I like 1 thing about WP but hate everything else.

Quarterly Market Summary: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

Schwab Market Perspective: Government-Supplied Light?

April Market Snapshot With Liz Ann Sonders

Where were the buy and sell signals on the charts?

YOU ARE YOUR WORSE ENEMY !

My luck ran out today as I was a little impatient and bought too early.

However, scaling in the purchases saved me in the end.

Here was my response about TZA.

@Dollarbooster tza if 44/42 is broken then I am looking to lowball 39.90-40.10. I have to see how bad market sell off. 44 holding pm about 14 hours ago from web in reply to Dollarbooster

$tza b 43.20 adding. no more buy unless low ball hits. about 12 hours ago from web

Did you see my cancelled order at 40?

I almost chased it up, but ended up not doing so.

My strategy was 1 pt stop and 2 pts exit.  

Kind of playing BlackJack, you have 11 and dealer has 10.  Do you double down?

The 2 pts exit would have been good, but I got scared and did not want to risk holding 20k overnight.

End of the day, made $248 (1.21%) in the trade.

I am not advocating you trade the way I do.  

I am trying to show you how to be patience and buy in pieces.

You cannot come back if you don’t have the money to do so.

Still have other shorts going against me, but patiently waiting for them to come through.

Still have some TZA and SRS in the retirement accounts.

Today, I had a low ball bid on TZA at 45 and LOD was 46.53.  That’s close enough isn’t it?

In the discussion with my trader trainee, he said that I was too greedy.  May be I am.  

However, TZA opened at 50.76 and I was not going to low ball 1-2 points away.  I would just buy the dam stock.  

I wanted a discount.  If you had seen this chart, then you would undertand the price I was low balling at.

I did manage to get some SRS at the last hour for 53.  

Pull up a chart and look at how many times it runs from 50 to 60.

Keep in mind that I only have the first 2 hours to trade.  

I do have a full time and not the luxury to trade at work all day like I used to.

fortune8: $gs short 105 25% position.

fortune8: $aapl shorrt 25% position 105.75

I will admit, last week was a disaster; however, not all was loss since I was able to scalp some trades for nice gains.

Is it time to double down on FAZ?  

Looks like it from the chart.

See the huge volume at 18+?  Exit below 18.

FAZ P&F Chart

I am seeing the same thing for SRS.

SRS P&F Chart

My  positions

long TZA 45, …

long SRS 54, …

long FAZ 36, …

short AAPL 104.85 ( I know, I am stubborn)

short AMZN 70.44

sold MT for profit

sold RTN for profit

hold ABX for loss

UPDATES from Charles Rotblut, CFA - Senior Market Analyst - Zacks.com

Considering the market’s recent performance, I’m sure you are wondering whether the bottom is in. With just a few days left in March, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJI) is up about 10%.

Sentiment seems to have changed from February. Resistance levels are being broken, economic data is coming in better than expected and the term “zombie bank” isn’t being used so much anymore.

Good times, right?

I would love to be the person who tells you that the recovery is under way, but I can’t. We’re in a big hole and we are standing on what is, at best, a pretty shaky ledge.

It’s not that I’m bearish, I’m just pragmatic.

Let’s look at the latest plan to absorb the banks’ toxic assets. You know, all those mortgages and other debt-related securities. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wants private investors to buy them with help from the government. The banks get rid of the distressed debt and taxpayers get a chance to make some money.

Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it? The markets certainly thought so judging by last Monday’s rally.

But there is a small problem. Nobody knows if the banks and private investors will be able to agree on a price. If the offer price is too low, the banks may choose to just keep the assets on their balance sheets rather than face more large write-offs. If the asking price is too high, private investors will walk away.

The lack of agreement on what the toxic assets should sell for has been the problem throughout this crisis. Banks don’t want to accept the prices that private investors are offering. And there is no guarantee that anything has changed now.

I realize that a lot of people are hopeful that the plan will work. Understand that if it doesn’t, the Dow will set new lows.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that we are starting to see signs that the pace of deterioration is slowing.

February home sales, both new and used, rose by about 5% in February. Housing starts and building permits also improved. Those are the numbers that grabbed the headlines.

