Some trade ideas

I'll be watching few potential reversals on long side ( these are "stinkers", close to 52wl) : (KG), (MPEL), (LPNT) and airlines which might be putting tradable bottom - (AMR) ( not long term indeed ), also I'm eying (ENER) calls possible trade
And as a lottery ticket on Friday I loaded up on VCLK Jan 22.50 calls @0.45 ( +QCSAX )
Good luck and ... if you cannot use that kind of volatility to your advantage - stay away and sleep well

All the right moves...

Firstly - totally cashed out on all of triggered positions with such a marginal profit that I will not wright home about.
But got options trade quite nicely at a profit of over 100% in 5 days - here is how - in order to explain logic behind the trade I need to use my posts on TradeGuild's Tagboard
At about Dec 26 I wrote: "Today is most likely is the last "markup day" ( Tuts propping up prices of well performed securities in order to look better on quarterly report ) Since it cannot be done due to obvious reasons during the last few days of the quoter - SEC watching, plus human desire to go on vacation on holidays - last few days I expected to be not so good. And first few days I expected selloff to kickoff - I thought due to current market/economy conditions everyone would want to cash in on profits and then some more of the same...

So, based on these assumptions I opened substantial position in RIMM Jan110 puts (RULMB) @3.25
Once in a while you CAN time the market - closed position on Jan 3rd at avarage profit of over 100% ( could have been more should I hold another day - traded as high as $9 a pop ... shoulda-coulda-woulda) - cannot complain anyways.

Next week will start from Monday morning selloff ( retail chickened out and called Friday screaming: "SELL MY MUTUAL FUNDS ... NOW!!!"
"Now" is Monday Jan 7th morning indeed )
Then, may be even Monday or Tuesday market will go up - why???
Do you think that jobs report came as a big surprise and really affected market action? BS - everyone knew that with lay offs in financial industry that has to be expected - media just want you to believe that is was "shocking surprise"

I am not saying we are on the road to another bull market - I am saying that if there are some long positions yet to be closed or short positions to be opened - next week or two will provide such opportunities.

Now - off the topic - for those of you who had not so pleasant travel experience during holidays - read on - could have been worse :)

My latest trading ideas

Below are MY perspective trades which I plan to trade IF everything going to be to my liking :-) This list might be updated/changes at any time. It is not a trading recommendation

UPDATED:
Embedded spreadsheet was causing IE problem, here is a link to Google Spreadsheet instead

What a year it was...

It's been a year to remember...NOT!
Not if you are swing/intermediate term traders.
With all that volatility kicked in right after the first quoter of 2007 a lot of good traders I know sustained heavy losses, both monetary and psychological... unless they were flexible enough and switched to day trading ( or just stayed with the trade for a very long time and rode ups and downs, downs mostly ) or been disciplined and stayed away from the market unless opportunities presented themselves.

But there were few brave souls who were not intimidated and jumped right into middle of carnage and became full time traders.
I'd like to repost article I wrote back in Fall 2006 and dedicate it to my friend Brandt A.K.A. BullTrapper who made his transition in the most volatile time of 2007 and IS MAKING IT.
Read on...

"... time to quit your job? Sunday, November 19, 2006"
Every month the number of "Investment blogs" doubles, a lot of "cubicle prisoners" instead of doing they job, wondering around the floor, bothering co-workers with stories of "how they doubled their accounts in the last 4 months and they are about to quit this stinking job to become full time trade for living guy".

Is having a desire to quit day job with asshole manager good, bad, ingenious or just plain stupid? Tricky question, lets break it down.

Hate your job and manager? Time to move on to another place, but you better be damn certain that it is your manager who is an asshole and not you.

Next, speaking of becoming full time trader as oppose to making few dollars when market is good. This IS a tough decision to make. Think of not having "guaranteed" paycheck, benefits, pension (if you got one), having to pay toward Social un-Security, long term disabilities insurance .. list goes on, and the only source of income would be trading, Geez - takes all fun out of idea, isn't it?

Don't forget that in order to MAKE money you have to HAVE money -do you have $200,000.00USD hard cash ready for that? Think 2001-2002 - that is what you needed to make money in trendless markets.

