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

A couple months back, I shared with all of you a video of Meredith Whitney in which she discussed her feelings that big banks were going to be seeing some hard times in the near future. This announcement was several months after she first announced that banks were very undervalued when they were near there lows back in March of 2009. As I have said before, I believe Whitney does a great job of taking an unbias approach at looking at valuation and expresses an honest, logical opinion. Well, today she went another round with the banks...and she came out swinging.

In an interview with CNBC, her main theme was "Avoid banks at all cost." Wow, that is a bold statement, especially from someone who said banks were a steal just over a year ago. Well, a lot has changed since then, and she has good reason to make such a statement. Here are a few reasons for her major concern.

First of all, she feels that the new Senate Financial Reform Bill will have serious adverse effects on the banking industry and greatly restrict credit, resulting in a gash in bank earnings. Referring to the senate she said:

"It's going to make accessing capital so difficult for pockets of the country," she said, particularly for small businesses that often depend on credit cards for funding.

In addition, the proposed rule on merchant charges—instead of benefiting consumers—will price community banks out of the market, Whitney said, restricting credit even more.

"Some of these regulatory proposals are going to make it so difficult for everyone involved that you'll see, I think, at least another $1.3 trillion (of credit) sucked out of the system."

Financials got a big boost this morning as investors are anticipating solid numbers from 3 of the major banks (BAC, CITI, JPM) that report earnings later this week. Meredith Whitney was interviewed this morning on CNBC and gave a rather favorable report on banks for investing in the short term.

In times past, Whitney has been known to tell the story straight, which the past 12 months, has been very, very dismal. She was one of the first who forewarned about the credit crunch and the risk of collapse from the large banks. However, today she said banks could be a great place to invest for the next few months. She said, "Banking stocks will be good buys at least in the short term as the industry takes advantage of the mother of all mortgage quarters." She also said that Goldman Sachs probably will earn $4.65 per share for the second quarter, $20 for the year and more than $22 for 2010.

With the upgrade from Whitney came a lot of green for financials this morning. FAS is up over 10% as many investors are agreeing with Meredith Whitney in hopes for some strong earnings reports. This is also boosting up the Dow, which was trading above 180 earlier. Bank of America will be the first to report, which should create a response the market. If earnings do indeed crush expectations, we could maybe see another little run for financials.

Today is clearly a pre-mature reaction to a strong earnings report. Now the standard has been set. Investors now risk the possibility of earnings coming in at par, or even worse, under market expectations. Such a result would cripple financials and most likely cause for another bank down spiral.

Whitney was not all positive with her remarks regarding banks. She did preface this whole upgrade with the term "short term." She also expects unemployment to continue to be a huge problem for the economy and banks for the next year and a half. She said that was something that banks are going to have to deal with for a while. However, in this "mother of all mortgage quarters," she expects the banks to see nothing but green.

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I personally kind of agree with Whitney in regards to banks posting bit stronger results this quarter. However, I also feel that some investors have also now factored many of the influences which are causing them to be so profitable. Accounting changes, TARP and TALF funds, government incentives, and a 0% fed rate have to be considered when evaluating the profits of financial institutions. If investors don't evaluate such things, they are failing to evaluate the foundation of these companies as well as their sustainability. If you are an investor who looks no further than a quarter, than yes, maybe banks are for you. As for me, I find today a great day for me to pick up some FAS puts. Thanks Meredith.

Well, as of now, we have breached that critical 880 number for the S&P, which should definitely show a strong, downward momentum trend for the time being in the markets (hopefully we close there!). Another selling day was surprising for me to see, especially after the large amount of selling that occurred on Tuesday. Just from the headlines in the news, you can feel the shift in sentiment, as once again investors are questioning the stability of the markets. If selling continues to pound against them, which I expect it will, that sentiment will only get worse.

Financials are showing strong weakness today, as FAZ has been up almost 10% most of the day. When we see that initial shift in sentiment, it is usually bank stocks that are the first to react. We saw this with the positive shift back in March, when many of the banks doubled and even tripled in stock price. We could see that same result, only reversed, this time around. As of now, Obama and company have decided to sit still and wait for the time being, but I wouldn't expect that to last much longer. If we see the markets really kick in to selling, I would expect discussions of a new stimulus to come to surface.

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Gold is continuing to show weakness as commodities and energy continue to suffer today. A put on GLD is now in the portfolio as I believe that deflationary trend will continue. Also, we can see the sufferings of MGM and LVS today, as they are very closely tied to the financial markets. Puts on them are performing very nicely today. Also, I postponed yesterday's podcast to today, so one will be posted this evening. Happy Trading.

After Monday's rather strong rebound, traders responded by selling for most of the day on Tuesday, in which the Dow closed lower just over 160 points. Such a day of trading is creating a lot of concern for bull investors who were hoping to continue to see the "green shoots" of recovery in the economy. Unfortunately, I believe we are just in a temporary stabilizing period, only to be followed by more downward trending data, deepening this recession/depression. It has gotten to the point where I cannot count all of the problems and economic woes that the global economy is faced with, and unfortunately, I don't see very many feasible solutions, other than time and letting nature take its course. Of course, the government needs to step in and intervene on matters of critical concern, however, they also need to let some things fail. It is part of the capitalistic economy we live in. People and businesses will fail. It is from learning from our past failures that we usually succeed.

Right now, we see markets flirting with really dangerous technical indicators. For the past two months, we have almost perfectly traded in a "head and shoulders" formation for the S&P. Currently, we find ourselves right at the barrier which has shown quite a bit of resistance in times past. For the past couple weeks I have been saying that the 880 level was the very critical number to watch, which we are dangerously flirting with, having the S&P close today at 881. I believe that if we do break that through that level and sustain, we can easily find ourselves back in the 700 levels. Although, tomorrow will most likely be a profit taking day with the possibility of a rebound, I believe that number will be breached by the end of the week.

One other big issue we are faced with is still the problems with the banks. I know we rarely hear much of bank failures anymore, since many have now proven to generate so called "strong earnings", however, there are some very dangerous risks that many of these institutions still face.

A big problem for many of them are derivatives. From the above chart, you can see the large risk that several of the big banks have with derivatives in relation to their assets. Goldman Sachs has credit risk to the tune of almost 10 times its capital. That is absurd. The latest estimates are quite alarming. Last week, the OCC issued its latest report, estimating the total amount of derivatives to be at $202 trillion. As bad as that sounds, the global number is estimated to be $592 trillion, which when compounded over six years is a growth of over 34% a year! Such risk is very alarming to me and causes great concern for many of the banks.

