Oh Look, Another Doji, That's Different.....

Alcoa missing earnings and Oil prices coming down are contributing to the softness in the Commodity and Energy stocks. The market is rolling over a bit on the news. I am stopping my half-sized SPY and DIA calls and picking up a little more Gold puts. We are right at short term support, so the SPY and DIA stop may not be ideal, and I will lose about 95 cents on average, but they are half positions and I don't want to mess around with them anymore. The breakout yesterday never materialized and the market will have to gather itself again for another try. It may not happen today, and we may roll over, we shall see......

I did pick up some more BG calls on the little gap down this morning. I think BG could still ramp up a bit and outperform the market, it popped up 2 points after I bought the calls. I picked up puts on GDX and ABX, and I added to my other puts from yesterday.

We are at an important tipping point hear at 9:55am - 10:00am MT. The Dow, SPX, and Naz had a potential Bear Flag on the 30m charts after bouncing off support. The Naz also tested into a little Bear Gap at the same time. The market is starting to roll down a little and may confirm that Bear Flag. If it does, it's possible that we don't hold short term support and we roll over for a day or two. It is interesting that the International Monetary Fund said "total losses due to the financial market turmoil may grow to $945 billion. This is a substantial increase from the current write-down total of $232 billion." Write-downs, by the way, are mostly due to losses from gambling on CDO's. Now, this isn't necessarily going to change the Neutral Intermediate Term market posture, but it could facilitate a short term rollover.

I started taking profits on BG. I'm nibbling out just a little in the 104.50 - 105.00 area for a nice little profit so far.

The Bear Flag did take us back to support intra-day, and that's where we sit.....and sit......and......We'll see if the market bounces into the close or not. Maybe the market is trying for a new record for most Doji days in a row.....

Heeyyyy, look at that, another Doji.....The market had a Doji Day, we haven't seen a Doji for awhile. I think we need another Doji.....Alright, so that's 5 Dojis in a row. Well, the good news for the bulls is that the market doesn't want to toss in the towel short term. The bad news for traders is that you really have to cherry pick around to get some stocks that are moving. I like the Gold puts, the IGT put, and the DBA put. BG is banging its head against the 50 day moving average, so I may scale out of a little more if it bangs it again tomorrow (104.50 area). There really isn't much to say about today. I do like the way ABX and GDX confirmed rollovers today, and after a Tombstone Doji / Shooting Star candle yesterday. Gold is a little range-bound, but if Gold stocks drop a couple more dollars down, I will have some very nice put trades.

The market didn't do much today but Coal, Metals/Mining, and Steel went strong to the upside. The outlook in the Coal sector is viewed as bullish by traders after positive comments by ACI. A lot of the strength for the market to hold support came out of those 3 Sectors/Groups, because a lot of other areas were softer or even rolling over. The short covering continues in HMO's, so they aren't ready for puts just yet (HUM). AOC still looks good, but I'm tossing TRV off the bullish list.

Here are some interesting stocks from today:

Bullish:

BEN bounced and is right at a critical resistance - can it break out?
LVS may be ramping up - can it break resistance at 84? WYNN is in a Bull Flag.
MET is in a Bull Flag, can it bounce? AOC is the strongest stock in the group.
CAT is pulling back to support - can it bounce?
FDX is in a Bull Flag and had a Hammer today - can it bounce?
PFG is in a Bull Flag - can it bounce?
ESI may be in a Rising Three Methods (mini Bull Flag).

Bearish:

BA is right at support - can it hold?
Gold rolled over - will it keep going down?

As for tomorrow, we are still in a holding pattern, and it's still a toss of the coin for me, although I am playing more puts than calls. If the market does rally through resistance I may look at FDX, MET, the DIA and SPY, and continue with BG. I will also look at who the movers are to the upside. On the downside I'm set the way I want to be. So, we shall see what tomorrow brings.....