Short term trades in the stock market •$$$$$•

[Zen Master]

You are working under the assumption that the economy is recovering. I'm working under the opposite assumption thus our conclusions will be completely different.

I was flipping thru the channels and stopped on FOX for a lil comedy and they had a clip of Bernake sayin how we're in a moderate recovery, it might take longer than expected to get through but yes we're in a moderate recovery.

I busted up laughing.

 

[gonzo`]

What you're saying doesn't make sense really, if the state of economy was deteriorating then we'd see yields rising, which we're not, and Bill Gross wouldn't have sold when he did. Regardless of recovery, the fact is yields are falling which is why he got out. He didn't get out for credit reasons, he got out because he made the most return on his investment.

The next thing to take account of is that he's now sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cash. This doesn't make much sense if he was concerned about dollar denominated assets evaporating...

The level of debt is ridiculous, no doubt, but I have to ask, is your networth in physical gold/silver and I'm not talking about ETFs, I'm talking in your hand metal, or do you also have usd denominated assets?

 

[SpasticGramps]

I have a floor safe cemented in the ground with gold and silver bullion and cash. I don't buy paper metals. I take delivery of physical.

I also have some in my 401K. I'm looking at buying a decent amount (100+) of acreage now.

Bill also said the United States is at the Keynesian endpoint. Our balance sheet is exhausted. I agree. That is going to have to be reconciled with market with some of kind restructuring of our debt down the road. Just as Greece is about to have do to.

Let me ask you this. Do you believe the employment situation is getting worse or improving? Do you really believe unemployment is 8.8%?

 

[SpasticGramps]

Since you buy into the recovery myth. Please reconcile what the CEO of Wal-Mart just said.

Wal Mart CEO: "Shoppers Are Running Out Of Money"; There Is "No Sign Of A Recovery"

When a month ago the CEO of Wal Mart Americas told the world to "prepare for serious inflation", the Chairman laughed in his face, saying it was nothing a 15 minutes Treasury Call sell order can't fix (granted net of a few billions in commissions for JPM). 4 weeks later the Chairman is no longer laughing, having been forced to hike up his inflation expectations while trimming (not for the last time) his economic outlook. "U.S. consumers face "serious" inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, the head of Wal-Mart's U.S. operations warned Wednesday talking to USA Today. And if Wal-Mart which is at the very bottom of commoditized consumer retail, and at the very peak of avoiding reexporting of US inflation by way of China is concerned, it may be time to panic, or at least cancel those plane tickets to Zimbabwe, which is soon coming to us." In light of that perhaps today's words of caution from Wal Mart CEO Mike Duke will be taken a tad more seriously (yes, even with the $50 billion in "squatters rent" that the deadbeats spend on iPads instead of paying their mortgage: that money is rapidly ending). Warning is as follows: "Wal-Mart's core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried. "We're seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure," Duke said at an event in New York. "There's no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact." Tell that to Printocchio please.

The middle class have been getting fleeced by the elites of this country for decades. They are about to disappear completely.

 

[SpasticGramps]

Or maybe explain to me why stagflation is a good thing for us? Cause from where I'm looking we've screwed the pooch.

Economic growth slows, inflation surges Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Economic growth braked sharply in the first quarter as higher food and gasoline prices dampened consumer spending and sent inflation rising at its fastest pace in 2-1/2 years.

Another report on Thursday showed a surprise jump in the number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits last week, which could cast a shadow on expectations for a significant pick-up in output in the second quarter.

Of course they don't mention the constantly revised upward unemployment numbers weeks after they are released. Release then revise. Release then revise.

If we learned anything from the 1970's central banking wizards have no answer for stagflation, expect really really high interest rates. Volcker up it to the 20's back then. The problem is so exponentially worse right now that it's laughable. Well, it's a laugh rather than cry anyway.

 

[Donald Trump]

awww poor wal-mart

 

[TNTBudSticker]

Shorting RAX ? wow..I can't read that trade for the week.

I rather short WYNN...Got some good Bulls and Bears movement.Since that nice spike.

