Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Now that is a beautiful wig

5:21 am (Hawaii). What else would you say if someone asked you about their beautiful wig? Would you ask why they had to wear one? Isn't the truth sometimes not so preferable? It is what it is. The market is wearing a wig.

After being away for most of the night, I'm home in early morning. I knew futures were imploding and the market was way, way down at the opening bell nearly two hours ago. My watch list is 18% green, 82% red and I figure it was far worse at the opening bell. But AAPL has rallied from its LOD of 340.10 and is now trading at 345.10. I didn't step in. I'm still watching from the rafters, amazed and horrified by everything going on in this global village of ours. I've been in 100% cash for many days now, with the exception of an overnight trade in AAPL (more like over-weekend) that broke even.

Though AAPL and many stocks are off their lows, I hardly believe they're about to return to yesterday's closing prices. There will be a penalty assessed to the market whether justified or not. The heroism can be someone else's trait. I'll wait until the aftershocks wane and the radiation levels peter out. It could be awhile.

Off the edge: NGD 9.40 (-7.5%), UCO 49.21 (-6.8%), FAS 27.80 (-6.7%), EXK 8.42 (-6%), SLW 39.40 (-5.5%).

The few: TVIX 53.45 (+12.4%), EDZ 22.63 (+7.5%), VXX 35.35 (+6.1%), NFLX 211.48 (+5.1%), TZA 43.98 (+4.9%), QID 55.65 (+3.9%).

These winners, all contrary plays with the exception of NFLX, are off their highs as the market rallies from today's lows. TVIX opened at 57.94. EDZ opened at 23.49. VXX opened at 37.05. TZA opened at 44.73. QID opened at 56.70.

Can't help but wonder how much of the mini-comeback today is due to Fed injection and how much is truly coming from retail and street.

Also, Le Fly remains genius. His call on oil refiners, namely WNR, remains stout. WNR is up 1.6% to 16.24. It opened at 15.50.


Update, 6:32 am (Hawaii). AAPL above 347 for some time, a nice bounce off LOD (340+). Trader's dream. If anything is going to rally off a low, it would the maker of iPad 2 (and the whole smorgasbord of space-alien technology). If only Apple had a solution to the potential meltdowns in Japan. 

Market is remotely healthy now: DJIA -1.5%, Nasdaq -1.5%, S&P 500 -1.46%. 

WNR up 2.75% to 16.43. Refiners look rock solid today and possibly for some time to come. So why won't I step in? 

Odd movers include PSUN (+3.1%), NFLX (+6.7% to 214.57) and F (+0.9% to 14.42). NFLX up on an upgrade. Really. 

Update, 6:41 am (Hawaii). AAPL finally cooling off after the runup off the LOD. Another case of 50% factor. AAPL closed yesterday at 353.56, bottomed today at 340.10. A 50% retrace of the drop puts AAPL at 346.83. AAPL wound up rallying to 347.84, now at 345.87. Human nature can't be measured perfectly, but there are often some fairly reliable areas worth observing. 

Tuesday reading
Sign of the times: Nukalert keychain
Run Red Hot: Silver toppings 2 (Mar 12 2011)
Business Insider: Did lunar perigee amplify the Japan quake? (Mar 11 2011)
ChessNwine: Defense wins championships (Mar 15 2011)

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