Today, most of my portfolio performed very well. Heading into earnings, I will be making adjustments to move towards companies I feel will be struggling this quarter. LVS and MGM are ones that are definitely on my radar for shorting here soon. As commercial real estate continues to struggle, I would expect them to get thrown into the mix. I will be doing a premium podcast (subscribe here) this evening, discussing other possible investments I will be looking to take. The tides have definitely turned. Happy Trading

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Well, we saw another volatile day of trading, seeing the market back in forth from red to green. Trading in these conditions can be very frustrating for those that are hoping for a single direction in the market, as there have been several violent trading swings at different parts of the day recently. Just when I thought the market was going to rally, it was shot down and just as I thought a sell off was imminent, the bulls jumped back in. Beware of day-trading in this market, as it could cause a heart attack. Volume still continues to remain low, which is one big reason I have not chosen to take a bigger position in the market at this point. I assume this is the case as a result to the uncertainty that remains with the bank stress test results. There are also some other things to be aware of when considering trading at this point.

Tomorrow Q1 GDP is reported which is sure to cause some discussion for tomorrow. However, even with a bad number, as we saw with unemployment data, bull's defense will be that much of this data is "backward looking" data and that we would expect these numbers to be bad. However, more problems still exist in the retail sector as well as an increasing unemployment problem. That coupled with the lack of consumer spending which I discussed in Sunday's post, should continue to show disappointing numbers in GDP for the future. At any rate, I would think that tomorrow's number should be a reinforcement for people that we continue to remain in a recession/depression and that it will take more than a few bank accounting changes and trillions of dollars of government spending to turn this ship around.

Optimism hit the markets today when we received a very large gain in the consumer sentiment report. As encouraging as this can be it is important to remember that this information is merely based on a survey of a small amount of US consumers. It is no surprise to me that in a midst of a very strong bull rally, there is a boost in sentiment. In this fragile state, people's emotions are on eggshells. This is why such an environment is conducive for a crash. Just as emotion is able to change with the flip of a switch, so are investor's trading habits. It doesn't take very much selling to cause for worries to return to the markets. In fact, I am surprised to see the change we've seen for just the two days of slight selling we've seen from yesterday and today. Although subtle, we still find ourselves in the midst of negative fundamental data that can easily support the notion of another leg down. So, I do not see it hard to believe at all that another sell off is in our near future. Just remember, we reached this same number for consumer sentiment back in November. We saw what that resulted in.

I also do understand the risk of jumping in too early on the short side. We have learned from the past couple of months that outside intervention can cause for big reactions from the markets. I am very hesitant to jump in stronger on the short side until these bank stress test results are announced. I believe the government is doing a very good job of managing everyone's expectations that these are rigorous tests that should show bank's ability to stay solvent in worsening times. However, as I have discussed before, many of the assumptions they are using are already numbers that we either are already experiencing or will be very shortly. So how can this be a "test" if we are already there? I think many of the banks will pass with flying colors, which should once again cause for this false reason to cheer for banks that indeed their worst times have come and gone. Don't expect me to jump on that train and don't forget the commercial real estate!

It can be easy to buy into this optimism of the beginning of the bull market. Even if by some miraculous event we did see the bottom of this market back in March, history has shown us that even in the beginning of a bull market, it is common for the market to return and retest previous lows. We saw this in our most recent bear market in 2002. This is not to say I believe that this is the beginning of the bull. I am saying that I am having a hard time finding any good reason to go long at this point. I believe this is becoming more accepted in the markets, as we continue to see selling. Even in the midst of a "good news day" like we saw today, bears prevailed with another selling day. I think that's a big one to tack up for the bears.

So we'll see how we go into the rest of the week. Bears are having a very hard time of keeping this market down and I assume, without any economic help, they will continue to have a hard time. Many are still waiting for that spark. Financials are still drawing concerns with investor's wonders if there will be a need for more capital for Citi and Bank of America. Of course they'll need more capital, but the government is being very careful about how they go about getting them that capital. Tomorrow should be a telling day. If you're looking to get into trading and you're looking for a trading platform, check out TradeKing, as they have good rates right now. Happy Trading.

It is after days like today that I am very glad that I am in the position I am currently in with my portfolio (mostly cash), as I would have most likely had an ulcer with all the volatility we saw today. We had about 8 color changes with the DOW (from green to red) and both sides seemed to be gaining momentum at different points throughout the trading day. The market opened with financials soaring, having BAC over 10% again, as well as FAS up close to 15%. I was oh so close at that point to selling the rest of my FAZ put options as they were up another 35%. I, however, held off thanks to greed and missed the high point to sell. The opening rally slowly started inching its way down until it finally dipped into the red around mid-day. At one point we saw the market almost down 60 points, when it quickly shot back up into the green. After what looked like it was going to be a fairly strong close, a big sell off came right before close, leaving the DOW just slightly up just about 4 points for the day. What a ride. You have to pay $70 bucks for that at Disneyland.

First, the goods for the bulls. This is now two consecutive days of a green closing, which we have not seen for weeks now. Although it did not close near its earlier highs, just having two consecutive green days, especially following the massive rally we had yesterday is a good sign for bulls and that this bounce may continue a bit.

Also, financials stay relatively strong throughout the whole day. BAC did trade in the red for some of the day, but financials got a big push towards the end of trading as there may be a temporary return of confidence for the banks. I wouldn't expect that to last long and I'll explain why later on.

Techincals still lie with the bull. From a technical standpoint, the market is pushing for a rally. Sure this could easily be over ruled by enough bad news, but it is always a nice extra bonus when you have technicals working for you rather than against you.

Now the good news for the bears (the shortened version). If this rally even does continue, which it may not, it most likely will not last long. Although, many people may have regained some confidence in the banking systems, that may be short lived due to the increasing problems that is heading for banks. Recent news shows some slowing of losses for the banks, which is helping in the rally. Well, of course! The government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to help absorb those losses. After all the help Freddie has been given, they announced that they are wanting another $30 billion from the Treasury to help balance out their quarterly $24 billion loss.

