Besides the great play in GS calls, I also worked with DIA calls, DDM and QLD during the day. I was in the groove and had a totally fun , but tiring day trading. I got in and out of all, but still have my DYY positions, and a smidgeon of DDM.

Although I had a good day, the market was actually pretty crappy. It was a slow grind up and then a pretty quick fall into the close. Looking at how oversold the markets were by the end of day on Wednesday, you would think the bulls could mount a greater attack, much less peter out at the end. This market is very indecisive on which way to go, so maybe the bulls and the bears just need to get along for a while

11. I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

10. I went to buy a toaster oven and they gave me a bank.

9. Hot wheels and Matchbox car companies are now trading higher than GM in the stock market.

8. Obama met with small businesses - GE, Pfizer, Chrysler, Citigroup and GM, to discuss the Stimulus Package.

7. McDonalds is selling the 1/4 ouncer.

6. People in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and are learning their children’s names.

5.The most highly-paid job is now jury duty.

4. People in Africa are donating money to Americans.

3. Motel Six won’t leave the lights on.

2. The Mafia is laying off judges.

And my most favorite indicator of all.

1. If the bank returns your check marked as “insufficient funds,” you have to call them and ask if they meant you or them.

My DYY positions continued down until the announcement of the Treasury auction…DYY has a portion of its assets in 3-year treasuries. It recovered a bit. The other trades I made today was averaging down in price some GS Jul 135 calls. I was about to give up and just take my losses when the market, but more importantly, GS turned up and made a nice recovery. My GS call position is sitting very nicely in the green. GS earnings are next week, so I’d like to see a move up to a great earnings report.

Futures this evening are still excited about the move up…they are continuing to the upside. Let’s see how Asia and Europe will react. Maybe that little bounce to test the June highs

And all you FAZ / FAS traders, don’t forget the 10-to-1 and 5-to-1 reverse splits are effective tomorrow. Time to make….or lose…a lot of money fast again.

The point I want to make is that, where is that $800 billion of stimulus and aid going? If people can’t get loans or credit, how is the recovery going to happen?

Oh well, I digress. I bought and sold both TZA and EDZ today, which made for a good day. But the DYY I had purchased yesterday continued to sink…which also means that commodities are sinking as well. Now what I would like to see is a big gap down on Wednesday morning with a strong reversal…one with strength AND volume. With a month of meandering with a downward bent, it may be time for a spurt up, at least to test the June highs. The test may just bounce the markets back down again, but at least we could put it in the books and wait for a breakout.

Okay, I can’t solve the world problems today. Back to the charts!

I went to cash before the holiday, so I didn’t care what happened this morning. But after I saw the futures down and the market going down at the open, I thought how nice it would have been if I had held on to my TZA and ERY!

During the morning I did see a scalp opportunity in BGZ so I quickly made 50 cents in about 10 minutes. But after that I couldn’t keep track of all the ups and downs I kept running into. So I sat back. After the markets started to recover I looked for some longs to get, but still was a little scared in any direction. At the end of the day I nibbled on some DYY, the commodity double long, which looked very oversold. We’ll see….

With the Dow and S&P500 closing up today, after being down so much in the morning, we may see some bouncing in the morning….another “turnaround Tuesday?” We’ll see….

Economic reports today were worse than expected. You still have to wonder why we are up after reports that mortgages applications are down and a half million people lost their jobs? I think things started to weaken in the afternoon when traders noticed no one was selling cars and that several states were having budget problems.

I thought I was going to be happy when I heard that mortgage applications were down. And then I was almost ecstatic when I heard that ADP Employment report sucked…but no! Markets moved up, I couldn’t see why, but they did. I did shave shares off as the markets went up for a loss, taking almost half off. But I also scalped some long ETS like TNA and BGU, taking $50 here and a $100 there several times. It soothed the pain from my short positions, but I never recovered all.

I’m still in small short positions using TZA and QID. I’m looking for a spike after the Employment Report comes out at 8:30AM EDT to maybe come out breakeven for the week. After I unload my remaining shares, I’m looking to go out and buy enough beer to last the long holiday weekend

But then sanity came back to traders when we heard that mortgages were defaulting at a greater rate and that consumer confidence was down. The market went down, as you would expect with this kind of news…and thus, my short ETFs went up: QID TZA. Following along were some QQQQ puts and IWM puts. By mid-morning my biggest winner was the IWM puts so I sold those off and half of the TZA position. Lunch time brought the usual meandering up move in the markets, so I refilled my TZA position.

Near the close, the Plunge Protection Team was in full force, artificially taking the market up. Listen to what they were saying about the PPT on CNBC: Economic Analysis. And also read about all the “transparency” the government is removing from our markets at the Zero Hedge blog It’s hard to trade against the U.S. government.

So I remain in a short position because I think all the news can’t be good tomorrow morning: ADP Employment Report, ISM Manufacturing Index, Construction Spending, Pending Home Sales, and Motor Vehicle Sales. We will also hear from California if they will be paying their bills with IOU’s or Fed bailout money. The Feds can’t backstop everything coming down the pike. Almost looks like a horrible car crash in slow motion….or some sort of crash

It’s

What trading pairs means is that you buy one market while going short the other market in the same sector. Now AAPL and RIMM are battling it out right now in the smart phone sector. It remains to be seen who is going to be triumphant in this battle but it would appear as though Apple may have the upper hand. Trading pairs is what many professionals do when they are unsure as to the direction of the general market but feel pretty comfortable in their analysis of the relationship between two stocks.

The video is free to watch and there is no need to register.