Crash Market Stocks - Financial Tips On Making Money In The Stock Market

Markets seem to be exhausted a bit on Tuesday and Wednesday after the strong sell off on Friday, followed by the equally strong rebound which happened on Monday. Today's trading was in more of a "teeter-totter" formation as the market bounced from red to green for most of the day. However, what looked to be selling closed quickly bounced back to what brought the Dow slightly in the green by close.

Financials started the day out decently strong, but quickly reversed as the day went longer, probably due to good amounts of profit taking from yesterday's rally. Apple saw a nice 6% jump in stock price today after a big earnings report showing a huge increase in iPhone sales. The apple earning's jump has become almost a guarantee for those looking for a quick one day profit. Everyone forgets that Apple undercuts their earnings every quarter, which usually causes for a bit of a correction at first (which I expect to start tomorrow or Thursday). However, when earnings shows up, they blast expectations out of the water. On top of this, they continue to blow away other tech companies with their innovation. This is why I have plenty of Apple in my IRA.

Also on Wednesday, the Senate voted on the bill that would ban banks from participating in the very lucrative swaps market. The trading of swaps is what many analysts are blaming as one of the big factors that led to our severe credit crunch that eventually dried up the entire lending market. Many people are against the bill saying that such a plan would be "a step backwards" in helping to regulate the big banks and possibly provide less transparency in the future for some of the big boys. At any rate, a lot of uncertainty remains in financials at the moment, which makes a lot of the financial stocks a big question mark. If this bill were to pass, I would expect a big negative response from Wall Street. This could once again yield some good gains for FAZ or SKF.

The market should take more of a direction tomorrow as most of the exhaust should have burned off by today's trading. Profit takers are once again looking for new positions and should begin taking them tomorrow. Happy Trading.

Markets slightly rebounded on Monday after the devastating two days of 200+ points of down trading to close out last week. I was surprised to see only a 23 point gain for the Dow today, as I thought the market might rebound a bit more given the two big consecutive down days. However, it is clear that investors are not excited about buying at current market levels.

Apple once again had a solid report of earnings (as they always do). Apple was one company that I mentioned last year, in which I felt that would be able to weather this recession very well and may actually come out of it stronger and they have done just that. The popularity of the Iphone continues to spread like a wildfire. I am always amazed when I attend large business conferences and see at least 80% of the people sporting the Iphone. Two years ago, AT&T probably only owned about 15% of their business. AT&T really does owe Apple a big one (I know they're paying for it). The huge increase in Iphone sales muffled the small decline in Ipod sales. It has already been announced of Apple's new release of a new media device. This acts as perfect timing for Apple, as it seems the Ipods are starting to lose their flare. As long as Jobs is still at the head of that company, I see nothing but good days for them.

President Obama announced his plan to seek a 3-year spending freeze beginning in 2011, as he has set new records for the national deficit. In addition to the spending freeze, he is also looking to tax increases to also help pay off the debt. With this plan, he is angering both parties and will most likely find little support for his plan. I agree that indeed government spending should be severely re-evaluated and re-allocated to areas that will directly assist the consumer. However, to also raise taxes at this point in the recession is, in my mind, a big mistake. Consumers need to become confident in the economy and their own reserves until they start spending again. An increase in taxes will only take a big bite in what little is available to spread throughout the economy. Also, consumer spending, usually directly effects the economy. Government spending is much less effective. President Obama should go back to the drawing board and find other ways of paying back the debt. There is a lot of real estate available to invest in!

At this point, I believe the market is building momentum downward. Thus far, 2010's economic performance has been quite dismal and has disappointed several economists hoping that we would begin to see much bigger seeds of recovery. Like I've always said, this will be a very long road home. Happy Trading.

Markets have yet again begun the week with solid buying, with the hope of solid earnings from Apple. Apple has a very strong history of knocking earnings expectations out of the park (they are also known for setting lower expectations than normal), so to see the big numbers from Apple is no big surprise. The company reported profits of $1.82 per share, which was a big leap from last year's $1.26 per share. The report is quite impressive, especially when considering the economic circumstances and still shows that Apple continues to be a leader and pioneer in consumer electronics (which is a big reason why I put them on my Top 2009 stocks list at the beginning of the year).

