MISTER BULL

Bring on the Protection!!!

misterbull — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:37:01 +0000

So I’ve gone back in the end of last week and now I’m been parring things down a little bit. I’ve sold some calls on most of my positions so I limited my upside but also protected much of my profits a little bit. I’ve also put on collars on some of my positions just in case. But I officially also initialed a small short position with a SPY put spread. I’m looking to get back into my silver and possibly a gold position but waiting for some consolidation. But there’s more earnings this week and we’ll see what happens but the market is probably a bit overbought in the very short term so there should be a little bit of a pull back sometime this week if not for the rest of it. We’ll see but I’m somewhat neutral; trying to protect all the profits this month. Actually if I close out this month where I’m, it’ll be the best month this year. I’ve been having good months the whole year only to see them turn into average or less than average months toward the end. So it’s time to close.

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Stock Market Review – July 22, 2010: Attempt at Resistance

misterbull — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:27:43 +0000

S&P 500 July 22, 2010

The market is making another attempt at breaking resistance of 1100 for the S&P 500. I think it’s going to happen this time. Usually the third time is the charm but there may be some mixed news with earnings but in general, the market has been able to bounce back especially after bad news. So it looks good. I started buying again as the market started softening. I’m a bit long with very little hedged at this time. I think money will start getting back into the market soon as the year ends because there really isn’t anywhere else for it to go at this time. I think the real estate market is getting stable with the low rates and there will be some growth there soon as the population growth because it’s been almost three years since the house recession started and people have raised their savings rates for the past two years from near 1% to close to 4% now. Corporate coffers are full. Private coffers are getting full. I don’t think all the money will come at the same time but when it starts moving, I think it’ll be rather swift.

Longer term, commodities and energy will rule again. I bought a lot of calls in silver and solid positions in CLF which have been hedged by selling some in the money puts now. I am invested in a bank, some natural gas, and short the treasuries. I’m going to start pull off some positions after tomorrow and Monday when it break resistance. The bears have much more to lose than to gain with all governments ready to keep everything stable.

Day’s Market Review – July 12, 2010

misterbull — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 06:14:36 +0000

Boy time goes by fast these days. I’ve been a bit busy with all my projects so I haven’t had much time to dedicate to trading or blogging. But I’m thinking by the end of this year, I should have much more time to dedicate to my investments. It’s probably the most efficient way there is to increase your wealth as long as you know what you’re doing or at least think you do. But if you followed the blog, you probably should be a bit more cautious into earnings or at least protect some of what you made from last week.

The rally is still going but it’s getting a little bit more weak. The market seems to have come a long way but resistance seems to have come and we’ll see a test of it. It looks like 1100 on the S&P is a critical point to watch but there is a possibility that earnings will make a big push to put it over because the markets are not quite overbought yet so we may still have some room but it’s probably time to either buy some protection or sell some calls or lighten up until we see a breakout. Either way, they are all very smart things to do. I lightened up and sold some calls but looking to enter some names when I get the chance.

The charts suggest there’s some room but just be careful now. This is where wealth preservation wins but I feel that there are more gains ahead. It’s the macro economic trends that will push us toward expansion and no one can do anything about it.

By the way, I’ll be updating the design soon. I haven’t had time to change it up because there are more lucrative web projects to work on but soon. It’s a bit of an embarrassment to have the blog in this type

Take Your Money Out From Under Your Mattress

misterbull — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:05:47 +0000

It’s time people. Gloom doom. It’s here. We all should have known because the stimulus wasn’t going to last forever and they told us that it would be running out during the summer of 2010. So here we are and should we be surprised? Should we be surprised about Europe and their liberal government spending ways? You can’t promise everyone early retirement and full benefits. Someone’s going to have to pay for it and they are going to but just through some changing to retirement ages and benefit cuts but it’ll be fine. So now that all the negatives are out there, no one feels that there is anything positive. These are the times you push forward. Let’s put the money to work.

Technically the chart looks dangerous but there is a bullish divergence in the charts. The risk reward is now skewed to the positive side as there isn’t much reward for the shorts. I think we’re here. I don’t want to say up up and away again but it sure looks like a great time to throw in that allocation to the IRA. I’m looking into techs, natural gas, commodities and some financials. Let the bulls run free again.

