A lot has happened since I've been gone

    Hey, everyone...if you are still checking my blog, thank you so much.  I know I've been slacking and been lazy.  I'm going to try and be a better poster from now on even if I don't post everyday, I will try and post at least 3 times a week from now on.

     Today was quite a good day in the market's actually the past two days were quite good as we gained back almost everything we lost from Wednesday's huge selloff.  I actually thought after Wednesday we would continue downward back into the old trading range because the selloff was so powerful with 99 stocks dropping for every 1 that gained.  The bulls still have some fight in them as they wrestled back control of the market the past two days.

     As of now, we are still in a trading range market albeit a higher range than we were earlier.  On the SNP we got 1220 as the low end of the range and 1290 on the high end.

 
On the chart you can see our old trading range between 1120 and 1225 and our new one between 1225 and 1280 which we have been in for a couple of weeks now.  The bulls are buying in the 1220-1230 area and the bears are selling up around 1270-1290.  I don't see any catalyst to push us past 1280 right now although economic data is coming in good.  As long as Europe is dysfunctional we will stay in the range.

     My only position right now which I told you about last time I posted is in gold via IAU.  This trade is working out very well for me as I have a 10% gain so far which puts my trading account in positive territory for the year.  Gold has caught a bid on persistent eurozone worries and after it's nice technical bounce off the 150 day moving average which has been long term bull market support.

Gold is in a nice rising channel right now and if you were so inclined you could buy at the bottom of the channel and sell at the top.  I'm not that nimble so I'll pass on that trade.

     I have not been doing much trading recently as the market has been too headline driven for me to play.  I am not nimble enough to trade the 60 point range so I'll just watch from the sidelines with my gold.  If you put a gun to my head and said pick a direction for the SNP I'd say we are headed down and now would be a good time to lay out a short position.  But with positive seasonality, the bulls are going to be looking to prop this market into year end so it is tough to short now.

     I'll be checking all your blogs in the next few days.  Sorry for disappearing.



Disclaimer: Nothing in this blog should be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities! Please do your own due dilligence before buying any stocks or bonds!

S&P 500 breakout

      Sorry, friends about the late post today.  My internet was down this morning so I could not post as per my usual.  I am really getting pissed off at my poor internet service.  It's has been down at least 6 hours each of the past 4 days.  I call tech support and of course they have no idea what's going on.  My line is a good distance away from the main office so that is why it's always going up and down.  I'm going to call them and ask for a free upgrade and if they don't give it to me, I'm going to get a new ISP.   Anyways, on to the markets...

     Today was a very good and powerful day for the indexes.  I'm calling the breakout on the SNP 500.  This should lead to more follow through buying next week.

 As you can see on the above chart, SPY finally popped above that little red line which had been like a brick wall for over 2 months now.  It is okay to buy stocks here and I will probably do some on Monday.

Apple misses earnings shares are crushed

     Wall Street's golden child AAPL missed earnings for the first time in four years yesterday!  Profits were 7.05/share which came in below analysts expectations of 7.39/share.   The stock is down 4% in early trading after being down as much as 8% in after hours trading yesterday.

     Now AAPL is notorious for low balling guidance so analysts are always trying to figure out how much more they have to up their targets from AAPL's guidance.  Last quarter AAPL predicted they would make 6.40/share.  Analysts had raised their targets all the way up to 7.39 before earnings.

     AAPL disappointed on iPhone sales selling 17.1 million iPhones while analysts were expecting 18-20 million.  Sales were especially disappointing in September as consumers awaited the new iPhone 4S.

     iPad sales were 11.1 million which was disappointing to analysts as well.  iTunes had revenue of 1.5 billion in the quarter.  The company sold 4.89 million Macs in the quarter.  Revenue from the AAPL stores was 3.6 billion.  iPhone 4S sales were 4 million in their first three days!

    Wall Street was disappointed in the past quarter but I don't think it's anything to get scared about.  After all that was LAST quarter's results...what is more important was their guidance which they raised to 9.30/share for this upcoming quarter.  To me, the stock was unfairly beaten up.  AAPL is not one of those high flying momo stocks with a 50 PE.  AAPL is still growing, raised it's guidance and isn't that expensive to boot.  This pullback is a good buying opportunity.