Earnings continue to be the driving force of market performance, which thus far, has once again perceived to be better than expected. However, with that, global economic indicators have not been so fortunate. Unemployment continues to be on the rise and continuing currency printing has brought the dollar to new lows. Market volume still remains critically low, which on rallying days like today is very abnormal. We are starting to reach the season in which last year weathered very difficult for the stock market. Year end seasons always provide a lot of pressure to big corporations for budget cuts, loss write-offs, and next year projections. Considering our current state, none of those factors can be too encouraging.

I continue to see no window of entry at the moment in the market, as insider trading continues to run rampant. I do believe that we are at or near the point of change and that it is only a matter of time before negative sentiment once again takes the stage in Wall Street. Happy Trading.

It seems that we have entered back into the low volume, slightly green trading trend that we found ourselves about a month ago. Today's volume was particularly light, which concerns me to wonder who on earth is playing this market. As of now, I am holding on to my current positions until once again we see a return of fundamentals back to the market. As I said in a few posts back, commodities seem to be the only play that makes sense at this point, as most everything else has some serious risk, on both sides.

For most of the day, trading remained rather flat. However, as we became closer to the bell, buying slowly crept in and eventually closed all of the indexes in the green. At this point my IRA has been enjoying life, but the bulk of my Zecco.com account has not. There is still far too much depressing data to even be close to considering this a rebound, so I guess it is just a waiting game at this point. Like I said yesterday, I believe our current earnings valuation will soon blow up in our face.

Apple announced earnings after the close today, which as expected, crushed expectations. This is a legitimate strong earnings report in a recession that deserves a reaction. However, it is one of few. This was to be expected, especially as they have just released their newest Iphone 3GS and sales are going through the roof. Like I said yesterday, I expect a pull back either tomorrow or Thursday, and it could have some force behind it. There has been too much buying with no dips that the profit takers will be coming in. It's a great time to pick up some quick profits.

Well, it seems that the buying has passed through the weekend and continued onto this week. Nothing too significant hit headlines today, as we are at our "non-eventful" economic data week. Leading indicators were slightly better than analysts expected, however, that benchmark is about as reliable as the Los Angeles Clippers.

What worries me and keeps me from joining bulls at this point is my strong worry of no sustainability of this rally. The graphical movements of the index would suggest there is no support or foundation. The recent building up is with very minimal volume and almost no dips. In most cases, such movements would strongly suggest the need of a rather aggressive dip, even if markets were to continue to go up. I expect that dip to hit either tomorrow or Wednesday. One thing that may push it t0 Wednesday is Apple's earnings which many are awaiting. With their new release of the Iphone 3GS, I expect Apple to have some pretty good earnings. Also, watch out for their usual "low ball", next quarter predictions, as that has become their trademark.

If this is what I can expect to happen on all days that I am not in the market for a wedding, maybe I should take a few weeks off. It was another roller coaster for stocks today as we saw the red to green transition a few times, followed by a very aggressive sell off to end the day, closing the Dow 83 points lower. The significance of this move at close is very important, as the market is in its current drifting state, in which I believe there is no more question whether we have seen the best of the recent rally, minus a few exceptions in which I will discuss later on in the post. We may continue to have the up and down days, but I do feel that for the most part, this rally has overheated.

At the beginning of the day it was looking to be much like yesterday. We started off down due to losses reported by Morgan Stanley and more concerns in the financial sector. However, as the day-traders woke up (they sleep in a bit), we saw the market slowly tick up until once again it was trading in the green. This shift actually worked to my advantage, as I was able to sell my FAS that I had purchased yesterday for a profit. This worked well as it ended up tanking by close. In addition to that, I got some good strong gains from my SRS options that I had picked up the past two days. I've still got a bit of catching up to do with those, but am very close to being back even, especially after the help from those quick profits from FAS today.

This is beginning to be a very dangerous market to go long in at this point. Not only is the fundamental economic data in strong support of a weakening economy, but now, as we saw by today's close, there grows an increasing concern from investors about the stability of the economy and the financial sector. This combination can be an equation for disaster if conditions continue to worsen. I am sure the end of day scare was due to the increasing concerns of the upcoming bank stress tests that are being reported this Friday. However, there are some things to consider when looking ahead for the results.

