Much better thanks all.
Can’t say the same for home sales (down 1.6%, was up 12% last month) or consumer confidence (103 vs. 108% last month) but the new home numbers are skewed by the equally rated midwest which has the least amount of homes and had a 30% increase.
LEN’s earnings were a disaster and I can not imagine what is putting this market up right now.
FLIR/NILE/BW – see above, nothing is oversold until the market shows us that the bears are wrong. Bullish sentiment was close to 55% last week, that means there’s a ton of people who see every dip as “finally” a chance to get back into the market they missed since March. These people are called “bagholders” but they never know they are bagholders until it’s way too late and the sack is empty.
FTO – $45 puts are not a bad play at $1.77, doing a very slow fade.
CVX holding up a little too well. $80 puts just .45 could be fun if it breaks down but inventory is tomorrow.
MTU/Any DD – I’m very neutral right now and this insane bouncing up and down 50 points every 10 minutes does not instill me with the confidence to put fresh money to work in either direction. I’m very close to going another half cash, bringing me to around 80% cash.
LOL – I got up for a 5 min phone call and it’s down again – what a joke!
SIRI – ROFL! See – mission accomplished, they got the options to print, sold them and let the stock drop – what an amazing scam!
LFG – I’d be pleased but that is the death of the home market there!
Bill Gross – well that statement makes me want to cash out my virtual portfolio, sell the house, auction the art and have a garage sale!
GM – not ready to roll my putter to $37.50 yet but I with I did yesterday. At this point my next roll would be neutral as I need to move my long puts to $35s too so I may just wait and see as I am currently just a wee bit ahead. No shame in getting out even from a position that isn’t working.
Meanwhile – is that market up again? That’s down 50, up 50, down 50, up 50 in 2 hours! Down volume way ahead of up and ahead of the Fed I doubt anyone has the nerve to really go anywhere today.
Gold getting crushed oil staying down at the moment… Putting my Fed hat on I’ve got an orderly deflating housing bubble but commodities are still out of controil. The cheap dollar is flooding the country with foreign currency funded by the low interest yen but I need foreigners to buy dollars themselves, not stuff. That means I need to keep rates relatively tight but an increase would trigger a panic so I have to put out a neutral statement but telegraph a more hawkish inflation position so I can ease people into a tightening mode by the next meeting.
Oil stuff – watch VLO to hold $75, that’s the key to the sector. If they break down, others will follow but if they bounce up, TSO $60s, now $1.83 will make a good mo play.
They are looking for huge builds tomorrow: 2M Crude, 1.4M gasoline, 700K distillates – going to be hard to hit that mark.
Uh oh – Pisani looks concerned again.
Oil – you are all very impatient! Wait for VLO to test $75 (I’m thinking bounce right now as we close in on pm trading and the VLO $75s at $2 were $3 yesterday so they will make a good mo play too).
That’s ok Keyser – you put in a rough day, have fun!
Wow – CNBC guy says “pretty good rally for the dow” how does a herky-jerky ride to a 50 point lower high than yesterday constitute a pretty good rally? This is what I don’t get about them – don’t they want ratings? To get ratings you need to give good information, not spin.
If Oil is going to fall, it has a mile to go. Any of these guys could go 10% down without breaking an uptrend. For OIH that’s $165, XOM, maybe $75. Would I trade OIH puts for Apple calls. Not current ones. Much as I like Apple I wouldn’t take an unhedged posiiton. They were under the radar when IPod came out and had defective batteres and bad wheels etc. Anything but angels singing 24/7 on the IPhone is going to have a lynch mob heading to Cupertino so I’ll wait just a bit to go naked bullish on them. On the bright side, at least their p/e is 33% less than RIMM’s.
Gold down $10 now.
NMX tends to follow oil down a bit.
VLO stopped right at $75. Oil turning up too, watch XOM to break $83. VLO $75s hit my $2 mark, stop at $1.75. Taking COP $80s for .80 as well but these are covers in lieu of selling my existing puts at what I consider a critical juncture. XXX
RIMM – a low volume spike of $1 after a $7 fall is not a jump.
VLO – I wouldn’t sell oil puts naked, tempting though it may be. Oil could snap and you would be in much pain. If they start to go, you can take you pick of companies at near ATH to grab puts on but I think VLO will make a stand here ahead of inventories.
How low will oil go – I think this is it for the day. Time to cash in the puts and see where the calls take us into inventory. I’m going to set 20% of the profit stops on my put side and I’ll try to go into inventories either all out or a little bullish.
What got into oil? Lunch ended at the NYMEX and they have 75 minutes to get it back to $69 – that’s all. Failing to get back will be a problem. Failing $68 won’t be good either and VLO is not doing very well down here at $75.
Nice confirmation if XOM breaks down here. Even better if CVX finally turns red. Glad I bought those calls rather than sell my puts (for the moment).
Oil failing into the close, this could be great but I’m taking the money and running ahead of inventories – will reestablish tomorrow morning but, in the words of the great Flounder: “Oh boy is this great!”
I do hope they take Apple down some because $120 is not low enough to get me to buy more just yet but my July $120 puts just paid for my IPhone + 2 year’s of service! That “knock” on the IPhone ignores a very basic fact – it’s a phone! I pay that for a service contract now, it’s a non-issue for me and the several other people I know who already pay for one of those fancy cell-phone things… BS logic like that does tend to strike me as disingenuous and makes me wonder if the writer does have an agenda but then I realize if he works for a fine Murdoch publication that couldn’t possibly be the case (someone give me an Amen!)
Oil shorts – none are safe to short ahead of inventory. Still taking the money and running. Leaving XOM leap puts of course and TSO Aug $55 puts (almost a double).
Still trying to buy T $40s for .50. XXX That’s my Apple play of the moment.
TSO $60 puts for $1.50 are a reasonable risk/reward into inventory, look better than the VLO $75s. XXX
FWLT with huge collapse, need to keep an eye on $105 puts sold in $10KP for a possible roll to the $100 puts that will cost about $2. Probably if it breaks $101 I will be concerned.