Not to overlook money for at least 6-9 months to maintain your lifestyle - market sometimes does not pay on the regular basis even to the very best of traders.

I found compromise for myself, even knowing that I can survive in the stock market on the long run, I still work a little over 20 hours a week to retain corporate "goodies". Do I care about place I work for? Way less then before I found out and PROVED to myself that I can make living trading stocks, surprisingly "my place I work for" seems to care more about ME knowing that I'm not a corporate slave anymore and I HAVE A CHOICE.

Why am I saying all of that? Because I want to remind to everyone, including myself,
that HUMILITY and MODESTY are one of the most important qualities for good trader.

BE A TRADER, DON'T SAY YOU ARE.

DavidDT

Official Harvard nonsense

Credit crunch was resulted by absence of fiscal responsibility and ridiculously low lending standards in the rat race for financial profits no matter what and if money can be paid back, right?
If "YES" than why now FED forcing banks to accept virtually any collateral?
How about "worthless collateral"? No special provision for that? Just "any collateral"?

Oh well, that decision was the only missing link to force me to change my PermaBull's "Cautiously optimistic" opinion on foreseen future of American economy to "Excitedly Short on America" and even more, due to ingenious involvement of "World's biggest Financial minds" of biggest European Banks - to "Excitedly Short on America AND World Economy as well".

FED proved total inability to control situation either on monetary policies side or press release front.

If just yesterday I still hoped that FED decided to bit the bullet and let American recession to run its course in attempt to avoid another long term disaster by not pleasing the market and taking a stand in form of 25/25 rates cut( Yes - Credit Crunch in such a strong and creative financial industry as American IS a disaster) - today's morning action, its timing, its phrasing, its ridicule confirmed unpleasant obvious fact - "THEY HAVE NO IDEA" ( Thank you Cramer)

I have no questions for "All the King's man", but I do have this question -
WHERE ON ELECTION BALLOT IS "VOTE AGAINST" CHECK BOX?
If these people in charge are the best America can produce - I vote AGAINST from now on...and "I don't give a damn about wooden nickel" (Imagine - the only time when they sang it was during the Civil War - very comforting...)

Silver bullet...(PAAS)

Silver was never "my thing", but SLV ETF was shaping up last few weeks that I just could not help it and did what I normally would not do - opened 10 times regular position in (PAAS) on Friday. Earnings are due on Nov 9th - will sell Wednesday no matter what the price is going to be.

In light of darkness...

Feel lazy lately, not holding positions overnight - day trading only - better money - more work. So .. tired, and here are some long ideas I'll be building up ( most likely ) over the next few days:
(ABBI), (BRKR), (DLB), (GUID), (RDNT), (DBTK), (CECE)

Good news IS a bad news

Just a quick note to myself - consumer is really taking it. Why? Wall St. cheering about American express earnings been up 11% - for me it says: the going has gotten tough and cash is scarce, therefore people have to put more and more on credit cards - another step on the way to "blowout top" for the market - short sellers of all world rejoice.

(TARR)*

Just noticed "cheap" stock which has been acting strangely last few weeks, some kind of "suspicious" activity indicating IMHO accumulation. Normally I would not touch stocks under $6-10, but since the feeling on the Street is that a lot of securities have run ahead of themselves, I think traders might be looking for "new blood". Here I go - has build substantial position during last 2 days.
Run (TARR), run!!!

(CTX) bounce coming?

Not much of a bottom fisher I am, but action looks interesting, range expansion lately, and I am not really talking about ATR ( Average True Range ), but rather "most statistically probable daily ranges". I'd be watching it next few days, so far it looks like there is some downside - anxious to see end of week action. As for tomorrow - breakdown below 28.30 would lead to some more downside and move above 29.20 might lead too quick long day trade.
Of course, that ( expectation of bounce ) would directly contradict to such acclimed "Investment Advisory Service/Community" as Motley Fool , but I was "foolish" before and still managed to make some money.
Have a profitable week everybody, just remember - what goes up - must come down ( sooner, rather than later )