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Wow, gap down in the VIX. Lod 26.77 so far....
Re; daily vs. weekly RSI;
Agree. The weekly QQQQ RSI(14) is only 58.82, not normally an indicator of a top, but my other favorite indicator - QQQQ Ultimate Oscillator(7,14,28) is at 77.71 on the weekly!
That's serious nosebleed territory.
A daily overbought RSI and a weekly extreme overbought UltOsc is a sell signal in my book.
Sold all my longs today. Daily QQQQ RSI(14) at 71.12 is toppy enough for me.
I put an order in for TWM @ 67.60, I feel a ramp into the close coming on....
Out of QLD @ 24.16 for 2.13, also letting go of my last ABB
for a smidge. Looking toppy.
Sold ABB @ 12.76 for .78 em
Isn't there a trading strategy that involves shorting a stock and hedging it at the same time by buying the calls? I'm wondering if the consistently low EPC is the result of big short positions being hedged with calls?
I'm long some QLD, average $22.03 and some ABB, average $12.60
Daily RSI and Ult Oscillator readings are at typical bounce levels. I'm hoping those overly bullish put/call ratios will fail this time as contrary indicators.
Are you still looking for a bounce at 700 S&P?
The data accompanying that 1366 number was 80,331 calls versus 5,882 puts. The 10:30 number for the same index is 432; 99,357 calls versus 23,015 puts.
http://www.ise.com/WebForm/homeDefault.aspx?categoryId=103&header3=true
Click on "ISE Sentiment Index" in the blue box.
Anyone pay attention to ISEE? Opening numbers were outrageous. The "All Indices and EFTs Only" ISEE number opened at 1366!
Bot ABB at 11.98
Hmmm. TrinQ at .17 ??
Naz down 20, trinQ is @ .50 Anyone find that interesting?
Ok, now that I've read through this thread, I understand the "sticky note" idea. Duh. This is my first experience
with one, and its appearance immediately followed a serious problem I was having with my browser, so I thought it might be something malicious.
A sticky note? How do I get rid of it?
Anyone else having this issue? When I visit the Traders Cooperative board, a copy of post #47719 by Joe Stocks continually places itself as the first message, shaded in light beige. I tried putting Joe on "ignore" to see if the post
would disappear, but even with all of Joe's other posts gone,
the rogue copy is still there.
Any suggestions?
My WAG; 11/07/08 @ 7:45 P.M.
I am deeply saddened to hear of Zeev's passing. He was not only a brilliant trader, but a man of remarkable dignity, patience, humor and humility.
For 10 plus years I've been an SI and IHUB devotee, and Zeev was truly the class act of the online trading world.
He leaves a void that cannot be filled.
Goodbye Zeev, I will miss you.
Stockcharts has the $COMPQ in a "Bull Trap" pattern as of Feb 27, with a preliminary Bearish Price Objective of 2110.
http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.pnf?c=$COMPQ,P&listNum=
Disclosure; I know nothing about P&F.
To any P&F'ers; Stockcharts QQQQ Price Objective is 31. That's an unsettling number, anyone have any insights?
The Fed is expected to cut another full point over the near term. That means there are ugly data points coming that will justify those cuts. Ugly data points have a way of slapping the market around.
When you consider that foreigners are the biggest buyers of
US equities right now, you have to wonder if the Big Boyz aren't holding this market up while they distribute to the dumb money crowd.
When they're done distributing, and the ugly data hits, then what? JMHO
I don't think Ben wanted to cut until more ugly data points were out, but market panic forced his hand. Now he has to hope this bullet isn't wasted. Of course, if the global selloff continues, he can always cut another .75!
Whup, whup, whup, whup.... Helicopter Ben Flies Again!
Place your bets on when Helicopter Ben flies again! I'll go with a Half Point rate cut at 9:18 this morning.
QQQQ went from 44.39 to 55.07 in 54 trading sessions (intraday) starting Aug 16th. Today is the 54th trading day since, and the Q's are within a whisker of the Aug. 16th closing price - 45.45.
Shorts killed on the way up, longs killed on the way down.
Edit; the cycle players will be pounding the table over the symmetry of the move...
IBM redux? Remember this article about "Currency Translation" saving IBM's Q4 in 2004?
By Aaron Ricadela
InformationWeek
January 19, 2004
"Despite the bullish outlook, the bulk of IBM's fourth-quarter revenue gains came from the effects of a weaker dollar. Revenue from continuing operations for the fourth quarter rose 9.4% to $25.9 billion, compared with $23.7 billion a year ago. Currency translation gains accounted for most of the rise - IBM's sales grew only 1% based on constant currency, but the weakness of the U.S. dollar against foreign currencies lifted sales results in Europe and Asia after those sales were translated into dollars.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=17301894
Cramer just let the cat out of the bag. This rate freeze scheme slows down the train wreck, tricking strapped buyers into continuing to pay into the bottomless pit until lenders can close the loopholds that prevent them from proving possesion of title. Once that happens, the freeze comes off, and THEN lenders can foreclose.
The more Paulson blitzes the media, the more concerned I am about what's behind the curtain. Me thinks thou doest protesteth too much....
"It's not 1929, but it's the biggest mess since"
By STEVEN PEARLSTEIN, Washington Post
Published December 7, 2007
We are only at the beginning of the financial world coming to its senses after the bursting of the biggest credit bubble the world has seen. Everyone seems to acknowledge there will be lots of mortgage foreclosures and that house prices will fall nationally for the first time since the Great Depression.
But let me assure you, you ain't seen nothing yet.