 

[SpasticGramps]

Interesting music videos if you understand the fundamentals of Keynesian vs Austrian economics.

A Keynes vs Hayek rap video. Interesting times indeed. (Watch the bottom one first)

Keynes Vs Hayek: The Sequel

Two sides to every story. Realism and Idealism. Keynes and Hayek. Illusionary and Real Market Forces.

 

[Madrus Rose]

Here gramps , an excellent link shared me by Tobago Jack a mentor who lives in HK very good indepth anaylysis which points to the same complacency thats been overwhelming caution to me as the Fed tries to play the card that the economy is in recovery , yet GDP fell to under 2% this qtr & Japan's pretty much in full recession .

The Magic of the Echo Bubble
April 28th, 2011 | Author: Pater Tenebrarum
http://www.acting-man.com/?p=7356


Social Mood Interactions and A Surge in Bullish Unanimity
It is a phenomenon we have observed many times. The stock markets recent performance history is the main factor determining how people – including economists – view the future performance of the economy. It may be that they erroneously believe that the stock market is 'discounting' something. More likely though it is just another side of the same coin: the optimism that pervades the minds of traders bidding up stocks infects all of society.

Our point of view is generally more contrarian and therefore represents a minority opinion. We look at the biggest post WW 2 era deficit spending spree, the biggest exercise in monetary pumping (in absolute terms) in all of history, and then look at how pathetically weak the recovery has been so far and feel compelled to ask:

Is that really all we get out of it?

The recovery so far in terms of unemployment – this is all we get out of all that money printing and deficit spending? We should be very worried it seems – click for higher resolution.

If that is all, so we reason, then it must mean that the sequence of boom-bust cycles that has bedeviled the economy and the enormous growth in unproductive debt and the supply of money since Nixon's abandonment of the 'gold anchor' in 1971, have finally conspired to consume so much capital that even the most massive exercises in deficit spending and money printing can create nothing but a pale shadow of the previous artificial credit-expansion driven booms. It seems the effort is akin to feeding Viagra to a corpse – no matter how many pills you stuff into it, it won't get an erection anymore.

In all likelihood, the economy's pool of real funding has suffered great damage.

And yet, the monetary pumping has not been without effect. The liquidation of malinvestments has been arrested before it could be completed and relative prices have become so imbalanced that factors of production are once again drawn toward the higher order stages of the production structure, creating what we term the 'echo boom'. The distortion of relative prices is most visible in commodities and titles to capital – i.e., stocks.

The performance of the stock market is at the same time a mirror of the change in what Bob Prechter calls the 'social mood', and its performance in turn influences this social mood in a feedback loop – a virtuous cycle if one is among the myriads of speculators holding extremely leveraged positions betting on more gains to come.

As a sign of how extreme these bets have become, consider that customers' 'free credits' at the NYSE have just fallen to their third lowest level in history – only bested by the extremes seen in early 2000 and late 2007. As Jason Goepfert at sentimentrader.com recently reported, the respondents of the Barron's 'Big Money' poll have never before been as optimistic as they are now. It is not so much that they are all bullish, but that there are simply no longer any bears.

A similar story is told by the NAAIM survey of fund managers. These managers are asked about their positioning and can give replies ranging from '200% short' to '200% long'. What has never before happened in the survey's history has happened in recent weeks: for four weeks running, there was not a single bear. It simply can not get any more lopsided.


more ...

 

[Madrus Rose]

QE2 is Damaging the Economy and Reducing GDP Growth...

QE2 is going to go down as one of the worst monetary policy initiatives in the history of the modern Federal Reserve era.

Read more: http://community.nasdaq.com/News/20...g-gdp-growth.aspx?storyid=72544#ixzz1KtXI1fmT

By Dian L. Chu, EconMatters

QE2 is going to go down as one of the worst monetary policy initiatives in the history of the modern Federal Reserve era. On almost any metric applied, QE2 ends up not only falling well short of its proposed goals, but actually turns certain metrics like GDP growth negative compared with the prior quarter, and heading in the wrong direction.

