Poetry in Motion

I've got a riddle for you.

What well-known Jewish personality made a bundle of money on Wall Street today and needs to have their back hair waxed? If your answer is Abby Joseph Cohen, you are technically correct, but the answer I was seeking was Stephen A. Schwarzman of Blackstone.

OK, here's the second part of the riddle (isn't this fun, kids?)

What percentage of public investors have profits on newly-minted Blackstone Group (BX) today, now that the trading day is through? The answer: basically zero. Oh, I'm not talking about the midget founder of the place. He's doing just fine with his billions, thanks for asking.

I'm talking about the poor schlubs who thought they could get inside the club by buying into this stock. Virtually every single share bought is in a losing position. Nice going, folks.


Yesterday, if you'll recall, I wrote:

But tomorrow is - at last - the big day. That's right - it's Blackstone day. Apparently the demand for shares in BX is about seven-fold oversubscribed. Nothing would be more poetic than the market taking a fall tomorrow.

Well. Down 189 more points. Nice.

I actually had a great day, making money both on the short side and - for the brief bounce of the day - on the long as well. I remain cautious and humble in the face of a massively moronic and gullible public that could be coaxed into buying again. Thus I tighten my stops every day.


The Russell has been stronger (relatively) than I'd like to see. But it remains attractive to me largely due to its reasonable bid/ask spread on the options. I remain dumbfounded at the complete rip-off represented by the S&P 500 options market. It's just criminal.


Oh, speaking of the S&P - - - in spite of the recent fall in equities, we remain absolutely sky-high. Dare I even say grotesquely overvalued. Oh, well. It'll take years to sort out. Long story short, don't be fooled with the tiny inching down we've been doing. It's nothing compared to the radical overvaluation still present. Trillions of dollars of equity need to be destroyed before we are at interesting values again. Whether the top has passed it totally unknown. And it doesn't matter to me, as long as I manage and maintain these stops responsibly.


Symbol ALB bounced up to a perfect retracement, thus permitting me to re-enter the position which I closed profitably just a couple of days ago.


Symbol CAH isn't doing badly for me either. I own puts on this.


Although Cigna (CI) is too big to simply collapse, it's got a cute little H and S pattern whose neckline was broken today.


A new short I think I'll enter next week is - again - Malaysia (EWM).


I've got to hand it to Google (on which I have not had a position in a while) - - they seem to be doing everything right. This is a gorgeous bullish pattern - just beautiful - particularly in light of today's market action. Poor old Yahoo is just a mess. Why anyone ever used Yahoo in the first place - - I thought they sucked in 1996 when I first tried them - - is beyond me.


Goldman Sachs (GS) suffered some today, so my puts prospered. This isn't a big fall by any stretch. I guess maybe the lame-o BX reaction hurt them? I don't know.


I continue to hold my JC Penney (JCP) puts, which push a little higher into the green each day. This is a dynamite pattern. Never has polyester clothing been so good to me!


I haven't shown Meritage (MTH) in a long time, but I just want to use this to illustrate the kind of slow grinding death equities can go through. I think this is a good proxy for just about the entire stock market, although housing got a head start on the rest of us.


It's been a good week. Particularly since the detractors are too sheepish to show their faces around here during down days. So let's celebrate:

Nattering Nabobs

It's a pretty predictable trend. It the market goes down hard, the comments section is filled with kudos, praise, and huzzahs. And if the market goes up big, the comments section is filled with barbs, told-ya-so's, and permabulls. Either way, it's pretty tedious.

As I've said many times, this blog's purpose is for one person - me - to share his thoughts about the market via some charts. Nothing more. You can get ideas from it. You can take those ideas and turn them upside down (short everything I buy and buy everything I short). It's really up to you. All I hope for in the comments section is a place for other people to offer other ideas. Because there's plenty of interesting opinions out there.