- Mister Bull

Market Comeback.

misterbull — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:56:42 +0000

I was positioned toward the short side with puts on the QQQQs but look what happened. I took some off the table with the near 2% drop but wow, it was pretty strong. I also sold in SRE and still holding my long term Google position. I opened up a position in TBT but I think the next major energy play that may make your retirement may be natural gas. I will write about this sooner than later.

Random Update

misterbull — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:43:24 +0000

Hey folks,

I haven’t updated for a while and to my surprise during that time, my blog was hacked. So it took me a while to access the database and reconfigure the administration entry. So I backed everything up and updated the WordPress configurations. Thank goodness, I learned how how to code and web development the last year otherwise I would have been really lost. Anyhow, I am still trading but at a less frequent level as the volatility has gone down. There will probably won’t be another two years like 2008 and 2009 for a while. You might as well have gotten a lotto ticket because many people got very wealthy trading during this period. Unfortunately, I did well but didn’t have enough capital to make it there. I’ve been working on business projects and finishing up my thesis on external investment influences on mortgage rates. So I won’t be updating often but I think I’ll update the site every once in a while when there are large turning points.

And I feel that there will be a turning point at this time and it’ll probably push the market back to the downside. I am doing decently this year but mostly playing defense unless I see that the market is oversold. I just started selling off most of my positions and holding on to a little bit. Decreasing my exposure to what I feel may be another downside move as geopolitical news takes over when earnings dies down. The recent rise was supported by rather weak volume so I don’t see any momentum. It’s a stock pickers market and there are a few good things out there but I feel that there is time for that.

Currently, I’m holding long term calls in Google with some sold calls and holding SRE for a short term conservative play. I sold out of my Walmart and GNK as I see some consolidation in those names. I don’t have much exposure at this point but I have some speculative calls on BRCD as they report later this evening. I think the risk reward in the name is good considering the valuation and the recent drop baked in there. So we’ll see.

Cautiously Cautious

misterbull — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:23:39 +0000

I’m been AWOL for a while. It’s been an ridiculously busy time lately and soon calm down for me after November. I should be off on vacation again in December. But I haven’t had the same type of eagle focus that I’ve had before on my trading account. But it’s been doing solidly since putting it on automatic since July. The money is still coming off the sidelines but at this time, I think it’s hit and gone beyond my yearly targets so I am getting a bit weary about the run at this point without any clear path to increasing sales earnings for companies.

Let’s be clear. The market will still rise solely based on hope and liquidity. The world is flush with money and it has to come out from underneath all those mattresses. However I don’t see a shift away from bonds that signal that everything is in the clear yet. The economy will not return quickly. The affects of stimulus and cost cutting are disappearing quickly while revenue and sales stay stagnant. There is going to be growth but from where? This basically tells us that this is a stock pickers market from now on and there will no longer be broad based rises in the market. I feel at this time, certain stocks are at fair value or beyond it. There are sectors that are trailing and will catch up. So to bet on the whole mark now is a flawed strategy. This is where the smart makes money because everyone joe smuck out there was making money this last eight months.

So you’re finally going to get what you’ve been waiting for…my forecast for the next month to end of the year. I figured there is a few scenarios. One the market pulls back and we can reload on certain plays that I think look just sheer winners in a year or so. The market keeps rising and so do valuations. Three, the market trades sideways for a while. I pick either side ways or down. If it goes down, you need to pick strong companies with great earning potential. So positions that I’m looking or holding include GE, SLW, MON, ALL, CNO, STT, BGC, and a few more. It’s a stock pickers market. So decide well. I’m hedge about 70% long and %70 short. So I’m trying to protect gains and make some money in case the possibility of a 5-10% pull back occurs. I think as the market goes into the holiday period, there’s going to be some volatility like usual and could force the market to pull back to the bottom of the consolidation range. If it breaks that I think it could come close to the 1000 level on the S&P but we’ll see.

Market Uncertainty

misterbull — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:54:13 +0000

The market has been hitting highs again and again. Now it seems that everyone is happy and cheery now. I think the worst is definitely behind us because we’re not going to see the type of financial collapses that we saw last year and we all expect unemployed to keep sinking. So the downside is a bit limited since money still coming off the sidelines and there’s a lot of it. So I don’t expect another major drop like the 1930s because 20% unemployment is probably the only thing that will push the market down and at this point, it’s highly unlikely unless there is some natural catastrophe or major epidemic or god forbid another major terrorist attack.