Gold and silver in liquidation mode

     Gold and silver were in total liquidation mode on Monday morning as European and Asian traders are looking to raise cash anywhere they can.  Gold continued it's decline from the past 3 days as the dollar strengthened versus major currencies.  Gold was down 3.5% while silver was down a whopping 12.4% to 26 and change after earlier dropping as much as 17%!

                                               Yikes!

     There is full blown panic in the commodities space as oil and copper were down big as well.  Oil was down 2.50 to 77.50 and copper was down 5.5%. 

      Well it looks to be another roller coaster day on Wall Street after a weekend of talks between central bankers and policymakers from around the world failed to produce any agreement on how to deal with the European debt crisis.

     "There was very little official detail on the talks however as speech after speech outlined how worried global policy makers were, without offering any clear signals on what the response will be to the debt crisis," said a CNBC article.

     There was talk of a shock and awe trillion dollar upgrade to the European Financial Stability Fund or EFSF but little consensus about implementation of such a plan.  Markets have been reacting negatively to all the confusion.

Support is holding for now

     World markets are selling off once again today but strong support at 1120 is holding on the S&P 500.

     As you can see from this chart, the 112 level has been support for the last two months on SPY which is the ETF that represents the S&P 500.  Every time prices hit this level, buyers have come in and sent us back higher.  That is why it is called support.  I'm of the opinion that that we are finally going to break through 112 and head lower.   Generally when we break through support, more people start selling and we head dramatically lower.  If we can hold support here, we will probably head higher back to 1200.  We are in a trading range market for now as long as support holds.  If we break support, look out below!

Market Recap
    The big story today was gold which fell 100 dollars!  Gold has formed a double top formation and there could be more downside on the way.

   

    The reasons for gold's selloff is that hedge funds are selling their winners to raise cash.  Also, with the dollar strengthening gold's appeal as a currency hedge is lessened.

    There will probably be a buying opportunity coming up however so I am going to keep my eye on gold.  The Chartographer has a great post on gold here and basically called the top in gold.  I am real glad I sold my gold yesterday, I would not want to ride out this kind of move.

     Stocks finished today in the green with technology stocks showing strength.  The Dow was up 38 pts but the S&P 500 was up 7 and the NASDAQ was up 28.  Support at 1120 has held for now.  Overnight, SPY hit a low 110.85 but we bounced back smartly from there.  We could be heading back up the range, however, I don't know if there is strength enough for us to power to 1200 again.  But we could have a little rally from here to 1160-1170.  

     Foreign stocks did good today with European and Emergent Markets stocks doing well after getting obliterated yesterday.  I thought the selloff was way overdone on foreign stocks and so dipped my toe in yesterday and bought some EM's for my long term portfolio.  That is working out well so far as EM's are up about 2.5% today.  You can track Emergent Market's stocks with EEM.  My friend the Hasidic Plumber likes to track the Brazilian Bovespa and the Argentina Merval and you can track those with EWZ and ARGT or the Argentine Merval index if you like.

     I was away from the computer all morning so wasn't able to track the stock market and did not do anything with my portfolio.  I am definitely looking to get back into AAPL and start a position in MCD at this time.  I like stocks that have shown strength and AAPL and MCD are two of the strongest stocks in the market right now.  Cyclical stocks like CAT and energy stocks like XLE have really gotten bombed recently.  XLE is an energy index and CAT or Caterpillar is a good proxy for global growth.  These sectors are so weak it's best to stay away from them right now and stick with tech and consumer staples.  Utility stocks are also strong right now.

     Being at the bottom of the range, it would seem like a good time to get back in and set a stop at the recent lows.  I will probably do that on Monday, although I will be away from the computer that day as well. 

     

Disclaimer: Nothing in this blog should be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities! Please do your own due dilligence before buying any stocks or bonds!

Italy downgraded!

Disclaimer: Nothing in this blog should be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities! Please do your own due dilligence before buying any stocks or bonds!   

      Yesterday, after the markets closed S&P downgraded Italian debt from Triple A to A+ rating citing a heavy debt load and weak growth and a dysfunctional political environment.  Hmm, sounds familiar?  Amazing they didn't cut it before.  S&P are real idiots and probably should be arrested for causing so much havoc in the financial markets.  How can you cut the US debt before you cut Italian debt, it makes no sense unless you have an agenda!  Not saying that the US debt deserves a triple A rating but the bond market sure thinks so with 10 years below 2 percent!!  Italian debt is junk and it's a travesty that S& P is only now getting around to downgrading Italy! Put them out of business, they are worthless!  Now there is word that the SEC is investigating insider trading by hedge funds ahead of the US debt downgrade.  S&P are crooks, lock them up and throw away the key!

