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Friday, October 2nd, 2009
10:40am (EST)
Fire away, hey-hey…
The bulls invited the bears into the ring and immediately took the bears best shot. The unemployment report came in as expected, 9.8%, but the job loss of 263,000 was way more than the 180,000 Wall Street had expected.
I told you this morning I was hearing whispers for a loss of a 250,000 and we were expecting some downside. When the report was released at 8:30am (EST) the futures sank even further. Dow futures were down about 30 and zoomed to 100 once word hit the Street.
However, the bulls took the bears’ best left hooks on the chin and are still standing. The Dow opened with a 70 point loss but has nearly clawed (no pun intended) its way back to positive territory. The Dow is only down 2 points and is currently trading at 9,506. The Nasdaq has just turned positive as is up 5 points to 2,062. The S&P is flat at 1,029.
The action isn’t what we had planned this morning and part of that could because of a weaker dollar. If the dollar would have rallied then we were looking for the commodity stocks to take a hit. They did, but the weaker dollar kept the plunge to a minimum.
I had profiled a Freeport McMoRan (FCX, $64.98, down $0.42) trade this morning in the Members Area and the put options we were looking at opened higher than our limit price. We also didn’t get the sell-off we had planned for so we did not take the trade. The stock hit a low of $63 but it wouldn’t surprise me to see this one rebound along with the market.
I also talked about opening a Research In Motion (RIMM, $66.06, down $1.10) position if the market opened HIGHER but that was never in the cards once we got the Jobs Report. However, I did say the stock is right at support which is $66-$67 so those call options may get interesting next week. We don’t need to rush out and buy them today but we will keep them on the Watch List and may look at them again next week.
Other than that, our Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF, $31.21, down $0.49) trade continues to gain momentum and appears safe to hold over the weekend. At current levels, it has returned 30%.
We planned for either a continued sell-off or a huge rally today and it looks as though this battle is just getting started. The thing to watch for is how we go into the closing bell today. It’s hard to say where the market ends the session because the bulls could end up stealing today’s round.
If they do, it would be bullish heading into next week’s earnings.
I wanted to get this out before the 1pm update and this is the 1pm update. With so much going on this morning I wanted to make sure everybody was following the game plan. No need to open new positions heading into the weekend and we will sit on what we got.
I will be looking at possible trades for next week the rest of the day to see if there is something there and the last hour of trading will be interesting to watch.
I’ll be back Sunday night, more likely, Monday morning with the weekly update and the playbook as we head into earnings season. Alcoa (AA, $12.80, down $0.11) kicks things off on Wednesday.
Rick@MomentumOptionsTrading.com
Tags: AA, Abercrombie & Fitch, Alcoa, anf, FCX, Freeport-McMoRan, options picks, Research in Motion, RIMM
Posted in Hot Stocks | Comments Off
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
9:00am (EST)
The bulls and bears are having a battle this week and the action has been intense. On Wednesday, heavy punches were thrown and by the end of the day, the bears had made it 2-to1 for the week.
On Monday, the Dow rallied 124 points, Tuesday the Dow fell 47 after being down 84 points. Yesterday, the bears took the Dow down to 9,583, a loss of nearly 160 points, before the bulls brought us back to positive territory shortly after 1pm. We got some more selling pressure by 3pm and the bears pulled out the victory as the Dow closed down 30 points and settled at 9,712.
Friday is setting up to be “historic” and we should see a big break either way.
A couple of notes for this morning…
Moody’s (MCO, $20.46, down $0.35) fell to $19 and we were whip-sawed out of a recent trade but I still think it’s headed to $15.
Dust off your Queen albums as CIT Group (CIT, $1.21, down $0.99) looks like it will be the next one to “Bite the Dust”. The company appears to be headed for bankruptcy.
Bank of America’s (BAC, $16.92, down $0.24) CEO, Ken Lewis, can ditto that. He was last seen singing backup vocals as he gave up the head gig after coming back from vacation. This ought to be pretty good news for the stock today. We have had some great success trading BofA this year and although the timing is now right, the stock should be in the $20′s sometime in early 2010.
