Trimming Up

I opted to sell my puts on FGP (-19%). It's just running too well. I also started feeling like CRM and ATHR could bounce and take me negative so they went too  (+5.4% and +21.5% respectively). That still leaves puts LEAP & SGT (both maintaining a profit) and ALSK and BMRN (both flat). Plus (5) bull call spreads and about as many stocks (all long).

VectorVest is calling for aggressive traders to go bottom fishing, and for conservative traders to consider entering the market with a bias to the upside.

Finally, our value-sales port from early Monday morning.

Bear++

I watched my AMD and MU shares trade flat in an up market yesterday morning then sell off a few percent. They can't keep going down can they? Then the same thing happened again this morning. Sell All Shares -> Market -> Execute. Done!

I'm still holding out hope for VSH, VSEA, and YONG. CIB is bucking the trend by showing a profit AND going up.

Bought puts for LEAP. 5 of 8 put positions are profitable, the other 3 are at break-even (0).

Bear Trades

Sold FLEX calls. Bought puts on ALSK FGP & BMRN.

Fingers crossed!

Hoping for Another Up Day

We're due for a few "up" days which I'll use to liquidate more long positions and go short with those funds.

Today's trades: My SIGM bull call spread hit its sell limit (+13%) and sold to close. Bought CRM (c) puts.

There are plenty of reversal alerts but you can't play them without getting whipsawed to death. Its seems better to go with good stock that are running well or just short bad ones that are overvalued. Only half my puts are profitable as of the close but as a group they're doing well. CIB (c) has been cranking along.

The Biweekly Weekly Update

I've recently been investing my time in activities that have proven far more profitable than being long in the market - like sleeping and watching television. Seriously though, I'm having trouble seeing where optimism will be rewarded long term. There's this up-lifting little piece on the government's Enron Accounting. There's last Thursday's stock performance chart. Go about halfway down and note all the yellow cells. Those are the positions that just went negative for those time frames - i.e., more investments that just went underwater. I'll throw in my value-sales port that we've been tracking. It got clobbered two weeks ago, and improved slightly last week.

Recent Trades: Let's see ... I did go long with more shares of VSH, and opened a position in CIB. My bull call spreads sold for NFLX (+113%) and MRVL (+13%). I bought puts on ATHR, EBAY, and STX based on Shaeffers Research. We'll see how that pans out.

Monday, Monday

I thought I'd pick up a little SKX (f c) at a recent low. It dipped and triggered my buy order ... then just kept going down ... -8.8% for the day. Sigh. No news on why yet.

Alerts: (16) alerts on the reversal script and two on the t2 script. LCRD has a strong reversal pattern here - too bad their number are so bad I can't envision a winning play here. COCO is showing its 5th reversal signal. Most decent stocks take off on their 2nd or 3rd try. But the smart money so far has been short COCO. The other charts are too ragged to consider.

14 of 18 stocks in the value-sales portfolio were gainers today.

Weekly Recap

I'm trying to take a step back and look at the markets on a week-to-week basis and filter out some of the day-to-day noise. The weekly charts show gradual improvement. The value-sales port worked well (below).

Trades: I went long on AMD, MU, and VSEA stocks. I'll be happy to snipe a small profit from MU and let it go.

On the options front, OMG ran up and triggered a limit sell order (+12.9%). Not that I didn't think about moving the limit up earlier and forgot ... oh well. Bought bull call spreads on MRVL, DIOD, and VSEA. MRVL is just a reversal play - I'm hoping to catch a bounce off of the bottom and snipe a small gain. I'm dollar cost averaging on VSEA.

LCC has sold off some and my position is below water right now but I'm considering adding on since the earnings estimates are holding and the P/E's dropping from 237 to 3.75 two quarters out.

Reversal alerts: Not much for the week. There might be a play in QLGC based on the chart and the performance of some of the semiconductor and tech stocks. It's P/E is falling from 29 to 19 so it's value and growth are modest.

+ AMD MU DIOD MRVL

Bought AMD & MU stock just because they're so depressed though I have concerns about their future earnings. Bought call spreads for DIOD and MRVL with MRVL being mostly a shot at trying to catch a bounce off of the bottom.