     The Italian debt downgrade seems to have had a limited impact on the markets so far as futures dropped about 80 pts on the news but have since recovered and moved into positive territory.  Markets opened with a 40 pt gain but quickly sold off into negative territory before recovering.  Gold and oil are both up even with a stronger dollar and the euro is down. 

     European stocks are solidly in the green at 7:18 AM PST with the FTSE up 1% and the DAX up 1.5%.  The Hang Seng index finished up 100 pts while the Japanese Nikkei played catchup from yesterday and fell 140 pts.

     The markets seem to be trading fairly well ahead of the 2 day FOMC meeting where it is widely expected the Fed will do another bond buying operation called Operation Twist.  This is where they will try to extend the duration of their portfolio of bonds by selling shorter duration bonds and buying longer duration bonds.  The size of their balance sheet will remain the same but their mix of bonds will change.  I don't see how this is going to help things because the 30 yr is already around 3.2%.  How low do they want it to go?

Stocks I'm watching
     AAPL-  Apple is making another new all time high in early going as the breakout continues.  Fast Money traders speculated that AAPL is becoming a safe haven and I had been saying that for awhile now.  AAPL has hit an all time high of 419.87 just below the magical level of 420.  OK AAPL has just hit 420 for a new all time high, so to speak.

     MCD-  McDonalds is trading very well again today up about 1% outperforming the overall market.

     IAU-  Gold is bouncing back nicely after yesterday's selloff as the chop continues.  IAU is up 1.3 pct in the early going.

     NFLX-  Netflix is down another 8% today as investors are piling out of the stock after yesterdays perplexing move by CEO Reed Hastings to split the company in two.  Netflix is the cool name, nobody gives a hoot about Qwikster!

     EEM-  Emerging markets have been underperforming US markets pretty significantly recently.  I'm not sure what's causing this.  It could be the stronger US dollar and lower commodity prices or perhaps investors fear a slowdown in the global economy.  Whatever the reasons, it is definitely worth monitoring.

One month chart of SPY(SNP 500 in yellow) vs EEM(in blue) the emerging markets index.  As you can see EM's have underperformed by about 7% coinciding with a rise in the US dollar.

Final recap

     Markets sold off in the final hour of trading today.  This was not a good finish for the bulls.  We are near the top of the range and had a big intraday reversal going from up 150 to up 10 at the bell.  I suppose it is a small victory that we did not go negative.  I got caught up in the selloff as I got stopped out of my AAPL today for about 413.63.  I had been raising my stop as I went along and AAPL got hit hard in the late day selloff and my stop was triggered.  It was still a very nice trade as I made 5% in about 5 days.  AAPL looks like it has topped for now but I will be looking to get back into AAPL at some point.

     The Dow finished up 10 pts and the SNP 500 was down by about 2 pts but the NASDAQ was down almost 1%.  NASDAQ had been outperforming recently but got hit hard in the late day selloff. Gold was up 30 bucks and oil was up a buck to 86 and change.

     This could be the top of this recent rally and we might start heading back down again.  Small caps performed very poorly today as well.  The wild card is the FOMC meeting going on.  Whatever the Fed says in the next few days will move the markets.

PS  Hey everybody, if you are interested in trading, I want you to check out a friend's blog.  It's called the Chartographer's Map Room.  This guy really knows his stuff and he's definitely a better trader than me!  So check it out if you are interested, especially if you are starting out looking to get into it, he has a lot of good advice.

http://swingtrading101.blogspot.com

Apple Breakout City!

Disclaimer:  Nothing in this blog should be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities!  Please do your own due dilligence before buying any stocks or bonds!  