Not only that, but we have only endured the 1st round of problems for banks. Be assured that the next round is soon following and could have an even worse effect than the sub-prime crisis did. With the derivatives, credit default swaps, and prime loans that will be plaguing us this next round, be sure the the days of asking for help funds are not over. Also, I don't plan on trading JP Morgan's stock anytime soon, even though they have held up pretty well, as they hold a far greater amount of derivatives than the smaller banks such as Citi and Bank of America. So, although financials seem to be gaining some ground, I don't plan that to last very long. Which is why I will be out of my financial longs very shortly.

Another positive for bears was that they showed some aggression at close today. There was definitely some selling motivation going into close, as I feel there were a lot of people who did not want to hold their longs over night. I don't know if it's because of the meeting for Mark to Market (which I don't see them doing much), but in any case the market closed with downward momentum.

I did end up selling most of my FAZ put options during the last run up before close. Although it wasn't at its peak of the day, I made off well enough and am glad to not be in as heavy going into tomorrow. I am holding onto BAC for kicks in giggles, but besides that, I am still waiting. I know some of you fell I am being "too safe", but if indeed we continue to head in the direction I believe we're heading, I believe I will be set up for a very big opportunity to make some solid profits on the short side. It is just like a chess game and I am setting up my pieces. Instead of trying to guess right now, and risk getting killed, I am making smaller moves and waiting for the right time. So you all will be the first to know when that is for me. Check out FAS Market Club report score of -75, which is a pretty big jump from it's previous -100 (get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here).

The big question tomorrow is how we respond. I think tomorrow may be another "defining day" where, we may start out flat and bouncing around back and forth, but one direction will take control by close and we should have a pretty significant close either up or down. The big question, is which way? The opening should show us a lot, and if we do indeed open up again, I will probably sell a lot of the longs I have left and be freed from that burdern.

Also, remember, we're creeping up on tax season, and I'm sure all of you look forward to filing these profits as much as I am (dang you Uncle Sam). Anyway, if you have procrastinated like I have, you can file free at H&R Block and find a variety of services there. However, you might as well as pay a bit extra for their premium services, it saves a lot of time! So, File for FREE at hrblock.com and learn more about it.

I have been thinking about shooting out a podcast a few times a week, because there are many different elements about that market that I never get to discussing on this site, due to the length of the posts, and I would much rather speak it. If this is something that you think would be worthwhile, shoot me a quick email at crashmarketstocks@gmail.com and let me know if you'd be interested. If there are enough, I'll get it set up. Have a good evening, Happy Trading, and we'll see you tomorrow.

This was my exact concern that I discussed in my post last month about the government having no more bullets left in the barrel to take down this enormous bear who has been eating at the Dow for over a week now. We saw this same trend in October and November. Whenever the market begins to consistently show strong bearish tendencies, it transforms the whole sentiment of the trading world. Almost every article you read is talking about worse times ahead or what the government needs to do to get banks nationalized. In the past, to stop such pessimism, the government usually came in with a very significant announcement to reverse the trend, such as lowering interest rates, discussing new stimulus plans, or the even the event of getting a new president filled with hope. Where we have found ourselves now, is in a point where there is not much more that the government to do or say to make things better that doesn't involve nationalizing companies and wiping out shareholder's equity. Sure they can send out Bernanke, Geithner, or even Obama himself, but the market has recently shown that they are done with the small talk.

It's hard to pin the blame on just one person or even one part of the government. I don't know who expected to see this market turn around anytime soon. Back when the stimulus was approved, we all knew that this was a "preservation" stimulus, to help slow the pain getting injected to the economy. This is why everyone was careful to say that the stimulus would create or "maintain" up to 3 million jobs for Americans. The market is becoming very impatient.

So, now we are left with a broken down market, with what looks like to have no reason to get better anytime soon, especially when you have auto sales, non farm payroll, and unemployment right around the corner. Unfortunately, this environment makes it very difficult for nature to take its course and we find ourselves in one big ping-pong match from red to green. Sure, some daytraders are probably having the time of their life (if they're playing the right bumps!), but as for me, I am hoping for a bit more normality and conistancy to return to the market. It is not seeing the market continually go down that makes me nervous, but it is the way that the market is doing it which gives me great concern. Almost all technicals have been thrown out the window and anything that can be perceived as good news is quickly trumped with a hard rush of selling.

I am amazed at how well the trend of mid day rallying followed by rapid sell off to end the day is holding up. Many investors are increasing their turnover and changing their hold periods from 3 days to 1 or even half a day. Instead of covering their shorts after 3 days, they're doing after half a day. As a result, you pretty much have 2 options in the current conditions; the first is to roll the dice with day trading, which if you roll well, could be very profitable, however very risky at the same time. The second, which is my strategy, hold tight a bit longer until we see some definition come through the market as it always eventually does. It is very obvious that markets are wanting to rally, as we see plenty of green throughout the day. Buyers are just missing that extra wind that they usually would get with government help. A continuing to delay a rally, however, makes the market very dangerous and could set it spinning down hard. So we'll see.

I'm keeping an eye on RIMM. Their strength today, despite tough conditions makes me suspicious of upcoming positive news. Under $40, I definitely think they're a steal anyway (in a normal market), so I may jump into some options for RIMM. Anymore down ticking and I'm going to have to eventually consider some shorts again. Maybe FXP due to more and more problems in the Asian markets or even more SKF. If we do indeed rally, SSO is one I would like to take a ride during a bear market rally. So all of these are on my radar. Rimm has a Market Club report score of -70, but has been steadily increasing (get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here).

So, yes, the patience continues and I am confident that eventually it will payoff. It is times like these where you can loose your shirt if you play the wrong move and playing catch up is never fun. So these next two days are very critical to see if these lows continue to hold and if the S&P stays under 700. I am making money everyday, but the gains are much more moderate than I would have hoped for at this point. My Lending Club investment is performing very well, and still maintains that 10.5% target return on my investment. They are getting more love from the media as well, which has been great and can also be a very good resource for those needing to consolidate there expensive debt. I'll be on chat early in the morning, so with that, have a good night everyone, be careful, Happy Trading and we'll see you tomorrow.

All eyes were looking for Secretary Tim Geithner on Friday, as the market was looking to close again after another strong day of selling, mostly due to concerns of nationalizing banks. But he was nowhere to be found. Finally, in the moment of despair, Obama sent out his "press secretary" (wow, the powers of this guy!), to inform the country that continuing private ownership of banks was the best option for the country. This caused for a violent rebound to almost green territory, especially with financials, until sellers again prevailed and continuing doubts kept the market down, closing the DOW at a new recent closing low of 7365.