Costs Eat into Corporate Profits = No Hiring

Analysts all over Wall Street are starting to revise their 2nd quarter GDP forecasts down, and some like Goldman Sachs have made several downward revisions as higher input costs due to a weak dollar are creating an additional burden on businesses and consumers and thus slowing economic growth.

A weak dollar (Fig. 1) to a point can help exports, but an extremely weak dollar which in combination with QE2 liquidity juicing up commodities even further, turns out to be a net negative on the economy, and risks sending the economy into another recession.

The reason for this is if businesses are having to eat higher input costs, and start to have lower margins, guess what? They start cutting costs again, and that means either stagnant employment practices or workforce cuts in the future. This would start sending the employment figures in the opposite direction, and negate much of the recent progress made over the last year.






Increase Cost of Living = Consumer Pullback

These higher commodity prices negatively affect consumers as well because they have to apply more of their income to food and energy needs, which means they have less discretionary income to spend for entertainment, retail shopping, vacations, traveling, and discretionary consumption which infuses the economy and creates jobs in the overall economy.

And since the US is largely a consuming nation, if the consumer pulls back, then businesses are going to pull back as well. This linkage of events does not bode well for employment growth, and this shows how rising input costs not only hurt one of the fed`s mandates for price stability, but can also have a negative impact on their other mandate which is to increase employment.

Increase Consumer Debt…& Defaults

There is another angle we saw back in2008 with these same level of gas prices. Namely, consumers were feeling pinched by the jump in costs for food and energy (see charts below), so they started charging up their credit cards in order to pay for the additional costs to their weekly and monthly budgets for food and energy. In short, the higher costs for these items resulted in more debt for consumers.








This means that the recent gains of consumers paying off their debts, and having more money to spend at retailers over the past year will start to reverse as consumers pay a higher percentage of their monthly budget in finance costs. The real damage starts to add up as consumers start to default on their credit cards as the high food and energy costs continue to be financed on credit cards until the consumer hits the breaking point, and just defaults.

We saw a lot of this in 2008, and this is where we are heading again unless commodity prices start to come down in a rapid fashion. There are a large group of consumers whose monthly budget doesn`t allow for a 30% increase in gasoline prices at the pump, or a 10% rise in food costs at the grocery store. So they just pile up debt until they max out their credit cards.

Dominos to Credit Card Issuers

These increases in credit card defaults hurt businesses like banks and credit card firms as they have to write off more accounts, and thus their margins start to get squeezed. This means additional contractionary effects as they respond by cutting costs, and you can readily see how this starts to become a vicious deflationary cycle.

Deflation by High Commodity Prices

This is why high commodity prices are actually deflationary in the long run. Something the fed should think about the next time they embark on a dollar weakening campaign, whether intended or not QE2 has been a dollar weakening campaign.

And for those of you who still do not understand the chain of events, and how the Federal Reserve is responsible in large part for higher commodity prices here is the chain of events.

The Fed undertakes QE2 Initiative – States goal to raise asset prices
Assets trade as a group: Equities, Silver, Gold, Oil, Gas, Corn, Soybeans
The US Dollar is used as a carry trade with such low fed funds rate (0-.25%)
The Fed encourages investors to take more risk: Go out of safe assets like bonds, and go into riskier assets like commodities and stocks.
When traders take on more risk, they use more leverage-This means shorting the dollar, as part of the carry trade like a funding bank, to use these additional funds (leverage) to invest in risk assets like Gold, Silver, Oil and Dow Stocks.
The trade starts to work, reinvest profits to buy more risk assets.
Strong Trends emerge, attracting other traders looking to capitalize on trending markets.
Technical Analysis confirms the validity of the trade –The trade becomes self-reinforcing
The dollar is shorted more for leverage, other currencies strengthen against the dollar
Dovish Fed talk serves to reinforce the trade further, dollar weakens more.
OH NO! The US Dollar is falling apart, fear spreads: Investors really buy Commodities as an inflation hedge.
Other countries like China start worrying about a falling US Dollar: They hedge by investing in Commodities.
Higher Commodities = Higher Input Costs for Businesses and Consumers
Results in Lower Business Margins and Less Consumer Discretionary Income
Higher costs, lower profits, less consumption, less goods being sold and produced
Lower GDP Growth Rate as a result of QE2 once the US Dollar reaches critical level where commodity prices rise to the breaking point where businesses and consumers pull back.
QE2 Actually damaging the economy right now.
Currency Crisis Looming

So you ask, and I am sure this is the Fed`s thinking on this matter. Well, what can just another two months of QE2 do to hurt the economy? It is almost over anyway. Let`s just continue it through to the end. Well, it is that very thinking that has investors and foreign governments concerned about the future and stability of the US Dollar.