      I was just checking out the futures before bed and I noticed they were down about 1.5%.  Apparently, the Greeks are having some problems with their budget...AGAIN!  They are having problems meeting their budget cutting targets to get the next tranche of bailout money from the rest of the EU.  The Greek economy is in major contraction and trying to get more money out of the greek people is like squeezing blood from a turnip!  This has renewed the fears of traders who have pushed down stock futures.  US Dow futures are down 141 pts and the London FTSE is down 1%.  The German Dax is down 2% and the Hang Seng is down 450 pts as of 12:25 AM PST.  It looks like it could be another interesting day tomorrow!  I was hoping for a continuation of the rally but it looks like we are going to head back down in the trading range we've been in for a month now.

6:36 AM PST Update

    Stocks open lower investors fret over Greek default scenario.  Investors are dumping Euro's and European stocks today as fears of a Greek default grow.  Over the weekend, EU finance ministers met to discuss the situation but failed to come up with any new resolutions and German chancellor Angela Merkel lost another regional election putting more doubt into Germany's participation in the bailout.

     The IMF told Greece that it needs to make more cuts in government spending to receive a new 8 billion bailout payment.

     "Additional savings measures were needed to cut the public deficit to a sustainable level and reduce the public sector's claim on resources—code for axing jobs and cutting pay and pensions—while improving tax collection rather than adding further taxes," said a CNBC article.

     The Euro was down by 1.5% and European stocks were down 2.5% or more.  Oil was down over 2% and even gold was down about 1% as the dollar strengthened.    The 10 year US treasury bond yield cratered to 1.96% as traders sought the safety of US Government debt.  The DJIA was down 200 pts in early going and the dollar was up against a basket of currencies by about 1%.

1:14 PM PST Update

     Markets surged in the last hour trading after news broke that Greece was near an agreement with its lenders.

     "Greece is near an agreement with its international lenders to continue receiving bailout funds, a Greek finance ministry official said on Monday after a conference call between Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos and inspectors from the EU, IMF and ECB, known as the 'troika',"said CNBC.

     The Dow Jones Industrial Average after being down 250 pts in the early going finished down 109 pts after the last hour surge.  The SNP 500 was down 1% and the tech heavy NASDAQ was outperforming down .36%.  The NASDAQ was green at one point during the day as AAPL hit an all time record high.

Stocks I'm watching

    AAPL-  Apple was up 11 bucks and hit an all time high at 413.23 earlier today.  This is trade is working out very well for me so far and if I had any more money I would be adding to this trade right here.  There could be another 10-40 dollars of upside right here.

                                  Break out city!



    NFLX-  Netflix after earlier being up 3% finished down 7%.  They are splitting their DVD and streaming services into separate businesses.

    We realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

-- Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

    If I had some nads I'd short the shit out of NFLX right now.  NFLX is a broken high growth stock and I think there is much more downside to go.

                                    U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi, charts ugly!

     IAU-  Gold tanked today after the dollar rose against a basket of currencies.  Gold is trading the opposite of the dollar recently.  When the dollar goes up, gold goes down.  Gold looks like it is going to chop around for awhile as it consolidates it's huge gains from the past few months.  My gold trade isn't working too well for me right now.  I won't be adding to it unless it goes past my original buy price.  I won't be selling it either.

     MCD-  McDonalds is performing real well in a bad tape up .59% at the close.  MCD is a classic defensive play in this environment and I am looking to add it to my portfolio.  It has a nice 2.8% dividend yield as well.  Problems include exposure to Europe, but they have nice growth in Asia and people like their cheap eats in this economic environment.  Their chart looks pretty as well.

                                       Its always a good thing when the price goes from the lower left to the upper right.

     DBC-  Commodities across the board got smoked today on dollar strength.  Copper fell 4%, oil fell 2.5% and gold of course fell 2%.   If copper drops because of dollar strength that is okay but if its down because of economic weakness, it's bad.

     Today's action at the end of the day makes me constructive on tomorrow.  If Greece get's their money it should be all systems go.  Tomorrow, the FOMC starts their two days of meetings to discuss monetary policy.  The market is expecting something called Operation Twist to come out of these meetings as the Fed looks to stimulate the economy.  Let's see what happens.

PS  Hey everybody, if you are interested in trading, I want you to check out a friend's blog.  It's called the Chartographer's Map Room.  This guy really knows his stuff and he's definitely a better trader than me!  So check it out if you are interested, especially if you are starting out looking to get into it, he has a lot of good advice.

http://swingtrading101.blogspot.com

Markets continue rally

     Markets are in rally mode this morning on a continuation of positive momentum from the previous few days.  There hasn't been any major news out today to move the markets although the University of Michigan Survey of consumer confidence did come in better than expected. 