You can see in the graph of today's trading where Obama stepped in to calm nerves, but its effect was not long lasting, maybe due to the fact that is given from the press conference and not President Obama himself or Secretary Geithner. Also, some contradicting items were discussed in the press conference as the press secretary warned that some irresponsible people would indeed be benefiting from the recent mortgage subsidization, after Obama boldly declared that no irresponsible parties would receive any sort of benefit from the bill. Analysts have been having a hay day with the bill ever since it was announced.



What use to be the enemy of bears, has now become a friend. "Speculation" is currently a big driving factor for the mass selling taking place in our markets. Prior to this past week, it was speculation of good things to come that use to reverse downward trading days and send markets flying. This negative speculation has over ridden many of the technical charts and kept the markets selling in fears of bank nationalization. I was amazed to see the movements of FAZ/FAS on Friday (I was on chat with many of you)! FAS went from $3.92 to $5.20 in about 5 minutes. During these times of speculation, we can see some serious violent jolts in the market as nerves increase or are eased. At any rate, it makes the market in a very dangerous and volatile state.

Although the selling is continuing, I am not convinced this is the big "critical mass" selling that we are to receive before we see a capitulation in the markets. The models just aren't there yet for deflationary signals. We are very overdue for a technical rally, and with speculation in the air, it makes me very reserved to make moves. As we saw from SRS on Friday, shorts can become very vulnerable in a speculative state. This a big reason for my liquidating of much of my position on Wednesday.

The only move I made Friday was the buying of FAZ put options for $65. The volatility of options are becoming greater and greater as we saw the VIX rise above 50 on Friday. Just on Friday, the range of my put option was $7-$14 (I got in at $10). So, I am choosing to short FAZ, instead of buying FAS, hopefully decay is on my side this time. This play is mostly a hedge for me, as I feel this technical rally may eventually take hold early next week. Plus, just during intraday trading on Friday, I made quite a big profit. Below is the Market Club report on FAS (get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here). We also may see Tiny Tim finally make an appearance to try and squelch the concerns of nationalization better than the press secretary. At any rate, I'm not comfortable with the current models to go any more short than I am already and feel that we are very, very close to critical mass, but may still be a month or two still away. We did indeed reach new closing lows with the Dow, but not with the S&P, which is a more critical reading. So most of my Zecco.com account sits in cash at the moment, but with positions still in my "usual suspects."

I expect to see more stronger and more volatile movements going into next week. It will be interesting to see if speculation continues to drive trading or if we indeed get back on track with technicals. Watch out for the leveraged ETFs, as with the increasing VIX numbers, they become more and more volatile. It's great when you're on the right side of the momentum, but not the other way around. Have a good weekend and Happy Trading.

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The lovely paradox we have been discussing the past few days of "buy the rumor, sell the news" has been getting thrown around the media, saying that this was the sole purpose for the big sell off we received yesterday. Come on...Sure there was indeed some of that factored in, since much of the buying on Friday and Monday were due to the "rumors" of the stimulus and new bank plan. However, Geithner also went up and disappointed Americans with his lack of answers for the direction the Treasury plans to head in these coming months. I believe Americans are slowly beginning to realize that there is a lot more talk with these politicians than walk.

It is a very interesting week we have on our hands. After these plans shake out, there is really not much left for the government to unfold. I believe it is after the failure of this next attempt (my personal thoughts, obviously), that we will most likely see a market crash and a new bottom set. Investors are getting more desperate and losing more money, and it is fear that usually leads to the mass selling of a crash. As for now, it seems that stimulus hopes was able to keep the market green for today, but once again, we will see how long that green can maintain. We saw the Dow stay below 8000 two days in a row, which has not happened in a while and we’re heading into retail sales announcements for tomorrow, which could be pretty bad.

Strangely enough, there has actually been a reduction in shorting the retailers going into the announcement tomorrow. It seems as if some people feel that they are low enough and don’t want to gamble with them anymore. Shares short in Wal-Mart (WMT) were down 21% to 40.3 million shares. The short interest in Target (TGT) lowered 15% to 39.1 million. Shares short in Home Depot (HD) were also off 8% to 59.8 million. In addition, the short interest in Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) fell 24% to 25.6 million and shares short in P&G (PG) dropped 17% to 30.3 million. Shares short in Coke (KO) lowered 20% to 20.5 million.

The short play on financials was a mixed one. Short shares for Wells Fargo (WFC), were off 11% to 111.7 million. However, the short interest in Citigroup (C) was up 11% to 181 million. GE’s (GE) short interest were higher 17% to 168 million, as it has had increasing concerns. Below is the market trend analysis on WFC (get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here).


So indeed it does seem that there was some money moved out of the short side for the time being, but this does not affect my desire to remain mostly short right now. As I did not make many moves today and I still remain mostly in cash and in shorts, I am still waiting for the time that looks good to move in more. I think retail numbers have the potential to be disastrous. If by chance this number does go overlooked, thanks to more bailout fluff, I would expect it to catch up with us much like unemployment did. So, if we stay green tomorrow, shorts here I come.

The government reached an agreement on price for the stimulus at $789 billion. They expect this powerhouse package to create up to 3.5 million jobs over the next 2 years. When doing the numbers, that means that for every position, it averages to be $223,000 per job. Sure, this number is to be over a period of time, but I think there are a lot of Americans who are willing to work for less than $60,000, let alone $223,000.

Also, the government plans to have their plan of new “transparency” with the banks. Beginning next week, the top 20 financial institutions will be submitting a monthly TARP form, hoping to shine light of how much money they are receiving and where the money is going. I know they think of this as a transparency play, but this can also be a bad move by the government. I don’t know if the public is ready to handle some of numbers these banks are going to throw out. It could just make matters worse for banks and lower the consumer’s confidence. So we’ll see how that goes. Below is an example of the form they will be using.


So, there still seems to be more uncertainty out there. The markets are still very vulnerable to violent movements either way. The day panned out much the way I expected it to, however, I did think financials got a bit more love than was due to them, and I was bummed to see SRS end in the red after the strong start this morning. That is slowly becoming a trend for SRS… Buy before close, sell in the morning. So tomorrow will be interesting. I plan to get into more shorts, whether it is red or green, pending some new announcement.

