cheaper on the HB picks and I hope we don’t regret it but TOL did not hold up well at all. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=TOL&t=1d PKX took off today and the Nov $65s jumped to $2.85 (up 10%). ABX saved the disappointing NEM put as well as the oil moves with a huge move on the $32.50s to $1.65 (up 75%).