And finally, Nike (NKE, $64.70) had a banner day and thanks to all of you who emailed us to tell us your good fortunes. A lot of you made upwards of 200% and a lot of you banked up to 75% by playing it safe. This trade felt so good when I was typing it that I knew it was going to be golden. In fact, my fingers are tingling now as I have another trade ready for you this morning. Subscribers, check the Members Area for a New Trade on Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF, $32.88, down $0.39) and for the Current Trade Updates.
As we head to press, Dow futures are down 28, S&P 500 futures are down 4 while the Nasdaq 100 are down 6.
Rick@MomentumOptionsTrading.com
Tags: Abercrombie & Fitch, anf, bac, Bank of America, CIT, CIT Group, MCO, Moody's, Nike, NKE, options picks
Posted in Hot Stocks | Comments Off
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
1:15pm (EST)
The market was off to a good start until the Chicago PMI number hit Wall Street. Economists were expecting a reading of 52 for September and we got 46, down from 50 in August.
The Dow had been up over 20 points to 9,764 but quickly fell to a low of 9,608, or a 130+ point loss. Currently the index is at 9,724, down 18. As you can imagine, the action has been choppy to say the least.
Of course, one stock that is having an outstanding day is Nike (NKE, $64.82, up $4.73). We went long on call options in Nike yesterday in the 1pm Update in the Members Area and I had talked about the stock in both of Tuesday’s updates.
The company’s slogan is “Just Do It” and subscribers who “Did It” have banked nearly a 200% profit on the call options that were profiled. I said yesterday that the option market was pricing an 8%-10% move for the stock and sure enough it was right on.
I will update the trade in the morning because we don’t have the final closing numbers but make sure you set stops at $4.50. Our entry price was $1.60 and we had initially set stops at $2.75 this morning. The call options I profiled are currently at $4.90 which is officially a 197% gain from $1.60. Just think, a 10 contract trade would have cost around $1,675 yesterday and would be worth $5,ooo right now. Nasty. Nasty good that is…
The call options easily zoomed past that so we are safe and we can easily lock in profits from here on out. Also, you can sell half now or let the $4.50 stop take you out of the trade entirely.
Research In Motion (RIMM, $68.52, up $0.88) is bouncing back today following last week’s sell-off. I’m not ready to make a call on where the stock goes from here but it is getting interesting. Also, I’m looking at a couple of trades today and doing some more research before releasing them. They should be ready in the morning.
Rick@MomentumOptionsTrading.com
Tags: Nike, Nike call options, NKE, options picks, Research in Motion, RIMM
Posted in Apple, Earnings, Hot Stocks, Market Analysis, Market Commentary, Option Trades | Comments Off
Monday, September 28th, 2009
12:30 pm (EST)
The bulls are in charge today as they have taken a number of positive developments to move the market higher. Mergers and acquisitions are the rave today as Abbott (ABT, $49.00, up $1.67) announced that it will acquire Solvay’s pharmaceuticals business for $6.6 billion ($4.5 billion euro) in cash.
Xerox (XRX, $7.41, down $1.56) has made a pitch for Affiliated Computer Services (ACS, $53.35, up $6.10). It is a cash and stock deal valued at $63.00 per share or $6.4 billion as of the closing price of Xerox’s stock price from last Friday. ACS shareholders will receive a total of $18.60 per share in cash plus nearly 5 Xerox shares for each ACS share they own.
There were plenty of upgrades today that have also given the market a lift. Barclays upgraded Cisco (CSCO, $23.83, up $1.21) from “Equal Weight” to “Overweight” and raised its price target from $24 to $28.
ViroPharma (VPHM, $9.75, up $0.80) got an upgrade from “Perform” to “Outperform” and a new price target of $13.
Accenture (ACN, $37.79, up $1.67) is up 5% after it got upgraded from “Hold” to “Buy” with a $45 price target.