Remember, if you haven’t already, to check out the Lending Club promotion. $200 dollar give away in two weeks. All you need to do is sign up, no money needed, click here to find out more. I’m just trying to give people a chance to check them out. Also, for those paying too much at home or at the office for phone bills, I found these guys a couple days ago and their prices and service beats most anyone out there, get the free trail -Try RingCentral Fax FREE for 30 days
. Find me on chat tonight and tomorrow, Happy Trading.

PS – I’m loving my Gold right now, and inflation isn’t even here yet! (GDX, GLD and DGP)

It is days like today, which solidify my feeling of why I am so nervous to be long in these current market conditions. We saw in just one day, the last three days of green get annihilated, closing the Dow once again under 8000 at 7888. This is why having dangerous days like Friday, in which investors looked right past some pretty devastating unemployment numbers and kept buying on hopes of "The Saving Bailout Plan", sets us up for an even more devastating day of losses as eventually that news will get factored in. The market opened up in the red, but really began dashing down during Geithner's speech, where he attempted to unfold the Treasury's plan with confidence, but failed miserably. A bunch of numbers were thrown out there, as well as phrases like "private equity help" and "should help to unfreeze markets", however the linking equation to execute the promises was missing.

As soon as the speech was over, analysts had their way with Geithner and his new "plan." Many discussions about the Fed's inability to perform on their promises as well as their "lack of preparedness" in the plan gave the media a lot to talk about the rest of the day. This indeed seemed to cause a lot of doubt with investors as the selling continued up until the close.

So what do I think? I think it's a joke. I can't blame Geithner as I feel our current dilemma is a task too big for any individual or entity. We are currently reaping what we sowed for the past 5 years. Falsely labeled AAA-BBB assets were bought and sold with no actual currency exchange, but with new loan documents. This debt has built up to a ridiculous amount that will take much longer than a year or two, in my mind, to begin to see a turnaround. So I can't blame Geithner, although I blame him for falsely preaching hope to investors, causing buying at times when markets should be selling. In the end, this market needs to crash in order to pick itself up again. I believe we are close to these times.


They discussed helping private equity to help buy these toxic assets. What private equity? You mean the $13 trillion in wealth destruction? Sure there is still money out there in certain institutions, but who has the kind of money they need to buy these "toxic assets". I guess this is why many institutions are interested in the plan, but none have signed up. I loved the line, the private sector will "determine the prices for current troubled and previously illiquid assets." Sure that will be easy, just talk it out. These are just a few of problems with this plan.

So I'm very glad to have sold out of BAC yesterday. There was a lot of green in my Zecco.com account today, as after my FAS shares sold, there were nothing but profits all around. Indeed, in this market, we can expect these selling days to be much more violent than the buying ones. Before close, I took a lot of my SKF profits off the table as I don't think we're quite out of the "rally woods" yet and wanted to pocket some in case of a rebound rally. I don't necessarily feel that we will be green tomorrow, but I made enough gains from my shorts today, I can play it a bit more conservative for tomorrow. In fact, with retail sales coming this week, and the poor earnings from NVIDIA and Applied Materials after today's close, we may see another day of selling for tomorrow. I am keeping all of my SRS as I still continue to love that ETF and will average down if hurt tomorrow.

After the huge day of selling, we could see a day in the green, but I don't expect big green numbers, unless we get some additional news. Days like today take a good bite out of sentiment. Sure, there may be some profit taking, but I don't feel that there is much wind behind Bulls sails. If we do indeed end below 8000 for tomorrow and possibly end under 820 for the S&P, I would expect a continuing downward trend. We'll see what tomorrow brings though, 8000 has been very, very tough to stay under and Hogan's bottom seems to have a spring on it.

My DGP did quite well today, as gold continues to do well in these uncertain times. I'm continuing to like plays like these, and even oil right now as I think there will soon be some more separation between Dow movements and commodities. Plus, DGP has a market trend score of +55, not too bad (get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here).


So tomorrow will be interesting. I plan on getting into a position in the morning as I believe we will see some definition of the day's trading pretty early on. So yet another day of early rising for me and we could see the markets hit some critical technical numbers tomorrow. I'll be on chat later and tomorrow, so I will see you then. Happy Trading.

From trading on Friday, you would have never guessed that we received the worse job loss report in 34 years as the market blew right past that number on Friday and turned to new hope for bailouts and freedom from debts by closing the Dow up 217 points. As I said last week, currently, we are very vulnerable to these short term, violent rallies as speculation has become the steering wheel to market trading. As I also discussed earlier in the week, we knew we were expecting something from Obama to combat the dreaded unemployment number that everyone expected to be devastating. The term "Buy the rumor, Sell the news" seems to be in effect currently as everyone jumped on the bank buy train on Friday(including myself) hoping for some serious news over the weekend. The only news that happened Friday, was a pretty mediocre press conference from Obama talking about his "plan" to stimulate the economy, and the rest were a bunch of leaks that made it to the news talking about what is suppose to be announced Monday (I'm sure the government didn't mean to leak that, right?!). They estimate that over 3 million jobs have been lost since we began the "recession in December of 2007. Over half of these jobs have been lost the past three months. This is a very bad sign, as it clearly shows we have not reached the crest of this job crisis. So I continue to believe this rally will be short lived.

I woke up early on Friday in anticipation to the big day. Seeing the futures trading up, I had a feeling we were going to be experiencing the day we did. I also knew that Ken Lewis, Bank of America's CEO, was planned to be interviewed on CNBC. In most cases, CEO's go on air to sell a company to the public. If it is bad news, they usually send the accountants or lawyers. I knew Lewis would be selling B of A to death and that's exactly what he did. So, I ended up buying into BAC in the morning, even though it was already up 14%. Lewis talked of their successes and that he has not once talked of or been talked to about nationalizing Bank of America. He also said that the plan was to pay back TARP funds by three years. Just during his speech, the stock jumped another 7% and eventually got as high as 33% up. As for the validity of his words, who knows and frankly I don't plan to be in his stock for very long.

My stop loss came into effect with my FAZ and I ended up making a pretty good profit, considering FAS ended up almost 20%. Sometimes, this strategy doesn't work if we reach a volatile day with the Dow bouncing back in forth. However, I felt that Friday was going to go only one direction, and it would go that way with conviction. The market trend FAS technical score is -75, so I don't know how excited I am to stay in it much longer (get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here). However, as for now, I am remaining in both my BAC and FAS for the time being.

