Archive for February, 2009

Trading Journal Excerpt for Feb 23

Game Plan – VOLUME EXHAUSTION BARS IN FINANCIAL STOCKS. Campaign – Position trade 2nd tier financial names. Continue to focus on gold stocks and buy on dips, sell into rallies. PRIORITY- Volume climax in financial names. Short-term trend exhaustion. Dow recovery of 7450 level short term reversal in progress. Week of Feb. 23 Dow showing [...]

How to Read the Put to Call Ratio

The CBOE Options Put/Call Ratio is a contrarian indicator commonly used by investors to gauge overall sentiment. The close today indirectly suggests a rally could be looming around the corner. The lower the reading then the more call volume is being traded versus put volume, suggesting investors are bullish on the market. On the contrary [...]

Banks to be Nationalized…

”It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring,” he said. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.” Alan Greenspan, Feb. 18, 2009 “If nationalisation is what works, then we should do it.” Sen. Lyndsey Graham, R-S.C. ”You would have [...]

Journal Entry Feb. 18

Game Plan – Play the macro themes. Position trading emphasis. Intraday trading via baskets only. Campaign -Only trade your levels from Trade Sheet. Major credit event (e.g. 1971Nixon closed gold window, 1929 Humphrey devalued dollar) to push value of Gold higher. PRIORITY- First GOLD. Market might crash. Failed H&S patterns everywhere. VIX double bottom still [...]

Big Break S&P 500 and CRB

Wait a second. S&P 500 heading to 650?

What is Gold Telling Us?

While investors are focusing all of their attention on US banks, another systemic risk is brewing compliments of the Eurozone and Chinese Banks. Even Swiss banks are sitting on a time bomb as all of them have lent trillions of Euros to Baltic states, Russia and Latin America. For all intents and purposes, these loans [...]

Bonds or Stocks?

As short rates rise, I’m getting more convinced we are moving through the first half of the recession, perhaps even past the half-way mark. Once 3month rates broke above Fed Funds, yield curve is signaling we are in the recovery stage and may very well pull Fed Funds higher sooner rather than later. It’s also [...]

Patience Young Grasshopper

Game Plan – Highly Selective Market Swings via ETF Baskets. Basket Trading is the ONLY THEME for FEBRUARY (or until correlations break 1). Campaign – Searching for a successful test of S2′s, watching for major break through Nov. lows. PRIORITY- VIX double bottom. Watch spread between VIX and Variance Futures Week of Feb. 02 WED:Looking [...]

Journal Entry Feb 02 2009

Game Plan – Highly Selective Market Swings via ETF Baskets. Basket Trading is the ONLY THEME for FEBRUARY (or until correlations break 1). Campaign – Searching for a successful test of S2′s, watching for major break through Nov. lows. PRIORITY- VIX double bottom Week of Feb. 02 PST- Ultrashort 7-10yr Tsy. Top Trades: SKF to [...]

Extremely Troubling Conditions Developing…

As it’s 10 minutes until the open in US equities, let me just say this opening scenario bodes rather badly for those bulls trapped from early last week. The open is below critical support levels, where those trapped investors have laid their stops. This could propel the market directly to its November lows. Many generals [...]

Another leg lower or just a head fake?

I just checked the message que and realized the flood of questions regarding the bearish signal coming from the spread between volatility futures and variance futures. The fact that I posted this signal on Wed. was not a reaction to the rally of the prior two days, so I can’t take credit for the sell-off [...]