I’m not going to do the normal wrap-up as it’s pre Fed so nothing matters.
Instead we’re going to do a few virtual portfolio posts with comments. We had a really good couple of days doing momentum plays and rolling positions so I did a weekend’s worth of work last night so members can have a look at where we stand on our positions.
Quick market comments are WYNN came in good but not good enough for expectations. CMG also could not match the growth in share value. DELL looks good the dollar is still dead and, although we are mainly covered, we need to keep stops on our callers ahead of tomorrows rally and get ready to do the same to our putters if they get knocked out of the box.
Consumer confidence was terrible but terrible is good as it increases the liklihood the Fed will ease (which is actually bad, as in stupid, but for the markets – we’ll call it good). Oil crashed yesterday but bounced off $90 and should hold it into inventories. We took our profits and ran on our oil puts, ready to reload into any silly rally today.
The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index showed a 4.4% decline in home prices – AND THEY’RE STILL NOT SELLING! The Dow is up from 13,500 last Wednesday to 13,800 today (after touching 13,900 yesterday) and the S&P is up from 1,490 to 1,530. If we hold these levels we are poised for a very nice rally, deserved or not and our strategy is to take off our covers and roll our puts up to keep a tight rein on the market. Hopefully we can establish a nice bearish position at a higher level (14,200 was the big top so far) but let’s not try to guess it!
Energy stocks dropped 3%, accounting for most of the market’s overall losses but the financials were no help. Google had an amazing day, touching $700 and MSFT kept ramblin’ on but that was no reason not to cover them.
Our MER play never needed a cover as they went down all day and never retraced past our stops and we had amazing luck with our DRYS and BIDU puts as well as, of course our Focus Puts on XOM, WYNN and LVS, members were doubling up all over the place – that’s the kind of day I love!