     The DJIA is up 60 pts so far as of 7:26 AM PST after earlier being up as much as 90 pts.  The SNP 500 is up 4 pts and the NASDAQ is up 10 points.  Gold rebounded after a recent selloff to 1795 and oil is down as well to 89.29 a barrel.

    Foreign indexes were all up nicely last night with the Japanese Nikkei up 225 pts and the Hang Seng index up 273 pts.  European stocks continued their nice run of late with the FTSE up 1% and the DAX up 2%.  The Euro traded down a half a percent and the dollar was up.

Stocks I'm watching

     RIMM- Research in Motion was down over 20% today after reporting bad earnings and poor guidance.  Apple is cleaning their clocks.  It could be a nice value play here as they have a ton of cash and some decent patents they could sell.  Blackberry is still pretty popular but the problem is their playbook tablet which few people are buying.

     NFLX-  Netflix is down another 8.5% today after dropping 20% yesterday.  This stock had been one of the best performing stock of the last 3 years.  It was trading at 300 a couple months ago and is now down to 156.00.  It is time to get out if you already haven't yet!  Their business model is now in question and short sellers are pressing the gas on this one.  There is more downside to come.

     AAPL- Apple is really flirting with the 400 level today but hasn't kissed it yet.  Apple is making a nice technical breakout past resistance at 393 and out of a triangle formation as well.  Also, RIMMs bad news is Apple's good news. 

     IAU-  Gold is bouncing back today after a vicious selloff yesterday.  Bargain hunters are stepping in and shorts are covering before the weekend.

5:00 PM PST update

     Today, was kind of an interesting day as there was a "risk off" flavor to the markets.  A lot of the stuff that had been rallying furiously the past 4 days took a back seat to the laggards.  Example, recent traditional safety trades like bonds, gold, utilities stocks and consumer staple stocks rallied today while small caps and european stocks lagged.  I don't know if the market is trying to tell us the rally may soon come to an end but it is worth monitoring for Monday.  For now, I remain positive as we had another nice upday continuing the momentum of the previous four days. 

     With oil dropping today and energy stocks lagging, I am looking for an energy play perhaps an oil service name like Transocean(RIG) or an E&P like Ultra Petroleum Corporation(UPL).  I have traded XLE this year but am looking for more of a targeted play. 

     That is five up days in a row for the markets which we haven't seen since June!  The SNP 500 was up 5.4% for the week.  I like this market right here and would be adding to longs ahead of the FOMC meeting next week.  It's been the best one week gain for stocks in over a year so let's see if we can continue the positive momentum for next week!

The SNB drops a bomb

     The Swiss National Bank dropped a bomb on the currency markets today.   They unilaterally decided to peg their currencies value to 1.2x that of the euro by buying "unlimited" amounts of other currencies.

     "The SNB will enforce this minimum rate with the utmost determination and is prepared to buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities," said the Swiss National Bank in a statement.

    The Swiss franc had been rallying recently on it's safe haven status as it is one of the few currencies backed by gold.  However, the franc's rise was killing the Swiss economy as it made their products more expensive abroad. 

     "The current massive overvaluation of the Swiss franc poses an acute threat to the Swiss economy and carries the risk of a deflationary development."

     The Swiss franc immediately dropped 8% on the news.  Here is a chart of the swiss currency.

                  As you can see, the franc dropped from 126 yesterday to 116 today falling 8.5%.

     This illustrates the "race to the bottom" for currencies when central banks try to interfere in markets to devaluate their countries currency.  Every country wants an export edge and so wants their currency weaker so they can sell more products abroad and strengthen their economy.  This is why Germany likes being in the Euro.  The Euro is artificially weak because of weaker peripheral economies and this aids Germany's exports.  This weak Euro has helped turn the German economy into an export powerhouse.  Same with Japan.  Japan needs a weak yen to make their products more appealing abroad.  Look for the Japanese to do something similar to the Swiss in the near future as their currency has climbed a lot due to its safe haven status as well.  

     With everyone racing to weaken their currency, it makes more sense than ever to hold some gold.  Paper is getting less and less valuable and central banks can't print Gold.  The Swiss franc is no longer a safe haven in these dramatic times so I am looking for gold to go higher, perhaps much higher.  