A lot of countries and investors rely on the dollar as a store of value for their assets because it has the Reserve Currency Status. It can be weak, but if global investors start to have legitimate doubts about the safety of their assets parked and backed by the US Dollar, then we have a much bigger problem than just a slow recovery. We could end up in a currency crisis that takes down the entire global economy, thus sending us right back to where we were in the depths of the financial crisis.

Silver Market Signals Irrational Investing

But that is more macro analysis, and things would really have to spiral out of control to get to that stage, but it is possible, and that is why people are worried enough to buy physical Silver at $50 an ounce when it very well could be worth less than $20 an ounce once the rate tightening cycle begins. It makes no rational investing sense to buy Physical Silver during a low rate environment, because the investor will be stuck with a well under water investment in a 5% rate environment, unless there are legitimate concerns about the long term stability and security of the currency.

The time to buy Physical Silver was when the Fed Funds Rate was 5.25%, and the time to sell Physical Silver is now during the last vestiges of an equivalent Zero Fed Funds Rate. This irrational investing in the Silver Market, based upon concerns regarding the long term stability and security of the US Dollar, is one of the unintended consequences of the QE2 Initiative, and from a macro standpoint should raise a few eyebrows within the Federal Reserve.

Micro & Macro Effects

The Federal Reserve should weigh not just the Micro benefits to a policy initiative, but also the macro effects as well. Furthermore, there are many unintended consequences and macro concerns created by the QE2 Initiative that merit careful study to avoid some of these same mistakes being repeated in the future by monetary policy initiatives.

However, the more practical concern for the Fed is this--If they leave QE2 to finish out on course, and attach some dovish language to boot, investors will add another 50 cents to the price of gasoline at the pump, food prices will go up another 3 to 4%. After all, they have to pass on higher transportation costs to consumers. Businesses can expect higher commodity input costs for the next two months. The US Dollar will get even weaker, and GDP will be affected even more, as two additional months of damage will be pushing through the US Economy and Supply Chains. So this could result in the third quarter GDP be even more significantly revised down by economists.

Benefits of Ending QE2 Early

This is all to be juxtaposed with the alternative of ending QE2 early, which would lead to the US Dollar strengthening, and send a strong message to speculators, driving them out of commodities, and immediately reducing input costs for businesses and consumers. This cycle becomes reinforcing which leads to a further lowering in commodity prices as funds flow out of this asset class, thus providing an instant and even greater stimulus for the economy.

In essence, the ending of QE2 this month, serves to jumpstart GDP Growth for the remaining two months of the 2nd quarter, which will then build some momentum going into the third quarter, and should boost 3rd quarter GDP growth, and set the stage for a robust 4th quarter GDP number.

Significant Two Month of Separation

The momentum is the key; you either have an accelerating economy or a decelerating economy. And right now due to the effects of QE2 we are starting to decelerate, and another two months of deceleration makes it twice as hard to restart the acceleration process. So two months could make a huge difference in either creating or destroying momentum, and setting the growth rate pace for the remainder of 2011.

The choice is obvious when asking the question regarding would the economy be better off without QE2 for the next two months? It is a resounding yes! Why this is even an issue at this stage seems more to do with the Federal Reserve saving face, than based upon any sound economic analysis of the facts at hand.

Give Consumers a Break

If President Obama wants to address the speculators for raising gasoline prices for consumers, he might want to investigate the real culprit in QE2. The easiest way to give consumers a break at the gas pump would be to end QE2 this month. The price of Oil, priced in Dollars, would drop like a rock as the US Dollar strengthens if QE2 is suddenly stopped, and Gasoline prices also trading opposite a weak dollar would start dropping immediately at the pump as the US Dollar strengthens.