I personally feel that the big banks will perform rather well against these so called "stress tests." This is because of the ridiculous measures they are using to simulate the actual stress. Government has manipulated these tests so strongly, that I don't how these banks could fail. The unemployment rate they use as the "benchmark" for the stress test has already been currently reached. How is this a future indicator if we are already there? Also, GDP levels they are using for measuring are much greater than I see them being in the near future. So, I don't see how these banks don't pass and how people even value these tests.

Unfortunately, many of the investors out there currently do not know the truth behind these tests. They will see the headlines on CNBC showing that indeed, if this is the case, the banks passed the tests with flying colors and should be considered solvent and able to maintain stability in tough economic conditions. As a result, I would not be surprised to see a bit of a jolt in financials on Friday if we indeed see these results reported the way I believe they will be reported. With this in mind, I will be backing off on picking up anymore short position for the time being, especially on the financial side, until I can see how we react to Friday's test results. I will also expound much more on some significant facts about the bank tests and other problems coming shortly in the podcast tomorrow.

If we do see a small rally spark as a result from these tests, this will only make our vulnerability to a strong downfall stronger. These tests are based on almost zero economic fundamentals and actual data that we can expect to see in the coming future. The government has been very careful in the execution of these tests as they want the results to be strong just as much as the banks do. However, with deflationary signals gaining more and more strength, and with an ever more increasing number in employment, the outlook for the economy in the near term is dismal.

Due to the increasing volatility of the daily trading I may begin doing more of my "double trades" that I did during our last plateau trading period. This is where I purchase both FAS and FAZ by the close of the day. Then, on days like today, I cash in the profits for the first fund on the down slope of the first peak of intra-day trading. Then, the hope is to catch the market when it reverses at some point throughout the day, so that I may cash out profits for my remaining fund, thus creating profits for both funds by the end of the day. As we can expect more red to green days like we've seen the past two days, I may try this strategy and see how it works, especially going into Friday. Sure, this strategy brings its own risks, but the result if exectued correctly, as I saw today, is much like doubling down in Black Jack.

Hopefully, we see the rapid selling at close go into tomorrow. However, we've had a couple of good earnings reports from Apple, Yums, and Credit Suisse. As a result, futures are up, as of now. However, we've also got initial claims and existing homes report coming out tomorrow, which is bound to cause a reaction from investors. Tomorrow may be a day to consider a double trade for me in my Zecco.com account. We'll see. Have a good night and Happy Trading.

Remember to check out the Crash Market Stocks Forum and start posting!

I thought this picture would be appropriate as more and more I feel like I am in Vegas when I am playing in this stock market. Considering the equities with highest trading volume are the 3x leveraged funds and very volatile financial stocks, it is clear that we are swimming in a market full of day-traders. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it just can joggle things up a bit, especially when tracking fundamentals and technicals. At any rate, in such market conditions, it creates a very dangerous playing ground for investors. I urge you to be cautious in your own trading, as volatility is sure to increase, which can leave you with some most devastating results if you choose wrong. Especially with leveraged ETFs.

Even though many times I make "daily trades", I do not consider myself a "day-trader." If I were a day-trader, than on a day like today, I would most likely be pulling my hair out, pleading, "Why me?" However, even though I did suffer losses from yesterday's buys, for me, patience in this market has had an enormous reward.

With the volatility the way it is, it can be very hard to absolutely pinpoint the exact time of change, which is why I have been cautious to guess, but instead wait for the momentum. However, signals and models can give us signs that changes may be near. It is that reason why I value patience with a very high standard. One must be careful though, because too much patience with the leveraged etfs can you leave you a slave to decay.

In the morning it was looking to be the day I was expecting and hoping for as the market was trading down, which was quite good for my FAS Puts and SRS Calls. In fact, I was considering cashing out early when I had reached a 25% gain at one point (my greed). However, during Geithner's address to Congress, we saw the rally begin for the market. The rally got stronger and stronger throughout the day, with minor pullbacks, but ending the Dow up 127 points.