SRS was showing a lot of strength in early hours of trading as you can see from the chart. However, during mid-day, a big sell off began. I think bailout hopes and more rumors surfacing convinced many investors to get out for the time being. I am remaining in SRS, as I feel it is one of the better shorts for 2009. I do think they are vulnerable to some losses during all this mess, so I may be averaging down as it may continue to go down.


Obama's bailout team has revisited their original stimulus plan over the weekend and have supposedly made some changes (I personally feel they did because they knew they didn't have the vote!). Anyway, it seems as if the bailout amount will be reduced to $750 billion and that there have been a lot of changes to the "bad bank" plan, which wasn't getting a lot of popularity with the media and republicans. They still will supposedly have a toxic asset protection program but are straying from the "bad bank" plan and working on a "ring fence" concept. In a sense, the "bad bank" would buy up to $500 billion in troubled assets and then perform stress test on banks to see if they need more.

Now, where market to market accounting gets changed is when these assets are transferred. As of now, a bank would have to take a loss on their books to transfer these assets, which would kill bank's balance sheets to transfer a lot of these toxic assets. So, rumor is that they may be altering the accounting system where they can "carry market value" in hopes to keep bank's balance sheets healthy. A lot of moving pieces are in this plan and a lot can go wrong. Let's hope they know what they're doing. Secretary Geithner is suppose unveil the plan on Monday. These kind of announcements make me very timid in this market, which is why I am pretty hedged right now and sitting in a lot of cash at the moment. So we'll see how it goes. That mixed with the stimulus vote, which is planned for Tuesday, could cause one crazy trading week next week. In the end, the fundamentals are still very bear, so that is where I remain. I am just waiting for the right time to get in my bear positions fully, and that time may be coming soon.

So, it will be another early morning for me on Monday. I am expecting more volatility this next week in the market as I believe there could be a lot of "exhaust selling" after all of these announcements are done with. "Buy the rumor, sell the news."

I wanted to end with a clip from CBS news featuring the Lending Club we've been talking about. They have been getting a lot of publicity lately, which continues to reinforce my decision to invest in them. So far so good! Remember, the now $200 promotion ends this month for Lending Club, so check it out if you haven't already, click here.

It looks as if Obama is planning and arsenal and doesn't want to tell anybody about it. There are numerous rumors going around right now of different potential plans and strategies he may be using soon to try and combat this financial crisis. In my opinion, I think he's holding his trump card for a time when he really needs it...and that time may be tomorrow.

My first suspicion is wondering what caused the huge reversal this morning (see below). The Dow jumped over 150 points in less than 20 minutes, just when it was looking like another day of selling. I personally believe PPT has a nice camp set up on Hogan's bottom waiting to push it back up. If indeed selling would have continued, it would have marked our first two day closing under 8000 in a long time as well as a possible sub 820 close for the S&P. Both of these could have spurred one heck of a selling day on Friday coming into unemployment numbers. However, has history has shown us, nature most like won't take it's course and once again the inevitable will probably be delayed for a bit longer. If we could just capitulate and get over it, I believe we would be better off.


So yes, unemployment is tomorrow. Part of me wants to get a big loan from these guys, and just put it all into FAZ. If only I was that compulsive. The market expects a 7.5% unemployment rate with an expectation of -540,000 loss of non-farm payroll jobs. I am sorry, but if the number is below this or even close to it, I am going to suspect the government of fudging numbers. January has been horrific with headline after headline preaching new job cuts. I think the number should be at least in the high 600,000's if not 700,000's. We'll see what is said, but at this current state, tomorrow is a critical day for the market. I wouldn't be surprised to see Obama have something up his sleeve.

I was pleased to see SRS hold up as good as it did for an up day like today. I was hoping to see us go back into the red, because SRS could have had a 10%+ day if that would have been the case. It almost hit $70 in the morning.

If indeed unemployment numbers do prove to be worse off, that doesn't mean we're on for a selling day. Obama may choose to unveil his great and mighty stimulus which has been brewing a lot of curiosity from investors. Talks of doing away with market to market (which I will give my opinion on that tomorrow!) accounting and extra funds for mortgage backed securities could quickly heal the pains of a bad unemployment number in turn Friday into a rally of epic proportions. I indeed do not hope for the latter, but I took some minor precautions, just in case.

First off, I did end up purchasing some FAZ (see market trend analysis below, get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here) earlier in the day at $49. I thought whether or not we rally tomorrow, this is a low enough price, especially if we see a big sell off tomorrow. Towards the end of close, I felt the need to hedge myself to some degree, so I went in and bought some FAS at $8.95. I put stop losses of 5% for each of them as I believe whichever is up tomorrow, will most likely be up big. So hopefully the gains of the winner will outdo the losses of the loser. We'll see.


As I said in the chat, if for some reason indeed there is a vote on the bailout and it fails, watch out. We saw what happened last time the proposed bailout failed in voting. It tanked the market almost 400 points. With so much riding on this stimulus and in the current fragile market we are in, the result could be even more devastating. I believe there is a small chance for that happening, but there are senators out there who believe the Democrats do not have all the votes to pass it. Food for thought.

I also wanted to share a bit of this article I found on Harvard Business Review website talking about Lending Club, he said: "So what? A profound secondary effect of the down market will be an increase in the availability of peer-to-peer finance and its convergence with traditional lending. My bet is that mainstream investors and banks will cherry-pick the best investors in Lending Club and other systems – reducing risk by tapping their superior credit-assessment capabilities – and fund them to grant more and bigger loans. Moreover, within five years every major bank will probably have its own peer-to-peer lending network.

If innovative legislation were drafted to allow peer-to-peer risk coverage, similar transactions might begin to flourish in the insurance market. Precise knowledge of local conditions would allow individuals to band together in order to underwrite the cost of insuring properties in safe neighborhoods or to make insurance more widely available in higher-risk neighborhoods.

The current economic constraints will only accelerate the growth of these new entities. I predict that they will be among the most important financial-services innovations in the coming decade." You can read the full article here. I agree that investment vehicles like these will become more popular in the future. If you haven't checked it out, go to Lending Club for more.

Early morning for everyone tomorrow, I'm sure. Either way, I believe we're going to see a big trading day for whichever side it decides to go. We may see a bit of both green and red, but I see us trading big in one direction by close. So set your alarms, Happy Trading, and we'll see you tomorrow. I'll try to be on the chat later.

