Friday flutter (updated)

2:53 am (Hawaii) AAPL has slid from 567 to 563+ in premarket. FAZ remains above 24, but there's been no move back to 24.50, which is where it was in afterhours trading yesterday. Less than an hour before the opening bell, 67% of my main watch list is red, albeit many of them don't trade at all before the bell.

Various scenarios could play out.

A. The market is long overdue for a bounce, and the JPMorgan debacle simply gives it a chance to capitulate (barf out remaining toxins) for the near term, bottom out and move higher

B. The market absorbs the JPMorgan-induced fears and refuses to crater, but also refuses to rally. A lingering fever with flu symptoms, so to speak

C. The machines are ordered to trade higher immediately, as has been the case in the mornings recently, before selling off in the afternoon.

C appears possible especially since it's a Friday and holding anything long over the weekend is not going to be a popular strategy.

There is, of course, a D. That would be a flush-out with the opening bell that stays down for the count through the entire day, and additional selling near the closing bell as traders run for the hills with Europe in flux and domestic financials unable (or unwilling) to guarantee that there will be no further JPMorgan-like screwups leading to losses in the beeeeeeeeeellions.

I'm not married to any of these or other possibilities. Must lock in and capture profits. Period.

Still long FAZ. For now.

Update 2:51 am Interesting that an NBC host is saying this morning that Dimon is still upset with the White House, yadayadayada ... seriously. After the environment that allowed Wall St to rake in huge profits and still get bailed out, that's ludicrous.

This can't end well for most of the banksters, though I doubt the bosses on top ever do time in lockdown.

Update 4:18 am out of FAZ at 23.48, a loss of 0.18 per. Small, small loss. But that's not relevant. What's relevant is I didn't pull the sell trigger while it sat there hovering around 24.12 after the opening bell. I was not prepared to see it go from 24.30+ just before the opening bell to 24.10+ at the bell. Plenty of sellers, should've anticipated that. 

But I contemplated adding more. I felt 24 was going to be a new floor instead of sticking to price discipline. So instead of a decent profit, it turned into a small (paper) profit. And when it couldn't hold 24, it was a nosedive to 23.60. I held through a couple of dips below 23.50 and finally got out. The indices are turning green, which means the whole JPMorgan mess didn't spur a major selloff, but may have completed (temporarily) the recent downturn. 

It's annoying to say the least. But JPM has held above 37, AAPL is back to 570 and FAS, which was below 90 earlier, is now at 93.20. 

FAZ is at 23.32 now, still up 2% for the day. But until more banks confess their derivative sins, buyers will keep pouring in. Maybe. 

So, it seems A and C are still in play. The sellers are out of product and buyers are waiting eagerly (A). Or the machines are buying up the market and will sell it off in the afternoon (C).

Nowhere does it seem possible the market heads lower, not if it can gulp down JPMorgan's mess and move up.

Update 11:15 am Indices were green for a majority of the day, then sold off toward the close. Nasdaq finished barely positive (+0.01%) while Dow was -34 (-0.27%) and S&P was -4.6 (-0.34%). Essentially, they were flat.

Business Insider reported that Fitch downgraded JPMorgan, which is interesting. Why Fitch and nobody else? How much fear is there of Dimon and his minions? People may despise the banksters, but he is what he is and he's usually fantastically good at it in a way that requires doses of finesse, outright thuggery and charisma. In other words, he would've been a hell of a mafia boss.

Mike Khow of Options Action suggested that ZNGA is one way to play the Facebook IPO. Said that Zynga is trying to steer its users to the company's website, to capture more ad revenue, etc. Still not touching that. Just like GSVC, which had a huge gap down to 16 today (from 18+) and rallied to 17+. It sold off on ... what? JPMorgan news? Are you kidding me?

Maybe I get a few shares of GSVC the next time it touches 16. But with FB so focused on its own game (yeah, Zuckerberg and his hoodie were a basic F-You to Wall St), it clearly didn't help FB plays like GSVC and SVVC much this week. They both were up big already this year, so buying GSVC at 18+ (I've done it) is an act of greed, to a degree.

But, the day is about done and the lesson is clearer than ever: Take profits quickly. As soon as I held FAZ more than overnight, for more than a few hours (or minutes), it loses footing and falls through the ice. During the latest run (in the past 24 hours), I've owned it twice and had two very small losses. Both times, I had decent paper profits.

Back in FAZ before the closing bell. We're only 1/3 of the way through May and there's no clear catalyst in sight for the rest of the month. If Europe's financial disaster gets a little fixed up over the weekend, I'm ready with some gunpowder to load up long. But Greece doesn't fix anything soon with that cast of characters.

Update 11:31 am AAPL ran from 561+ to 574+ this morning during the post-JPM rally. Then it sold off back to 566+. I still anticipate a pullback to 546 (Fibonacci retrace). Apple had a little iCloud leak/peak today, and there was talk on CNBC about the Apple TV, a supposedly leak from Foxconn in China.

Fear and no fear

10:14 am (Hawaii) Not long ago, perhaps a few days, the market seemed to tremble with the end of QE2 — the lingering aftereffects. But today? Stuff like Orbitz (OWW) shot up 26%. It was already up from recent lows in the 2.20s to 2.76 in the final half hour of the session. Then, from what I understand, CNBC touted the news of Orbitz's new deal with Virgin Australia.

How good is the deal? I've yet to see any numbers crunched down to specify even the potential of what it means for OWW. But it was enough for daytraders to take OWW from 2.76 to 3.18 before the closing bell. I bought OWW on its last short squeeze a month ago at 3.45, only to sell my teeny weeny position at 2.35 or so a week later. Of course, when the pain is too much, that's usually when smart shoppers open a position, not sell out. But for OWW, it's another day in the daytrader zoo. Where does it go in afterhours? In tomorrow's premarket?

Let's just say that fear is not in the market right now. Obliterated. OWW is back to being a favorite toy. So is GSVC, which hit a new high of 18.70 in the morning, but finally pulled back below 18 before the close. One thing is certain: whether it's an overhyped deal for a stock related to the wonky travel/airlines industries, or a knee-high stock that has a little toe in the sexiest IPO of the future (Facebook), daytraders have a sense of urgency. They have no fear of the present, but fear of the future — say Thursday or Friday or Monday — is coming. They trade recklessly and jump ship at the first sneeze, lest they also catch that dreaded piggy virus that plagues the majority of short-term traders.

Though OWW seems like the better value at 3.25 (afterhours), will it ever get a trigger mechanism like Facebook under its wings? No way. GSVC has a float of 3.34 million shares and could go to 10 just as easily as it could go to 25. But I'm touching neither here. With short-term daytraders and high-frequency robots dominating the action, it makes more sense to plant a seed, take a tiny or small position in an underappreciated name. Then wait. And wait. It breaks out, take half the profit off the table. Let the rest ride.

All that would matter is, who is the next GSVC or OWW? That would be a patient soul's game. Trying to time the ride when the world is typing frantically on CNBC hype is far too crowded far too often. I haven't mastered a darn thing, but I'm getting closer each day.