Indeed the rally took a small bite of my portfolio, but this is once again why my earlier rounds of buying are "lighter." Throughout the day, I was able to pick up more SRS calls at lower prices, slowly increasing my investment amount. Considering tomorrow is an unknown for me and, in my opinion, a critical day in deciding the short term fate of this rally, I made some long moves to help ease the pain if indeed buying continues. I bought some FAS, short term call options to play the other side. Economic indicators are pointing to sell for me, but day traders are still wanting to buy. This way, if we do see another strong up day tomorrow, my losses will be minimal, compared to if I were naked. If we go down eventually, which I expect, then I will think of my FAS purchases as an insurance premium and sell them. Sure, it takes a bit of Vegas out of my trading, but also gives me some defense as well.

Apple announces earnings tomorrow, which I believe should be strong as they always seem to do. Apple is one company I actually believe should do reasonably throughout the crisis. They have masterly positioned themselves in their market and no competitor comes close to their products. I believe this comes after close, but an anticipation run up could bring some more green to NASDAQ. A short on QID could be a good play for the next two days.

The worst thing for me tomorrow is that I will be absent from trading most of the day due to a wedding. It seems that sometimes priorities fall on most critical trading days. I will be active on my mobile, but most of my plays will be early morning.

Housing data gets reported this week which may move the markets a bit. Foreclosures have put new worries in the residential market as inventories are sure to soar. In addition to that, having unemployment being one of the biggest contributors to home delinquency, the foreclosures look to only get worse. That coupled with upcoming bank stress tests and the big GM Bankruptcy question is still out there to pull down the market. We were kept under 8000 today, which does provide a small signal of a possibility of a turn around.

I launched The Crash Market Stocks Forum today, as I felt this could be another added bonus in building the CMS community. The chat will remain, but also refer to the Forum for more lengthier content. Also, I found another site much like Lending Club. They're called Pertuity Direct and their slogan is: Learn About Social Lending Invest in people. Earn returns. Do something good while making your money work harder. These social lending platforms have become more interesting to me to invest in, as with the increase of frozen lending, this may be the best source for lower financed debt opportunity. Have a great evening, Happy Trading.

It didn't take long to get speculative hopes back in the market. Today, the market got off to a bit of a slow start and even went red for a bit, but after the remarks of Geithner (the new secretary), investors felt a lot more comfortable with the future of the banks. Almost everything that was taken away yesterday was given right back. I was very happy to have sold out of most of my SKF before the aftermath, however, SRS had a much less than stellar day and I chose to hold on to those, my mistake. I did get the gains I was finally looking for out of Citi, but not much after the crash yesterday. It did help the banks that many of the CEO's bought back lots of shares to help instill confidence. I still ended up quite positive in my Zecco.com account after the two days and look to reboot my strategies as we are kind of at ground zero again. However, I think I am going to transfer some more money over from my ING Direct savings account to trade with, as the next few weeks could be prime for good money making.

It is funny, because during the interview, Geithner did not want to speculate on timelines and likely avenues the government would be taking, saying that by doing so in the past had caused premature speculations and radically effected the market. Well, even by avoiding the questions, he was still able to help radically move the market. How ironic. People are looking for the slightest bit of hope to help spur optimism.

So even though the Obama rally showed up a day late, it's here. Now, how long will it last is the magic question. Anytime momentum like that is stopped in its tracks and reversed to the degree we saw today causes some serious jolts in technicals. Although this rally should and could very well lead on into tomorrow, there are some deafening news that could reverse this day of high hopes. One day of Obama in office did not make the bank crisis's everyone feared yesterday go away. The debt outstanding is still substantially more than they can handle, and commercial vacancies haven't even hit half the number they're expected too. We're not out of the woods yet.

Google announces earnings tomorrow. This outcome could provide a big influence on where the market moves. With massive budget cuts, be assured that "online advertising" is one of the first things crossed off the list. Being that advertising revenue is a bulk of Google's earnings, they may struggle a bit. We lucked out this week with not much economic data being reported, but tomorrow we do have housing starts, which I cannot see being a strong number. That could effect some trading, but I don't expect it to be that influential. People should be clinging to headlines tomorrow to try and pull out any sort of negative or positive perception they can find. Whatever the case may be, I think the outcome will be very volatile, bouncing from red to green and higher volume. Did you see today? 408M trading volume, wow. This is the most we have seen in a while. With volume back and volatility increasing, we're heading back into market crash danger zone. Stay on your toes.