In summation, if President Obama wants cheaper gas prices for consumers over the next two months, then all he has to do is make a call over to the Federal Reserve. I hear they are having a meeting this week and are deliberating over the future of QE2.

Read more: http://community.nasdaq.com/News/20...g-gdp-growth.aspx?storyid=72544#ixzz1KtXVzEgs

 

[Madrus Rose]

NTGR , TRLG winners last night but these pops shortable today ....RIMM BRCM cr@ppers
but BIG action in the Solar Power tomorrow as SPWRA got bid from Total SA (Euro's 3rd largest Oil ) for 33% premium and popped 40% after hours lifted that sector . FSLR popped almost 10pts on symp (still overvalued but basing ) its reporting next tuesday & going to be wild . TSM FSLR WFR SOL and few others in play .

ESLR on the other hand got downgraded with new target of ".oo cents" , BIG loser on the day as analysts think its going to zero .

BIDU ...stunned many friends going short BIDU in the prmrkt near $155 as felt this last 50pt move adding $12.5Bil in new market cap would tempt the hedgies to sell into what looked to be blow out earnings yesterday . You could see trading after that report all over the map because yet went nowhere but +3 as they seemed to me to be selling the news ..and they did all day today .

BIDU went from $155 down to $146 with just a little bounce eod , hardly damages the BIDU chart or market cap which now stands at $50Bil .
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=BIDU&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p73163744158

* SINA annouced yesterday that they have no plans to do a FaceBook IPO spinoff of its Weibo Chat site which has become one of the largest sites in China now , sold off yesterday on that intraday news , these Chinese Majors have been on fire gaining 50% in last 2mos , but premiums built in now .

 

[Madrus Rose]

They ran Indian portal web based REDF & SIFY again as they perrenially do everytime the Chinese stocks run and if you caught the pops & hype great , but never have seen a 11yr old web company do so badly in monetizing itself than this pile of steaming Cow Dung like REDF .

Though it has the 9th largest rating by Alexa for India page views , REDF will invariably leave a fresh new crop of saddened Bagholders as they hype it up on "India Potential" but Indians just don't spend rupees on the net like others do.

Still people get emotional & short this cr@p too soon (if u got shares ) like this guy over on Yahoo claiming to be near comitting suicide (sounded serious ) for losing everything shorting REDF

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_R/threadview?m=te&bn=15314&tid=35729&mid=35729&tof=5&frt=2#35729

REDF is worth maybe $5 and not a penny more , hope it runs to $20 .....

 

[joeuser]

Made some nice, quick trades this morning and was up about $1000, and waited for Fed announcement, which was inconsequential. Dow jumped up 30 points and I shorted a couple of "overbought" stocks, which started to pull back, but market exploded into the close and I got crushed. Each time my stocks pulled back, and I thought I was safe, market just melted higher on short covering. I was trapped and got crushed in the end. Down $1000. My initial plan this morning was to buy 5000-10000 shares on any dump of redf, but got sidetracked making other trades and missed the boat. Needless to say, REDF rocketed over $3 off it's low and I blew my chance to make $30,000.
I mostly play "hot money" stocks, and trade by the seat of my pants. I'll will be back to shorting the same stocks tomorrow that burned me today on the short squeeze. Market can't go up 100 points every day. World situation sure looks bleak to me. Don't know what everyone's so optimistic about.

What you're saying doesn't make sense really, if the state of economy was deteriorating then we'd see yields rising, which we're not, and Bill Gross wouldn't have sold when he did. Regardless of recovery, the fact is yields are falling which is why he got out. He didn't get out for credit reasons, he got out because he made the most return on his investment.

The next thing to take account of is that he's now sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cash. This doesn't make much sense if he was concerned about dollar denominated assets evaporating...

The level of debt is ridiculous, no doubt, but I have to ask, is your networth in physical gold/silver and I'm not talking about ETFs, I'm talking in your hand metal, or do you also have usd denominated assets?