What's important to understand is that, contrary to what you heard from President Bush this week, this isn't just a mortgage or housing crisis. The financial giants that originated, packaged, rated and insured those subprime mortgages were the same ones, run by the same executives, with the same fee incentives, using the same financial technologies and risk-management systems, who originated, packaged, rated and insured home-equity loans, commercial real estate loans, credit card loans and loans to finance corporate buyouts.
It is highly unlikely that these organizations did a significantly better job with those other lines of business than they did with mortgages.
At the center of this still-unfolding disaster is the Collateralized Debt Obligation, or CDO.
Almost everyone knows that most mortgages are no longer held by banks until they are paid off: They are packaged with other mortgages and sold to investors much like a bond.
In the simple version, each investor owned a small percentage of the entire package and got the same yield as all the other investors. Then someone figured out that you could do a bigger business by selling them off in tranches corresponding to different levels of credit risk. If any of the mortgages in the pool defaulted, the riskiest tranche would absorb all the losses until its investment was wiped out, followed by the next riskiest and the next.
With these tranches, mortgage debt could be divided among classes of investors. The riskiest tranches were sold to hedge funds and junk bond funds whose investors wanted the higher yields that went with the higher risk. The safest ones, offering lower yields and Treasury-like AAA ratings, were snapped up by risk-averse pension funds and money market funds. The least sought-after tranches were those in the middle, the "mezzanine" tranches, which offered middling yields for supposedly moderate risks.
It is at this point that the banks got the bright idea of buying up a bunch of mezzanine tranches. Then, using fancy computer models, they convinced themselves and the rating agencies that by repeating the same "tranching" process, they could use these mezzanine-rated assets to create a new set of securities - some of them junk, some mezzanine, but the bulk of them with the AAA ratings more investors desired.
It was a marvelous piece of financial alchemy, one that made Wall Street banks and the ratings agencies billions of dollars in fees. And because so much borrowed money was used, the whole thing was so highly leveraged that the returns, at least on paper, were very attractive. No wonder they were snatched up by British hedge funds, German savings banks, oil-rich Norwegian villages and Florida pension funds.
What we know now, of course, is that the investment banks and ratings agencies underestimated the risk that mortgage defaults would rise so dramatically that even AAA investments could lose their value.
Meanwhile, banks that are forced to hold on to their CDO assets will be required to set aside much more of their capital as a financial cushion. That will sharply reduce the money they have available for making new loans.
And it doesn't stop there. CDO losses threaten the AAA ratings of a number of insurance companies that bought CDO paper or insured against CDO losses.
If all this sounds like a financial house of cards, that's because it is. And it is about to come crashing down, with serious consequences not only for banks and investors but for the economy as a whole.
This may not be 1929. But it's a good bet that it's way more serious than the junk bond crisis of 1987, the S&L crisis of 1990 or the bursting of the tech bubble in 2001.
My WAG - 12/02/07 @ 6:20 p.m.
John Bogle (Mister LTBH) just stunned the CNBS anchors by advising speculators to "Get Out" of the market!
Edit; now he's saying there's a 75% chance of a recession. This blunt pessimism is NOT typical of Bogle. A bit unsettling.
More write-downs, more emergency fund pools, and more pressure on the Fed to do something. And what this Fed does to solve any and all problems is print more money!
Mortgages have been pooled into instruments so complex, "title" can't be identified. If lenders can't foreclose, the loans become illiquid - that's bad. There's no penalty for non-payment, so that's what some folks will do.
Any solution requires more transparency on the mortgage pools, and I don't think the lenders want to shine a spotlight on that rat's nest!
Bernanke just shifted focus to the headline number. When the market figures that out, it won't like it.
Bernanke is babbling... "We're probably wrong". "We're going to experiment with new disclosure and guidance wording".
All to muddle his actual bomb-drop comment; "We're now going to make decisions based on the headline inflation number".
Year over year headline PPI just came out at 6%.
Does that mean the Fed needs to RAISE rates?
Thanks mikek2223 and seminole. I wasn't sure if foreign ETF's and mutual funds qualified for Jim Rogers' and Bill Gross' definition of "non-dollar denominated" securities. I thought maybe they were talking about currency plays or some other type of specialized investment.
Q's now up 24% intraday in 53 trading days. GOOG up 47% (480 to 705) in roughly similar timeframe, AAPL up 71% (112 to 190), and RIMM up 105% (62 to 127).
The falling dollar and strong foreign economies are great for exports and tech - it better be, they're priced for perfection -and free money from helicopter Ben feeds Wall Street's risk addiction, but this is getting silly.
That said, I'm approaching a triple on my largest LTBH; ABB, and my second largest; IFN, is raging as well.
Itchin' to pull the trigger on TWM, SDS, maybe even QID....
Bill Gross joins Jim Rogers in recommending non-dollar denominated securities. Anyone have any inspired ideas on how to play this?
Bear; are you concerned at all that the only iffy part of MSFT's fantastic earnings report was the flat guidance for their entertainment division? They're not exactly giddy over Halo's prospects near term. What d'ya think?
SHOO - up 12% on buyout inquiry. This company has a very loyal customer base, a brilliant design team, and a rock solid balance sheet. The one big drag on the company and the stock has been the company's namesake, the intregrity-challenged Steve Madden.
If this company comes under the control of a trustworthy board, the multiple-expansion potential is tremendous.
From Briefing.com - Steven Madden Announces that it has received inquiries from third parties with respect to an acquisition of the Co (SHOO):
Co announced that it has received inquiries from third parties with respect to an acquisition of the co and shareholder communications urging that the co explore alternatives to enhance shareholder value. The Board of Directors has determined to evaluate strategic alternatives available to the co and, to this end, has formed a Strategic Review Committee of the Board... The Committee has been charged, among other things, with the responsibility for evaluating any potential transaction, with any transaction recommended by the Committee to be considered by the full Board of Directors.