General Dynamics (GD, $64.42, up $1.43) was raised from “Hold” to “Buy”, as well, with a target of $78.
And finally, U.S. Steel (X, $47.09, up $0.46) has turned positive after spending much of the morning in the red. Current subscribers can check the Members Area for the latest option trade for U.S Steel.
Rick@MomentumOptionsTrading.com
Tags: Abbott, ABT, Accenture, ACS, CSCO, GD, options picks, options trading strategies, U.S. Steel, ViroPharma, VPHM, Xerox
Posted in Company Commentary, Hot Stocks, Market Analysis, Market Commentary, Mergers and Acquisitions, Option Trades | Comments Off
Friday, September 25th, 2009
1:00pm (EST)
The market is struggling for direction as we head towards the closing bell. Unless we get a major turnaround, it looks as though the bears are going to take this week’s round. The Dow started the week at 9,820 and is down about 170 points, including today’s current 52 point loss which puts us at 9,654.
There were a number IPO’s (Initial Public Offerings) yesterday and quite a few secondary offerings. This week’s IPOs have been the most since 2007, and today, Shanda Games (GAME, $11.93, down $0.57) got initiated on the Nasdaq.
The other IPO’s that went public this week include: A123 Systems (AONE, $19.00, down $1.29), Artio Global Investors (ART, $26.69, down $0.56), Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE, $54.00, up $0.71), and Colony Financial (CLNY, $19.39, down $0.11).
Earnings season is right around the corner so next week could be volatile as traders position themselves ahead of the announcements. Alcoa (AA, $13.10, down $0.41) will kick things off starting October 7th so mark your calendars.
I’ll be back Sunday night or Monday morning with the playbook for next week. There are no updates or new trades in the Members Area this afternoon but our latest option trade in Moody’s (MCO, $19.44, down $0.44), which we opened yesterday, is off to a good start.
Rick@MomentumOptionsTrading.com
Tags: A123 Systems, AA, AONE, ARE, ART, Artio Global Investors, CLNY, Colony Financial, GAME, MCO, options picks, options trading strategies, Shanda Games
Posted in Hot Stocks | Comments Off
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Nike Call Options Up 200%
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
1:15pm (EST)
The market was off to a good start until the Chicago PMI number hit Wall Street. Economists were expecting a reading of 52 for September and we got 46, down from 50 in August.
The Dow had been up over 20 points to 9,764 but quickly fell to a low of 9,608, or a 130+ point loss. Currently the index is at 9,724, down 18. As you can imagine, the action has been choppy to say the least.
Of course, one stock that is having an outstanding day is Nike (NKE, $64.82, up $4.73). We went long on call options in Nike yesterday in the 1pm Update in the Members Area and I had talked about the stock in both of Tuesday’s updates.
The company’s slogan is “Just Do It” and subscribers who “Did It” have banked nearly a 200% profit on the call options that were profiled. I said yesterday that the option market was pricing an 8%-10% move for the stock and sure enough it was right on.
I will update the trade in the morning because we don’t have the final closing numbers but make sure you set stops at $4.50. Our entry price was $1.60 and we had initially set stops at $2.75 this morning. The call options I profiled are currently at $4.90 which is officially a 197% gain from $1.60. Just think, a 10 contract trade would have cost around $1,675 yesterday and would be worth $5,ooo right now. Nasty. Nasty good that is…
The call options easily zoomed past that so we are safe and we can easily lock in profits from here on out. Also, you can sell half now or let the $4.50 stop take you out of the trade entirely.
Research In Motion (RIMM, $68.52, up $0.88) is bouncing back today following last week’s sell-off. I’m not ready to make a call on where the stock goes from here but it is getting interesting. Also, I’m looking at a couple of trades today and doing some more research before releasing them. They should be ready in the morning.
Rick@MomentumOptionsTrading.com
Tags: Nike, Nike call options, NKE, options picks, Research in Motion, RIMM
Posted in Apple, Earnings, Hot Stocks, Market Analysis, Market Commentary, Option Trades | Comments Off