Sure it can...it's called POMO...several BILLION of newly printed money being released each and every day. It's what's keeping EVERYTHING up right now. I tried to be slick and go short...not trying it again. Don't fight the Fed when their printers are running over time. Wait until the end (or close to it) of June before thinking about shorting...unless you see everyone else running for the exits.

Again...POMO. The Fed is keeping interest rates low on purpose. It's sacrificing the dollar to keep the bonds alive. The bull market in bonds is over since the rates are so low. The price of bonds is inverse to yield. When the yields FINALLY begin to rise, the price will fall. He got out because yields are really negative due to the fucked up way they measure inflation, so why own something that loses you money? He sold them.

 

[SpasticGramps]

Everything but the dollar up today. Up Up Up. I'm going to have to bust out my Dow 13,000 hat pretty soon! I keep the Dow 0 hat close by though.

 

[Madrus Rose]

Everything but the dollar up today. Up Up Up. I'm going to have to bust out my Dow 13,000 hat pretty soon! I keep the Dow 0 hat close by though.

well this was the week of Big Oils & Refiners , Big Defense & Aerospace stocks , Big Druggies , Big Healthcare , Big Rails with DOW MMM & CAT to float the boat . They also had AMZN which more than made up for Microsoft which is old tech now .

Still lagging were the Semi Equipment makers though INTC kept the SOX going ...but even though the oil/refiners like XOM, CVX , VLO , COP all had stellar profit reports they didnt move up much except for OXY today which popped well.

They got the April rally in just under the wire , part of next years bonuses are assured now . But with the exception of Google & Sir McDonald (American Royalty) who of all the companies reporting this Qtr , actually mentioned a word about any hiring ? Zero , zilch , nada ...

Mentioned the Solar stocks here after the tsunami , they sure got pops again today and this ACOM flew up 43% ....

got laughing Gas ? There's too much complacency out there ,
they sense this too , even CAT's guaranteed pop was muted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ha-ZrUPJ_E

 

[Mountain]

Watched ACOM after the close yesterday and only up about 4 points then. Been kind of keeping an eye on this one for a few months but guess not close enough...lol!

 

[FreedomFightr]

Facebook, oh wait thats right they scammed us and only allowed off shore investors to buy up stock.

 

[Madrus Rose]

thinking in the am of shorting ACOM but looked at pretty big revs & 25mil float and opted to short the 2nd am pop of NTGR just over $43 and scalped little over a point ....which is a trick of shorting these huge gap momo's in a Helium market is to always wait for the 2nd squeeze up in the am usually see 2 spikes .

ACOM also Mormon based in Provo Utah so they were prolly throwing all God's money at it & also as a friend pointed out Ancestry.Com powers the NBC program "Who Do You Think You Are " which was really popular according to them , great crossover marketing TV, web informational content, etc(never seen) It was those sizeable revs that made me leave it alone .
http://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/

* Never short anything before you do at least a quick DD & chart while reviewing & weighing the news ...generally in the 10mins of DD the stock will still be in its 2nd stage of pushing up , then you can hit the sell button .

Yesterday friend was cashing out his REGN stock as it popped huge to 70 , then just as quick fell back to $51 today . Biotechs will kill you just like the drugs will , lol...was too late to catch that pop .

 

[Mountain]

Biotechs will kill you just like the drugs will , lol...was too late to catch that pop .

I've never touched a drug or biotech stock and never will.

 

[SpasticGramps]

They were talking a lot about shorts getting crushed on CNBC today. You weren't the only one RetroGrow.

I think it would be almost impossible to short this market as long as the The Bernank is pumping POMO it's going up IMO. Barring the herd trying to exit at once. I'm no trader though. I just like following the markets.

I would think there are going to be some real nice shorting opportunities come June when QEII (the heroin) dries up.

The head currency trader from Meryll Lynch was saying that he thinks the USD will be a good play at this time which will push stocks down.

I know none of ya'll trade currencies but he explained that the stock market has really become a currency trade now because it's inversely correlating the to USD because of the Fed's intervention in the market.