I’m seeing something more a smaller retracement led by the leaders of the rally which are techs and commodities. As the dollar trade pushes back a bit, we’ll probably see commodities pull back a bit. Perhaps oil to the low $60s and techs just retracing back some gains. It looks like at this point the pull back for the S&P would be to around 1000 so that’s 6% and I see that for the Nasdaq as well. So we’ll see. I think it’ll be a slow and strange six percent.

The key to this historic rally is based on real estate and we’ll see if all that shadow inventory of real estate comes out as a drip or a river. If it’s a river, we’re dead. If it drips, we’ll be ok. But one thing I am going to look out for in the future is probably real estate maybe going up like crazy in certain areas. Not because of Americans buying real estate but because of foreigners. When rates start moving up with inflation, US borrowers will face higher rates so they can afford less but those crazy foreigners will pay cash as prices will stay down because rates are so high. And before you know it, you’ll have a lot more Chinese and Indian neighbors.

Wave of Unemployed and Broke

misterbull — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:50:18 +0000

The extension of the unemployment benefits to thousand of fallen Americans during the great rush to layoff excessive workers, ultimately cushioned what could have been a very fragile consumer. But with the great Bear Sterns debacle coming to it’s one year anniversary, many are faced with the realization that their final source of income is coming in a very fast halt in a jobless recovery stabilization of the economy. According to the National Employment Law Project, we are going to see 540,000 have their benefits expire in about six weeks at the end of September while 1.5 million in total will face the fate by the end of this year.

It may be safe to a certain portion of this population is perhaps just relaxing on the unemployment benefits until their expire but the job market does not seem to be recovering but very cautious as there is growing preference for temporary and contract workers. In fact, looking at statistics from outsourcing sites, I’ve seen a rather large growth in outsourcing but not just out of this country but within this country as more and more of the formerly employed are positioning themselves as a freelance or contract employee. This may be a growing trend as companies will attempt to stay lean in the face of more global competition.

The statistics will put increasing pressure on consumer confidence even if the unemployment benefits are extended as they are widely expected as I expect another stimulus by sometime next year although a smaller one to supplement states.

The Trading Week Ahead – Third Week August 2009

misterbull — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 04:47:28 +0000

The market is beginning to show some weakness and that was probably expected but the fact that it pretty much recovered much of a huge drop Monday of last week was a good sign. Walmart’s earnings were a good positive as well as John Paulson’s SEC filings showing this interest in the banking sector especially a huge position in Back of America. I saw a good entry into gold miners but Paulson’s filing made them run away from my entry. Again I was eying Angola Gold (AU) which is slowly removing their hedge book which will dramatically boost their profits. But it’s difficult to question the only man to really make huge money last year. We really don’t know how he is hedging his positions so it’s difficult to see how he is really positioned but his large positions are much more difficult to hedge.

Here is a summary of the upcoming week.

Monday, August 17:

Lowe’s (LOW), Agilent (A)

Tuesday, August 18:

Cardinal Health (CAH), Home Depot (HD), Target (TGT), TJX Companies (TJX), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)

*****Housing Starts (July)… PPI (July)

Wednesday, August 19:

BJ’s Wholesale (BJ), Deere (DE), Limited (LTD), Network Appliance (NTAP), PetSmart (PETM)

Thursday, August 20:

Barnes & Noble (BKS), GameStop (GME), H. J. Heinz (HNZ), Hormel Foods (HRL), Ross Stores (ROST), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Gap (GPS)

***Initial Unemployment Claims

Friday, August 21:

Ann Taylor (ANN), J.M. Smucker (SJM)

Options Expiration… Existing Home Sales (July)

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Looking at the week, Tuesday is probably the headliner with earnings from Home Depot, Target, and HP but of course the housing data seems to always makes headlines there days as existing and housing starts will make news. With options expiration this Friday and housing data, it looks to be a feverish finish to the week. I’m not quite positioned long but waiting for some positions to come in to my ranges. I don’t sense that at this point the market will roll over until something more dramatic occurs in terms of events. Now that many companies were able to raise money the last six months, it looks like we are buying some time. But there are many shoes that may fall in the coming months which include a wave of foreclosures and the end of unemployment benefits.