Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Taking off more long exposure, adding to shorts

Pretty clear bounce off resistance. Took off another 1/3rd of index longs near the close yesterday. Adding to index short exposure as the S&P bounces of 960. Not enough in the way of divergences for me to go fangs out here, just adding a bit of index shorts.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Taking something down here

Selling 1/3rd of the SSO right here. Put on with a basis of 24.75. Nice move, no need to be greedy.

Unbelievable the hate I got over this on some of the doomer boards. I got my buy points within 2 - 3% on a whole slug of individual stocks, caught absolutely nothing but crap over it. For the record, here's what we got. I wanted you in:

S&P at 890. Intraday low was 880, now at 951.

T at 23.75. It went to 23.19, now at 24.42
WMT at 48. Intraday low was 47.35, now at 48.82
RTH at 76. Intraday low was 74.24, now at 80.52.
AAWW at 21. Intraday low was 19.84, now at 23.47.


All I got for myself was the S&P. Cha-ching, doomer fuckheads. Things go up and down within the context of a bull or bear market. I happen to believe 5% is worth playing for.

Nothing anyone will ever be able to prove, but this whole market move over the last 4 months has felt like a massive pump job. I would hate to have been short it, which I suspect is exactly the point the PTB are trying to make.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Looking at the long side

Well, let's take a look at the general markets. The S&P and Dow charts, to me, are in conflict.

On the bull side, both show a Golden Cross right here, where the 50 and 200 SMAs crossed. Also, there was a good bounce off the high 890s area in the S&P and that 8250 area in the Dow, from an oversold condition.

On the bear side, it's still a broken trendline that measures to a top around 950 S&P, 8800 Dow. Also, index put/call ratio comes just below 100, starting to get a little more bearish despite the oversold. Quarter-end games tend to end early rather than late.

Still I'd say the next 5% is up. I took some SSO on that bounce off support. Also covered the PM short, need to get a little long here.

Strong groups this past week were transports (rails have been on fire – can’t find an entry point though), telecomm.

I am not enthusiastic, but I guess I could take:

- T as close to 23.75 as you can get
- WMT looks good to enter as close to 48 as you can get.
- If you want an ETF, RTH as close to 76 as you can get.

One real flier among the transports. I probably won't do this:

- AAWW, as close to 21 as you can get him.

Some physical silver around 13.50, if he comes back.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Covering a little something

Both silver and gold continuous contracts at the 50DMA right here, about a 50% retrace of the last move, at support.

Let's declare victory and cover a third of each of them. Tried, but failed to get long some silver at the 13.50 level on the physical metal.

S&P did a credible bounce off support in the 890s. Taking 800 SSO at 24.75 on the long side.

Bucky taking a buckwheat up the green chute as well, Euroland making tightening noises. Why am I continuously thinking '1931' ?

Monday, June 15, 2009

Trendline breaks

All three indices seeing multimonth trendline breaks today.

Looking like a trendline break in the VIX as well.

I think you want to hold off until later in the afternoon to see what the invisible hand of JPM will do for a stick-save.

Good entry on the short side right here.

I already lost my energy and PM longs to trendline breaks over the last several days, leaving me with shorts on the S&P, gold and a REIT.

I'm trying to add on the short side with about 7% of the account, being stubborn waiting for my price. I think you'll get another chance over the next several days as it tries to flirt with the trendline.

Got short some silver via ZSL, but that was it.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Charts I'm watching

Mostly on the long side...

Purely anecdotal on my part, $USD is a crowded short. I would look for a bounce, with concomitant commodity weakness. I don't know that I'd extend that to say "and treasury strength" since the two have been decoupling for a few days.

However, a stronger dollar would tend to mitigate against the export/heavy industries on this list:

Insurers: HIG, making a pennant, stochastic just crossed, MACD turned up from down low.

Aerospace: BA, like to see him fill that gap at 50, since he's overbought here. Not buyable right now, just a watcher.

Midstream pipelines: APL, inside day after a breakout. Overbought here but, in my ideal world, he'd make a pennant right here.

Tires: CTB on a breakout above 12.

Industrial metals: AA

Personal care products: ACV.


On the short side, taking a shot at a little gold short, playing for 4 - 5%.

Update: Got no longs at all, got some gold short via DGP.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Lots of trailing stops hit

Lost all the golds, all the energies and part of the treasury short to stops today. Every one of them was very profitable. Too many positions to detail right now. I could see the confirmations streaming in starting in over the mojo wire around mid-morning. End of the week, I'll detail what's *left*.

Bigtime in cash, with maybe 25% of the account committed, mostly on the short side now.

For as many weeks as I can recall, though, exercising good trading discipline has been an exercise in futility, as the market seems to have no memory from one day to the next.