Today, like yesterday, was another "up" day (although not nearly as dramatically). That's fine by me. Now, if tomorrow is up too, I'm going to start to worry. A healthy snap-back rally is terrific in the scheme of establishing lower highs and lower lows. But a continuous push higher can result in what we saw back in early March, where the allure of a drop was squashed and the market simply sashayed its way on to new lifetime highs. My view of the S&P 500 right now is along these lines:


I've got some puts on the DIA with a contingent stop at 136.16.


Symbol CEG has a nice series of lower lows/lower highs. I'm short.


Malaysia (EWM), mentioned here before, continues to look toppy in spite of recent strength in Asia.


I mentioned Goldman Sachs (GS) before. It had pushed its way to a new high yesterday, but once earnings were released, the stock fell on the news. It's not that the earnings were bad - on the contrary, they blew away expectations. But "buy the rumor, sell the news" is as true now as ever.


My puts in JC Penney (JCP) continue to do well, although nothing really great is going to happen unless/until the neckline shown on the pattern breaks. But it could be soon.


Gary mentioned my "bearish" energy suggestions; not at all. I think in passing I mentioned CVX and/or XOM for those who considered energy overbought. But I've devoted whole entries recently (such as "Sheer Energy") to the fact that this is the one sector that looks really bullish. The new high on the OIH today is no surprised, nor is the strength of such stocks as APA, SLB, and SWN.


PEG is another promising-looking stock to short, similar to CEG's pattern.


Finally, your clip of the day. This beautifully captures how I've been feeling about the comments section (especially the TTT situation). There comes a point when I just want to jump off the train.

Love So Deep, Kills You In Your Sleep

I'm no better. I just know I'm not any better of a person than any of the bulls that frequent this board.

When the market is roaring higher........when bears like me are getting slaughtered .........it's only natural that you gloat. You announce how the market is just going to keep going up forever. You wish for the destruction of all the bears. And you offer up reasons why It's Different This Time and there will never be a down market in your lifetime.

So - as the kids say, good on you, because I'm no better than that. The market is a battlefield. Wiser souls - of which many claim to be, but hardly any of them are - are truly neutral, and they position themselves to try to take advantage of the ebb and flow. Mere mortals, like your humble narrator, tend to be more dogmatic. History - and human nature - tend to make the vast majority of them bulls. And a vanishingly small number are bears. So - join hands around the campfire, and let's sing!

I hate you. You hate me. We're a trading family. With a big fat drop, and a knife from me to you. This one day, you get the screw.

So allow me to remind everyone of the disposition just four trading sessions ago. Last Friday, June 1st. Hardly a blip in time. The Dow had made another lifetime closing high. Let's review some of the comments offered up:

Permabull NewEquity wrote: I just bought 100 DIA calls mid-day for the ride back up through all time highs. No resistance at all and we should break 14k Dow in the next 3 weeks according to my tech analysis guy.

John (B) predicted, regarding the S&P 500, whose closing price today was 1490.72: "Putting these numbers in my model, the 500 fair value today is 2,300...and based on earnings for next year, fair value would be about 2,800."

And, lastly, Beanie11111 declared the bottom for a number of stocks: "...AKAM has bottomed...SBUX has bottomed.....WFMI has bottomed." As a follow-up, in the mere four days since that post, those stocks have declined 3.2%, 5.9%, and 6.5%, respectively. So I guess some people have different understanding of bottoms than others.

Suffice it to say, the past three days have been very good for me. Indeed, I had trouble deciding what charts to show, because they are all gorgeous. Every single one - every one - of my dozens of positions pushed way higher today. I even made some very profitable intraday option trades - both long and short! - with the Russell 2000.

The Dow fell 1.48% today. And, after the regular market closed, the ETFs on the indexes just kept falling. The DIA wound up down 1.96%.

I actually would not be surprised to see a very short, very sharp drop first thing in the morning followed by a rip-roaring push up. Looking at this channel, it seems to me the selling is a touch overdone (on the very short term) at this point. You hear me, fellers? I'm not saying we're going to enjoy another 4th day plunge. Nice as it would be.