     With no internet today, I was unable to watch the markets today.  However from looking at the charts, today's action was quite bullish for the near term.  We opened down big and fell to almost 300 pts down on the DJIA but rallied back throughout the rest of the day finishing down only 100 pts.    

     

     Gold, after hitting an all time high at 1923 in overnight trading had a huge reversal finishing around 1870.  This makes little sense to me as the elimination of the safe haven status of the Swiss franc should have increased the appeal of something like Gold.  I will have to investigate the reasons for this action further.  

      Needless to say, I made no moves today with my internet being on the fritz.  I am still long Gold and plan to stay that way.  AAPL looked real strong today in a weak tape finishing up 1.5%.  If this market keeps rallying, I will buy some of my AAPL back.  

     Tomorrow we get big news out of Germany where the courts there are ruling on the legality of the German participation in the European Financial Stability Facility or EFSF for short.  It's likely that the court rules that German participation is legal because if they don't all hell is going to break loose.  This should be a big market mover one way or another. 

Stocks fall sharply after terrible jobs report

                                                    Even Ronald McDonald needs a job.

    Stocks on Friday fell sharply after the Commerce Departments Non Farm Payrolls report showed employers added 18,000 jobs for the month of August.  This was far below the consensus forecast of economists of 66,000 jobs.

     The August report was hurt by striking Verizon telecommunications workers which removed 45,000 workers from the tally.  The July numbers were also revised down from over 100,000 to 80,000.

     Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer at PIMCO in Newport Beach called the employment report "grim and scary," earlier today in an interview on Bloomberg TV.

     In a particularly awful portion of the report, average hourly earnings dropped .1% to 23.09/hr and hours worked dropped 6 minutes to 34.2 hours.  This does not bode well for consumer spending going forward.  The jobless rate remained the same at 9.1%

     Government bickering, uncertainty over the debt ceiling and the downgrade of the US Sovereign debt can be blamed for the poor payroll number.  Consumer and business confidence was crushed after the spectacle in Washington.  

     Stocks dropped more than 200 points on the news on the heels of a more than 100 point drop yesterday.  Gold was up 3%  and treasury bond yields plummeted as traders bought up more recession protection. 

     European shares were slammed as well with the German DAX down almost 4% as of 7:30PST.

STOCKS

     I am watching Annaly Capital Management(NLY) again today as it has been doing relatively well in a bad tape after yesterday's thrashing.  The proposed SEC rule changes would drastically alter their business model by forcing them to reduce their leverage from 600% to who knows what.  Annaly's leverage is the life blood of their business so any reduction would be catastrophic for the dividend and stock price.  People buy Annaly for it's 14% dividend and in this low interest rate era, it would seem like one of the better places to be.  Unfortunately, NLY and MREITs in general are being attacked by the government who is trying raise revenues and looking everywhere they can.  Investors today are bargain hunting perhaps thinking that this regulation is unlikely to be enacted because it would require legislation that would be very hard to pass in this political environment.  NLY is still down .5% as of 9:21 AM PST but is well off this mornings lows at 16.80.  I liquidated my position in NLY today for a small loss.

     AAPL is also outperforming today in a lousy tape.  This reiterates my thesis that AAPL is a defensive play and a quasi safe haven in this market environment.  AAPL is coining money and has 80 dollars of cash on it's balance sheet.  It has an 80% growth rate but is trading at a backward PE of 15!  Incredible.  This stock should be double what it's trading at, but the law of large numbers comes into play here.  Stocks with a higher market cap are perceived to be harder to grow than smaller companies.  People think that it's easier to go from 1 billion market cap to 2 billion market cap than it is to go from 350 billion to 700 billion.  This is probably true, but AAPL is a different case in my opinion.

     IWM is getting crushed today again after yesterdays 2% drop.  IWM is down 3.5% confirming my idea that this rally is probably over for now.   I was contemplating buying RWM yesterday but never did and am now kicking myself for it.  Oh well, there was too much event risk there with the unemployment report. 

     We might trade down to 1120 on the S&P from here.  I feel I have missed my chance to short as we are now in the middle of a trading range between 1120-1230.   I will just sit and observe.

Disclosure:  Long IAU