What hasn’t made headlines, however, is the trend in nonfarm payrolls. During the past few months, the rate at which the U.S. is losing jobs has stabilized:

Don’t get me wrong, losing 646,000 jobs per month is horrible, but I am encouraged that the size of the monthly losses is no longer increasing. We’ll see if this trend is holding when the March data is released on Friday, Apr 3.

Earnings estimates are not falling as dramatically either. During the past four weeks, just 3 full year profit projections have been cut for every forecast that has been raised. In January, we were seeing as many as 6 estimates cut for every one that was raised.

What’s even more surprising is that the revisions ratio (the proportion of positive to negative estimate changes) has been holding fairly steady over the past few weeks. Typically, the ratio falls when we get between earnings seasons – even during periods of growth. The fact that the ratio is holding up is a good sign.

Again, the change is relative. Profit forecasts continue to be cut across the board; it’s just that the rate of decline is slowing. Nonetheless, this change is a step in the right direction.

Don’t Wait For Confirmation Of A Turnaround

It’s still too early to declare that a bottom has been set for the stock markets and the economy. I’d like to see more signs of stabilization. I would also be more comfortable if the CBOE Volatility Index (aka the VIX) were to truly trade below 40 – something that has not occurred since last September.

Nonetheless, there can be gaps between what the data is suggesting and how the markets are actually performing. As an investor, it is important to understand that the market does not have to be right in order to react to it. This is particularly the case when it comes to trend reversals.

If the Mar 9 intraday low of 6,440 turns out to have been the bottom, then my call for 6,300 was close enough. There is no reward for exactly calling the bottom, but there is a lot of lost opportunity for missing out on a big rally.

This is why we added stocks to our Zacks Elite portfolios this week.

One of these stocks was Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI). I like the stock because of its recent, relatively good earnings report and because it should benefit from any stabilization of economic conditions. The fact that it is attractively valued was also a plus.

Another stock was Orion Marine Group, Inc. (OMGI), a company that provides construction services such as underwater pipelines, bridges and causeways. We think the company could benefit from state and federal construction projects. Estimates were recently revised upwards for both this year and next.

We also balanced these stocks with 2 other companies that were less economically sensitive, but are continuing to thrive. Our strategy is to buy into the rally, while not taking unnecessary risks.

There is never going to be an “all clear” signal to buy stocks. What you can do is constantly research stocks and use strategies such as dollar cost averaging, buying smaller positions normal and employing buy stops.

All these strategies might reduce your potential gains, but they also allow you take advantage of the big rallies when they occur.

Wishing you prosperity,
Charles Rotblut, CFA
Senior Market Analyst
Zacks.com

A closer look.

Looking for APPL short 101-104 with 3% stop

APPL Chart

Watch It

Do you remember the Subway ad campaign about the obese guy who lost a bunch of weight on a diet of nothing but Subway sandwiches? Most of us do – it was one of the most successful campaigns and turned Subway around, increasing sales by over 15% year over year – twice that of their competition. Did you know the campaign almost didn’t happen? It has a lot of the six elements described in “Made to Stick” that help make ideas stick: 

1. Simple – not simplistic, but having *one* core, profound idea. “Eat subs and lose weight.”
2. Unexpected – it takes you from “Huh?” to “Aha!” A guy lost a ton of weight eating fast food! (“Huh?”) What mattered was which sandwiches he ate (low fat ones – “Aha!”).
3. Concrete – not abstract. They showed his oversized pants, how much weight he lost (450 lbs down to 180 lbs), what sandwiches he ate.
4. Credible – a guy who wore 60-inch pants is giving us diet advice! He’s been there!
5. Emotional – we tend to care about individuals more than about a mass (which tends to just make us analytical and therefore detached – not what you want.) It also taps into the more profound levels of Maslow’s hierarchy; it’s about a guy who reached his potential with the help of a subway shop.
6. Story – our protagonist overcomes big odds to triumph. It inspires us to act.

This has inspire me to give up my fishing hobby.  

From now on, I will use the 4-8-21 system to trade with the 10d60m chart.

I will short stocks with a large distance between moving averages.

Let’s keep it simple.

Based on the information FAZ, SRS, FXP are buys.

Also, pay attention to the pivot points if you are day trading.

MT, ABX which I purchased today are still in BUY mode.

Update: I feel stripped.