Apple knocked earnings out of the park after close today, sending after hours trading up almost 10%. This is not surprising to me, as I have liked apple all year (one of my top picks for long). All this news of Job's health and their ability to stay competitive is nonsense. Too much cash on hand and too much innovation. Apple should leap quite a bit and could definitely set the standard for up trading tomorrow. Lets see if Google can follow.

Due to the extreme uncertainty and volatility right now I am playing my bets with energy and commodities. Obama's only ammo to throw at this beast is more government spending (and even that can only slow the pain in my mind). He is going to have to spend trillions just to make a dent. Doing so is going to give gold, silver, and other commodities a pretty face of value. I'm bulling up on a lot of gold, DIG, and other commodities tomorrow to keep during this time of uncertainty. I've lowered my short position (still plenty left) until some definition is back and have a little bit of long financials as a hedge. Either way, tomorrow should pave the way of some new momentum.

Like I said yesterday, don't expect Obama to roll over and die his first few months in office. He should be working around the clock to ways to pump this market up. I still think we're heading to new lows shortly, we just need the Obama fluff to wear off a bit. Below is the market trend score (analyze a symbol here free) and movement for FAZ, which momentum score is still relatively strong at +60.

I hope everyone has a good evening. With this volatility, we are able to make some serious cash in quick moves. It's all about timing the bumps right. Happy Trading and see you tomorrow. Check out the new videos at INO TV, great stuff and it's free.

I hope some people listened and got into Apple. Apple stock is trading over 14% in after-hours. I don't know what it will open at tomorrow, but I'm sure it will be green.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Your next-door neighbor probably can predict what's going to happen with the economy about as well as Apple Inc. can.
That was the wisdom offered up by Apple's AAPL chief executive, Steve Jobs, who made a surprise guest appearance on the company's earnings conference call Tuesday, a move aimed at quelling investors' jitters about the economic downturn.
Jobs was ostensibly on the call to tout the stunning results of the iPhone, which outsold rival Research In Motion Ltd. RIMM in the quarter.
Jobs touted the fact that the iPhone was a big part of Apple's fiscal fourth quarter, with 39% of total revenue coming from the device. This explosion was due to the fact that the faster 3G iPhone was launched in July. The company said the 3G iPhone outpaced RIM in unit sales, shipping 6.9 million units in the quarter vs. RIM's 6.1 million units.
In the background, though, was the fact that sales of the Macintosh computers, formerly Apple's crown jewel, appear to be going in the wrong direction. In the quarter, Apple saw unit sales of the Macintosh continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace. Macs slowed to unit growth of 21%, down from 41% in the third quarter, 51% in the second quarter and 44% in the first quarter.
Apple executives noted, though, that Mac sales were still outpacing the rest of the PC market. Analysts asked if Apple planned to lower prices or offer lower-end products.
"We don't know how to make a $500 computer that is not a piece of junk and our DNA will not let us ship that," Jobs said.
Wall Street seemed to like Jobs' appearance on the call, driving Apple's stock in after-hours trading. Only time will tell how well Jobs know his customers. He predicted that in the current belt-tightening, Apple customers are more likely to "delay rather than switch."
--Therese Poletti

Friday I bought April expiring call options for Apple (AAPL) when the stock was at $94 dollars. Even though I believe we are a downward trending market for the next 12 months, there are still times where I like going long in the market. The reason why I like this play is that I believe a lot of good companies have been brought down to ridiculous prices because of the overall status of Wall Street. Apple is one of those companies.

When looking at the fundamentals, in my eyes, there is no reason that Apple should be below $140, let alone $100. They have barely any debt and a brand that should weather pretty well even in a recession. When people have to sell, they sell it all. So I take it as a great opportunity for me. The reason why I like this stock this week, is because Apple announces earnings tomorrow after the market closes. So far this month, IBM and Google have both produced strong earnings and slaughtered market expectations. I don't see Apple breaking this trend.

Pending on this good news, I see Apple jumping anywhere from $110 to $120 in the next week or so. I decided to go with the call option, just to hedge some risk against bad news that could bring the stock down further. Look for a $110 to $120 January - April expiring contract before tomorrow's close. I will keep you updated on where I sell mine at.