Commentary – 07.19.11
Strong day here on good volume and solid breadth after yesterday’s smashing. Given the short term oversold signal it seemed the markets were ready to rumble higher and indeed that’s what we had. Buoyed by good earnings from IBM, tech was the star of the day while poor earnings from GS and BAC put the financials on their heels. I haven’t been interested in this group for months and it’ll take much more for me to get involved. Besides, there is so much action elsewhere, why waste our time? The vix headed lower today and closed under the critical 20 level. August is the front month tomorrow. The action underneath this market seems to hinge on better news coming from Washington and Europe. Today was a ‘no bad news’ day, so we rally. Once this is behind us the market is free to move – and with good earnings and Fed accomodation the next likely move is up.
Positions – Below are new position updates. I won’t post comments everyday but will have updates from time to time. We are NOT daytraders by design, therefore needing to justify a move against because of market action is really nonsensical. We need to understand the purpose here, take it easy and trust that the charts tell the story. (We added positions on Tuesday 7.19.11 – we hold positions until I send an alert that we are exiting).
While the market was strong today we saw some sizeable gains in our positions to close the week. While we carry many plays right now we saw every SINGLE one of them rising, some very strong gains. While some are down, many are up and don’t forget – it’s not how you start but how you finish that matters. Into next week there are earnings to deal with, I’m comfortable we are in the right ideas to take advantage of this most prosperous season! New plays below, will be looking for new ideas as well.
IBM Aug 175 call at 4.10 – We sold this today for a huge winner – the alert was 7 but we actually got out at 7.4 for a solid 80% winner!
GOOG Aug 600/625 spread at 9.90 – Waited for earnings to pass, strong stock here ready for higher prices.
RVBD Aug 38 call at 3.65 – Strong move up today but was deflated after earnings hit – will assess tomorrow.
ISRG Aug 420 call SOLD SHORT at 3.40 – This play against our 390 call which nearly doubled today – we took in some premium to create a vertical spread.
Other open trades which are doing well include: wlt, deck, wynn, pot, fcx, clf, ntap, cf, bidu, acom, vmw (earnings blowout). Others that need more work are: joyg, de, x, qcom
I’m Still Standing (click here for video)
For the coming week it’s all about earnings, earnings, earnings. Don’t be surprised to see some big earnings from some of the major players. Let’s hope the news from Washington and Europe is non-existant or just benign. Be ready for any new alerts and follow the stream on twitter.
Thank you for all of your tweets and emails – keep ’em coming! This is the best group and I’m working as hard as possible to find you all the best trade ideas – you deserve them.
Have a great rest of the week, see you on the stream and later in the week!
Bob Lang