Just as I anticipated, we encountered a pretty volatile day which made a sharp u-turn around mid-day, resulting in a pretty strong sell off of most everything, tech holding up the best. Once again we have dipped below the 8000 mark and may stay there to end the week, pending some big announcement that I am not foreseeing. Talk of the town today has been Obama's decision to regulate bank executive's salaries to a maximum of $500,000 annual. They do have stock option bonuses, but there are still lots of restrictions of when they can cash in on those. Sure, there is a need to regulate some of the antics that are going on around some of these companies and an accountability for spending, but I don't know if this is the right move.

I worry about Obama attempting to go to war with the upper class as he will most likely lose. There has to be a cohesive plan that can benefit all parties without dragging the upper class through the mud. We will see what response is given from the banks and the market dealing with this new development.

It has been a different week for the market and there are a few things on my mind which will most influence my upcoming trading. These 5 things are:

Effects of Restricted Bank Salaries
This may look like a good plan on paper, but there could be some pretty bad consequences if this plan backfires. No doubt there has been ridiculous spending by some executives that should result in some accountability. The problem I am worried about are banks losing their top executives to foreign competition. I mean how easy is it for foreign countries to match the $500k cap, not to say blow it out of the water. This filter will not only put a leash on the bad-performing executives, but also the good ones. If we risk losing some of our top executives, I can't see that being a good sign for banks and our overall economy.

S&P Closing Below 820
It has been a while since we have seen a sub 820 close for the S&P. Knowing the technicals are pretty strong at that point, I am very curious to see if we close under 820 sometime this week. If this is the case, I would expect there to be some extra downward momentum, possibly sending the S&P close to 800. Below is the recent market trend analysis for the S&P (get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here).

Unemployment - Record Setting
I am very curious to see what unemployment numbers we see reported on Friday, as I personally feel they will be record setting. If you have been tracking the layoffs as I have, you have noticed the daily massive job cuts which have been going on. This is not to mention all of the mom and pop layoffs that are going on behind the scenes. This could be a big drag on the market.

Bad Bank - Nationalization?
I have not been able to wrap my fingers around this bad bank plan. I see them wanting to set up a similar system as the RTC program in the 80's and 90's, but I don't see how this plan works without instilling the nationalization of banks. And if that's the case, I would think that most of the shareholder's equity would be wiped out. Having Citi's or BAC's equity wiped out would most likely kill confidence in the financial markets and maybe cause a market crash.

Stimulus & Government Intervention
I still am waiting for Obama's bag of tricks. He has a good gift of linguistics and can do a great job of selling the country on hope. However, he has been very careful of not leading people's hopes astray. I think that's good. More false hope can cause even more problems in the long run. Still, I can't help but think that Obama has something brewing to attempt to counter this plunge and try to spark a big rally.

These things have been going in and out of my thoughts and continue to keep me guarded of what to buy. Indeed I am still heavily short, but have not gone as short as I would like because of some uncertainties. Hopefully, more clarity is brought the next couple of days and I can get back on track. Until then, I guess these thoughts keep creeping. Your Thoughts? Happy Trading.

PS - Seems as though the chat is working good. Good call on the recommendation. I will try to comment as much as I can during the day, however, I am often away for other business. By the way to clear some of your questions, Zecco.com is still offering free monthly trades, you just need to have more than 25 trades a month, which I'm sure most of you, like me, are doing. Just to answer those that thought the promotion was over.

Free Trading Analysis Video click here

We experienced another complex day of trading as once again the under 8000 scenario proves to be not sustainable for the time being. Just as the market breaks the 8000 threshold, it continues to retreat back up. The Dow rallied for most of the day as well as tech, however, banks were in for a rude awakening as many were down anywhere from 5-15%. Speculation of just how good this upcoming stimulus really is for the economy and if the "bad bank" plan can actually work seemed to bring down confidence in bank's ability to survive this crisis. In fact, I heard a report today from a top commercial real estate economist that the default rate for commercial loans is not expected to PEAK until to the end of 2011. Also, the default rate is suppose to increase almost three times at that point than it is now. If this is the case, I would expect banks to continue to have serious problems.

I ended up watching most of the day and even moves that I did end up making, I didn't buy much, as I am fearing this current stagnant market we have been trading in the past couple days. Volume was up today, but there really was nothing moving the market and not much significant news released today, aside from auto sales...ouch. Indeed, with more negative news, I think we'll see some more definition in trading. Until then, I plan on making small moves and waiting. You can't lose with patience.

So what did I do? For those on the comments today, you saw that just at the end of trading, I picked up some UYG and some BAC call options. By all means, this does not reflect my perspective on the current state of the banks, I just feel we have a potential for a quick bank rebound. It is indeed pretty close to a gamble, and to hedge it I set stop losses so that there is a limit to my downside risk. I was surprised to see how cheap some of the BAC options were. If we are indeed up tomorrow, I plan on selling pretty quickly. The last thing I want is to be stuck long in financials going into unemployment numbers. Both BAC and UYG have very strong negative momentum on their Market Trend analysis, which usually means they are due for some gains (get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here).

Autos released devastating numbers all across the board making it another horrible month for buying cars. I don't see how this trend gets better, especially as disposable income is getting eaten up more and more as well as auto loans getting harder and harder to get. Even Toyota was down over 30%. Chrysler over 50%! If this keeps up much longer, we may only end up with three automobile companies.

Tomorrow I am expecting a mixed day of trading. I won't be surprised to see us continually going from green to red. There are relatively strong forces on both the bull and bear sides and A LOT of spectators sitting on the sidelines. When those guys get in, either with the spark of a rally or the force of selling, there should be some violent movements.

I am expecting my next round of payments from Lending Club this week. I have decided to reinvest the interest to increase my return in the end. I don't need it for the time being and would rather remain diversified. So we'll see how that works. I will be on tomorrow morning and am looking to put up a chat to make mid-day conversing easier for you. Happy Trading and see you tomorrow.

Well, as expected, we experienced a pretty aggressive selling day as yesterday's gains, and then some, were wiped out today with the Dow closing at 8149. I was glad to have sold out of almost all of my bank positions yesterday, as most of the profits were wiped out from today's selling. Tomorrow is a pretty critical day in deciding the future movement of this market. Another devastating day of selling could be enough to put the Dow below 8000, which would be a critical point of closing, especially with the market mostly trading up the first part of the week. As I've said in the comments, I'm a bit torn at which way it will go since so much depends on the GDP announcement and how it is spun with the media.

