100 points down on the NYSE? Ouch! 37 points off the Nasdaq, retracing half of last week’s gains, the NYSE gave up all of last week’s gains and going below 8,300 takes us right back to 8/15, not good at all! http://stockcharts.com/gallery/?nyse On the bright side, today’s declines were led by last year’s leaders, home builders and commodities but we are just not getting a change in leadership we need to make it work. Perhaps the big boys are selling first and buying later, we won’t know for sure until next week probably but it will now be a miracle if this week can be saved. Thank goodness we got out of our September calls while the getting was good! Even so, we took a lot of hits on our October positions and I lightened up on a few in comments but then I was foolish enough to try to pick up some “bargains” ahead of a generally disappointing Beige Book. Oil hit my $67.50 target and stopped dead there, with inventory reports tomorrow we may be heading back to numbers we haven’t seen since March. Gold pulled back $4 after again failing to break $640, this is exactly what gold bugs did not want to happen and rising wages by themselves will not fuel the level of inflation required to keep gold at this level with Iran fading to page 2. ====================================== Despite my own foolish buying, there was no reason to buy any of our positions today as our technicals broke down early and none of our tracking stocks held up. Following these rules would have saved me a lot of money! Rememeber to do as I say, not as I do! I took a gamble, pre Beige Book, and bought the following with just small positions:
- ABX Oct $32.50s for .80 to cover a poor report
- CHK Oct $30 puts for .55 – good in a bad report and also general oil meltdown
- JNJ Oct $65s for .85
- TXN Oct $32.50s for .80
- GRMN Oct $47.50s for $2
- TGT Oct $47.50s for $2
- BBBY Oct $35s for $1
- EXP Jan $40s for $2.15
- ADZA again at $16.45
- NOK Oct $20s for .80
- QQQQ $40s for .15
- STX Mar $22.50s for $1.80
I got out of DWSN at $28.60 (up 10%), whose profits helped me pay for this nonsense. I also let go of the BSC Oct $120 puts for $1.70 (even) as I felt the calls are a better play to keep. LVS $70 puts for $3.30 (up 65%) were enough for me. I got thrown out of TINY at my $2.75 stop (up 140%). I gave up on QQQQ, STX, QCOM and NOK literally 20 minutes after I bought them as the Book was not what I had hoped and I am nervously holding onto the rest. We’ll see how this goes, I used half the profits on the positions I sold to fund this nonsense but it will be great if we get a buying binge! ===================================== DVN gave back 4% on the day – I hope that guy got out! STO, Devon’s partner on the well never really got a gain and dropped 5%, which shows you how overblown that reaction was yesterday. CVX “only” dropped 1.7% and will make a very tempting short tomorrow! CAT stopped me out with a double early in the day on a big spike. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=CAT&t=1d PETS needs to be seriously considered again, now down to $9.63. The combination of the Barron’s article and todays’ action killed this stock. I don’t want to catch a falling knife but I sure want to catch the rebound on this one! SMVD stopped just short of stopping me out with a 14% drop: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SMVD.OB&t=5d Thank goodness we got out of Intel! http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5d&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=&a=&c=&s=intc We should have used the same logic on the BHPs but they were just insurance on the PD puts, I knew it was wrong but I kept them anyway (kick, kick): http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5d&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=&a=&c=&s=bhp Got stopped out of the IWM’s at $1.90, also should have taken the money and ran! I got way too complacent from the past two weeks and should have taken much of this off yesterday when I knew I wouldn’t be around to watch them… Got stopped out of MRVL just in time at $1.65, should have sold that sooner too! PKX went completely the opposite way I expected, I didn’t even have a stop! At least we had a few bright spots: RDS.A $70 puts are well in the money at $2 (up 400%). SU $80 puts are also in the money at $4.80 (up 250%). SUN $75 puts finished at $7.80 (up 400%). XOM $67.50 puts finally came in the money at $1.05 (up 110%). Needless to say I have very tight stops on all the oil puts as I refuse to give back profits on the few clear winners we have this week!
