Wheee, that was fun!
It was a terrible day for hyenas as sanity returned to the markets and great companes, like our ISRG, reasserted themselves. After hours we got in-line results from Google (OK, earnings were a 0.23% miss) and they tanked after hours but we'll see if they pull an Amazon tomorrow and gain it all back during the day.
Our morning plays of MBI and ABK were up huge off their opens for the day so we were in a great mood from the start. MBIA was placed on negative watch by the S&P but Ambac had their AAA rating affirmed and the hyenas were chewing their own legs off to get out of that trap! FGIC, the private bond insurer I didn't trust, was in fact downgraded by Fitch, but this was no surprise and the markets took it pretty much in stride. MBIA held a marathon, 4-hour conference call where the company laid out the case that their capital plan will exceed all AAA rating requirements and that a downgrade would impact them by no more than $200M even if it occurred.
Retailers were up across the board with the whole sector hitting the 5% rule during the day. We still have the jobs report to get through tomorrow but things are looking very bright indeed as the Nasdaq broke and held the 2,380 mark we were looking for on Tuesday's Big Chart and the Transports blasted through 2,591 leaving only the SOX lying on the floor and we will be looking closely at this sector for opportunities if we get some follow-through from the Nasdaq into next week.
It remains to be seen how the markets will respond to Google's "miss" but the Nasdaq held up well in after hours trading (which is a shame since I bought some QQQQ puts on Google's announcement) but, on the whole, we've made huge progress for the week and all we have to do tomorrow is not blow it.
I'll cut this post short as I intend to do small virtual portfolio reviews for tomorrow.