I didn't make many moves with my Zecco.com account today, as I still feel I want to be mostly short for the time being. I did, however, pick up some more TBT for myself. It has performed so well for me since I first wrote about buying it last month and I see it going nowhere but up this year. US treasuries have been so over bought, it's ridiculous. The yield with Treasuries hit 0%! It is very clear that Obama's plan is to spend our way out of this crisis and by doing so will even more saturate the market with more, already oversold Treasuries. Plus, as our government continues to print money, other nations will continue pulling their money out of Treasuries and putting them into corporate bonds, because their dividends are much more stronger. So I expect TBT to continue to do just fine for me.

I would expect big numbers from my FXP tomorrow, as Asia is currently looking like a market crash. Surprisingly, FXP is holding up pretty strong fundamentally, as they have a market trend score of +55 (see below. Get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here). I did shave off some of FAZ earnings today as there was some huge gains today from it (almost 20%). It's not that I don't think there is more to grow with FAZ, it's just like I said yesterday, I can't be greedy.


My DGP performed well for me today, already being up close to 5%. This is one I plan on hanging on for a while. I sold some of my GDX for a pretty strong profit (first bought in at $18). I am seeing more upside for DGP in the long run than GDX. I think gold is bound to spike sometime throughout the year with this overspending.

So we all wait and see what the GDP Gods shall bring us. The number is going to be bad, no doubt about it. The next GDP announcement should be even worse. I cannot believe the devastation we have already experienced in January. Consumer sentiment is another one to keep your eye on, although I do feel it will be overshadowed by GDP. If indeed sellers take over this market tomorrow, which has usually been buyer's territory, I would expect that momentum to push harder into next week.

My Lending Club account is doing great so far. Payments are being made and my returns are looking to be strong. It's good to be diversified and helps me sleep a bit better at night. Below is an example of notes that are available to invest for 10%+ gains. I chose to pick higher valued loans, and not shoot for the 20% returns. Remember, my $100 promotion for Lending Club ends in a couple days. It's free to sign up, click here for instructions.


I will be on the comments tomorrow so check back and share your thoughts. I will probably be making some moves mid-day tomorrow so we'll see what happens. Have a good night and Happy Trading.

Free Trading Analysis Video click here

There sure was a lot of hustle and bustle on the floor today as hopes for Obama's new plan filled buyers with confidence, especially concerning financials. Sure, myself was included in the mass of buyers, but for me it was not an emotional buy. It was purely just buying knowing that there would be many believing that Obama's new plans will push us through this depression and financials crisis and on to greener pastures. I surely did enjoy profiting off of the emotional compulsiveness of other investors and plan to do it more often. So what was today all about?

Wells Fargo up 30%, Citi up 20%, and Bank of America up 15%. Wow, that's some strong pushes, what on earth could have happened today? To be frank, not much. Sure there were a lot of talks and whispers in headlines throughout the day, but fundamentally, not much changed and unfortunately these kind of "emotional rallies" can really tee up a strong market crash.

First, news came last night that Obama plans to push this stimulus through ASAP. No need to cross the T's and dot the I's, just get it signed. Considering "checks and balances" no longer exist in our government currently (as democrats control all the powers), there shouldn't be much delay in getting this passed. Some may think this is just the beginning of the road back up, especially with the banks. As for me, I took most of my profits and ran.

So, yes, I did get out of most of my position in financials today, before the close. What I have learned recently is that you can't be greedy in this market, and getting a 14% return in a day is fine by me. So I took most of my money out, just leaving some in case of another day running. Believe it or not, but I took a lot of my earnings and put it into SRS and DGP (a Deutsche Bank Double Gold fund, see trend analysis below, get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here). I think we went a bit overboard in the buying today and I expect some serious pull back either tomorrow or Friday, especially with GDP news coming up, and here's why.



One announcement that has seemed to cause excitement with financials is the new "bad bank" plan. This is, in a sense, a plan for the FDIC to take control of the bad assets and hold on to them until values once again appreciate. So far, the way of doing this is unclear, but many speculate that many of the banks deemed "bad banks" would essentially be temporarily ran by The FDIC, or in a sense, the government. So in other terms, "nationalizing" a lot of these banks. A similar program was adapted during the last real estate catastrophe, where the government issued an RTC program to buy back troubled assets. The problem is that our debt is far greater than that of the RTC days and our length of this recession/depression is unknown and is most likely to much, much longer. What I don't get is why are so many people buying up financials, when in fact if some of these banks do become nationalized, shareholder's equity most likely will get wiped out? Analysts are warning (well the smart ones) of this, but investors have tuned them out as they listen to the new songs of "bank bailouts". My point is, I do not want to be stuck with a slue of bank stocks as the governmental begins to experiment with different nationalizing ideas.

Then we go on to the new Obama stimulus plan itself. Have you read it? This thing is suppose to be devoted to assist in job creation and we're spending $350 million of tax dollars on STD education and prevention? How is that going to help? I mean at least if STD's are still flourishing there will be money spent on pharmaceuticals and doctor visits (a joke). Also, there's a allocation of funds to landscaping the capital building. Who cares? We are in a depression and you want to worry about landscaping. Truly, there is a lot of wasted money in this bill and if we are only dedicating 50 cents to the dollar to actually assisting in job creation and the buying of bad debt, it will take over $5 trillion in bailout funds to begin to do something. Get it together guys.

I do believe that above all, banks need keep the consumer's confidence. That was the biggest cause of the Great Depression. People lost faith in the banks and banks failed. However, I believe there are many ways to keep banks lending, and help manage their current "over leveraged" state. They just need to tweak things back at the drawing board.

Starbucks gave some more bad news today as they are looking to close even more stores down. The worst part about these rallies, is many times, real economic data sometimes gets tossed aside as people are"high" with emotion. Hey, even the US mail is struggling. They are toying with the idea of only delivering mail five days a week instead of six. The point is the rest of the world is going on behind this bailout fluff, and it doesn't look pretty.

At any rate, I'm glad to be out. Sure, we may indeed rally more tomorrow, but like I said, I can't be greedy. Indeed I feel if our government is not careful with how we spend these next trillions, we could end up spending our way to death. Hopefully, Obama can round his people together to find a good solution, I just still believe there is A LOT of work to be done to their proposed plans. Tomorrow should be interesting. Seeing how we open will determine whether I make any moves, but as for now, my Zecco.com account is staying put. I will keep you updated on what I do in the comments section. I hope everyone has a good evening, Happy Trading and we'll see you tomorrow.