. . . . . . . . . . . Market Update . . . . . . . .
Good advice, DO. Thanks.
POSITION TRADING
Like I said yesterday, the POSITION TRADER in me enjoys the value driven tech buys near their 52-week lows that we made over the past month. Stocks like CPWR, ADPT, XRX, IFMX, VZ, etc. As a position trader, these were fun to position into on the cheap. . . and some were long-term investments as well.
It was a bit more difficult to POSITION into fuel cells, since they have no PE ratio. But over the course of the past week, they proved to everyone that they were not merely a mania. . .as I said on Monday. . .but rather were under accumulation. . most probably by fund managers and energy speculators. They all had a great week. . . despite opposition by short-sellers thinking it was mania. The Rat Dog position play still works, but is better during certain seasons and market conditions.
SWING TRADING
But I still enjoy riding SWING TRADES when the time is right. Adding to MCEL and EFCX on their increasing momentum and low floats, turned out to be the right move. . .though I missed HPOW. . .A good swing trader playing both ways, could make a living just playing PLUG. . . although I had to stop posting my trades on fuel cells this week. . . You MUST be especially careful what you say and when you say it, when playing both long and short the same stock. BEST to say nothing. . .which is why I stayed pretty quiet toward the latter half of the week on PLUG.
HIGH-FLIERS
Once again, it was the high-flying tech stocks that disappointed. Which leads me to believe that we are still in the same market moving mode now as we were on the first of September. "Knock those big tech stocks back as far as possible, because we know we can sell them all day long when the market starts to move higher." . . say the Po' Boys.
MOMENTUM DAYTRADING
Not doing much DAYTRADING anymore. For me, it doesn't pay like it used to. . . In 98, it was fun to ride on the back of a momentum stock with a low float. . . since it could rise 500%, 1000% or 1500% in a single day. Risk vs. reward ratio was out of hand. It was pretty hard to lose unless you were really greedy. Nowadays, with the MMs finding a way to quickly squash all momentum plays, daytraders must be satisfied with 20% or 30% and only rarely any more than that. [I believe it has to do with the "automatic MM settings" on thinly traded stocks that don't have "live MMs". . . where the computers were set to respond in one way before. . .I think they've been changed to not allow runaway momos]
OTHER DAYTRADING
Doubles are nearly out of the question. With EGRP & WITC merging, it is also more difficult to get issued IPOs at the IPO price and flip them. . . another way of making BIG money easily. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that loophole has been all but sewn shut.
So in DAYTRADING what still works is the quick in-and-out scalp play. . . which is where you track a stocks moves for so long that you "know" what it will do next. . . then just get in and out on every turn. But I don't have the patience for that type of trading.
HYBRID TRADING
So I stick to our Hybrid Trading. . .where sometimes we are long-term investors. . . other times we are position traders. . . and other times we are swing traders. . . often on the same stock. . . allowing us to change hats as the market conditions change. In my opinion, Hybrid trading has proven to stand the test of time and change.
SUMMER RECESS & REITS
Now those here who completely jumped out of tech stocks for the summer. . .during the first week of March. . . and actually followed my call to the letter. . . moving completely into REITS, cash and cyclicals, energy, and other boring areas. . . were happy to know that REITS outperformed the rest of the market from March to August by a long shot. They were up somewhere between 28% and 38% during a time when tech stocks lost 70% and 80%.
Those people were the smartest of all. . . because while their boring REITS sent them quarterly dividend checks. . .and slowly upticked. . .the markets tanked bigtime. . and no matter how good a trader you were between March and August. . . you probably did not fare NEARLY as well as you have during other March through Augusts. . .due to the many new weapons of volatility being used against us. . .you might have even shown a considerable loss.
MARKET DIRECTION - "The Subjective view"
As for market direction, we enjoyed the "Late August Highs" [which I predicted]. . . then looked to the Oct 3rd FOMC meeting. . .wondering where we could go from up. . .but this slam has been quite effective in taking down the markets. Got to hand it to them. . . so we could once again rally into and out of the October 3rd FOMC. . . .especially [for the 5th time]. . .if they leave out the phrase "ever vigilant toward seeking out inflation at every level" . . or whatever.
So far the earnings warnings list has not included any critical names. And that is important. There are ALWAYS warnings. Some names like Circuit City are warning due more to restructuring than sales being off. On the other hand, the names on the UPWARD revision list for earnings. . . includes some powerhouse names like Ciena, Hewlett-Packard, Lattice Semiconductor and Costco.
The big question is "are there enough warnings YET TO COME to signal a POOR earnings season in October?" That I don't know yet. . .but am open to discussion on that topic. So far, it looks like a non-event!
So we have every reason to rally on interest rates going into October FOMC. . .but earnings will dictate how the middle of October goes. . . I'd toss a coin at this point. Then the latter half of October is driven by the Asian markets and by historical late October superstition jitters. However, this year with the presidential election November 7th. . . we could get a dose of nationalism that could trickle into the markets. And where will oil be in all this? If it remains where it is, high home heating oil could make for some not so merry Christmas's. . .but if we get the declines we are hoping will occur as they seasonally do, all will be fine again.
Late October poses too many questions to make a confident prediction. Can a rally leading into the FOMC gain enough steam to drive these markets right through October turmoil and into the November peak investing season? Yes, it can. . . even taking out the spring highs. But because of the many factors bearing on October, this is going to have to be a prediction that unfolds as events occur.
. . . namely, TA [how low do we go?], FOMC & interest rates, oil, earnings season, Asian markets and to a much lesser degree the election.
Thanks,
Rande Is |
