Market open and a couple housekeeping items
Tech is up and leading the way higher again early this morning and the Nasdaq is now up nearly 7% from where it was yesterday at 3pm. That is likely either one hell of a bear market rally or else a potential significant near-term bottom. Feet to fire, I’d look for the latter and that earnings could potentially provide the catalyst. Let’s get to the reports next week before making any final judgement on the potential of their acting as catalyst though. Alcoa kicks us off in the new earnings season as usual, and it’ll be next Tuesday when we start to see how these stocks react.
A couple housekeeping items this morning too. Remember back on September 9 in
But being as this is a .44 Magnum…, when I wrote this:
My spidey-senses are telling me that we’re experiencing some relative calm here before the next big storm. This market is either a coiled spring about to put on another 5-10% move higher…or it’s a ticking time bomb about to crash 5%. And I’m thinking we’ll see such a move in measured in days, not weeks. That is, this is a market that’s likely got a binary outcome ahead of it. Steadiness doesn’t look likely. Volatility is ahead. You can buy volatility by buying VIX calls or shorting VIX puts or you can buy both calls and puts on the broader markets and in your individual stocks in the hopes that the increased volatility will increase their value no matter which direction the next move goes.
Well the VIX went from 30 to touch 45 at yesterday’s peak and is now back to 40 or so. I’d sell most of those calls if you made that buy at the time, as I know several of you did from your emails and chats.
Second, did you see that Acme Packet preannounced ugly earnings this coming quarter and explicitly explained that it was because of a serious pullback in orders from AT&T during the quarter? That was exactly what I’d been worried would happen to Ciena when we sold it a good big higher than where it was right now as I’d explained in
Removing one long entirely and adding a new short….Finally, I’ve not made any new trades today after having been buying the AMR quick trade for a nice gain along with having bought GS and BAC longs during the crash that already seems a long way away even tho it was still crashed yesterday at 3pm. This slow and steady but sometimes aggressive approach of ours has worked very profitably and somewhat safely so let’s stay focused and look for more pitches but not force any swings.