Zooming in closer, you can see what I mean. Now, of course, all trendlines are eventually broken. And if the one shown here is decisively snapped, it could be a new ball game. But the past 11 months have made me paranoid, and although the last 3 days have been sensible, I still don't trust this market or its participants.


Akamai (AKAM) hasn't plunged as fast as I hoped, but it's doing OK. It's still a very nice pattern, and I've got some nice green on this one.


CSX is way the hell above its trendline, and it is sporting a cute little head and shoulders pattern to boot.


CVX would definitely pop up if the market strengthened, but that would just give me another opportunity to add to my bearish position.


I closed my Deere (DE) puts today at a nice profit. Not because I think the stock is going to be strong. But only because I'd like to re-enter them at a better price, assuming the market "recovers" some in the very short-term.


The Asian markets are having a touch of reality. My EWM (Malaysian market) short is doing nicely. I daresay the Asian markets will kind of freak out during their Friday session, which might make our Friday session interesting as well. But, if forced to bet, I'd say we'll probably close higher, Asian freakout and end-of-week jitters notwithstanding.


InfoSys (INFY) finally cracked its neckline, although it still seems to behave stronger than I'd like to see. Would you plunge, already?


JC Penney (JCP) - on which I bought puts yesterday - had a nice fall due to weak retail sales. Of course, a true break of this neckline - - - the pattern is only just forming now - - - would make these puts fantastically profitable.


Merrill Lynch (MER), along with my other investment bank shorts, soured (for the bulls) today.


Oh, a couple of final comments to two users before the video. TomTheTrader, please stop posting your URL. I consider that an ad, and I'm going to be more consistent about nuking comments that are ads in any way. And Gary - for goodness sake, we get it. COT, COT, COT. Message received and understood. Lordy. Oh, and as for you readers that only show up on big down days like this......shame on thee!

Anyway........

'Til Tuesday

It's really simple.

Tomorrow morning, the CPI will be released. The market will react. If it reacts poorly (which means down, which is a good thing), it's party time. If it finds the report vigorous and exciting for some reason, that's a bad thing for us. Because, simply stated, today made a lot of sense to me, virtually all my positions went up, and all my charts are positioned for juicy profits tomorrow. But a perverse reaction to the CPI could muck that all up in no time.

I said last week that Massey Energy (MEE) was looking like a good short, given its head and shoulders pattern. One person wrote in that evening's comments section.....

I'd stay away from shorting MEE... One of these Merger Monday's it's name is going to be on the "acquired list" and that's going to suck for anyone short it. Crappy management, but great reserves, and the coal bidness ain't going anywhere soon....

Well, the stock took a big fall today, and based on this pattern, there could be plenty more room to fall.


Indeed, some of the put options on this went up literally thousands of percent. Not bad!


On a more bullish note, another stock I've been mentioning as a beautiful buy is ONT, and it continues to do terrific. Check out the strength of that volume!



Because the market is so complacent right now, many puts are being sold on the cheap. Check out this chain from earlier today for MMM. Just look at the October put. For 63 cents (if you strip out the intrinsic value)......63 cents per share!......you get the right to sell the stock at a fixed price of $95 any time between now and October. Even more interesting is the fact that time premium is just about zilch.....July is the same as June....is the same as October! Incredible.



The Major Market Index ($XMI) does a nice job of showing where this market stands. If - - and I say if - - the market even freaks out a little at the morning's CPI, tomorrow is going to be a fantastic today. Today was really good, only because I was running around buying puts when the Dow was up 50 and everything else was basically stalled. I knew it wouldn't last.


I've got to blast off to a meeting, so I'm just going to throw you raw symbols now, all of which I have either puts on or I am already short. Here we go.....AKAM:


BEN:


CROX (can you say fad?!!?!):


CRR:


DE:


EWM:


INFY:


MMM:


RIMM:


WHR: