Market Upswing Starts to Stall

Stock Futures are up slightly on a dip in oil, which is testing the $112.50 area for a fifth day in a row, and Retail stocks, which posted better than expected earnings results. Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization and the NY Empire State Index both stayed out of the way of the market bulls by coming in slightly better than expected.

7:50 am MT: ADSK had a huge gap up, so I nibbled a call at first. I sold most of the KSS calls into the gap up. I'm also taking some profits on HOT. I sold the ILMN and GENZ calls because I think I can get a better price later in the day. In addition, I nibbled on calls for SHLD, AMZN, and RIMM.

8:00 am MT: Oil is clinging to the five-day support level, but if it goes through $112.50 into the $111's then the market will probably take another leg up in the current swing.

8:55 am MT: I sold some more of the KSS calls.

10:30 am MT: Oil dropped through support at $112.50, which is giving the market a little bit of a boost. It looks like things are getting quieter, though, because the SPX was not able to push to new intra-day highs on the drop in oil. That means the short term drop in oil may be just about done, and the upswing in the markets is either going quiet for a little while, or it’s done.

11:55 am MT: The RUT was a real gap and fade out of the gate. The drop in oil through $112.50 down to $111.35 only gave the market a temporary boost. The RUT rolled over at a lower high intra-day and looks like it’s done with the current upswing on the daily charts. We may roll this over on Monday. I unwound the IWM Bear Call spread portion of one of my IWM Iron Condors for .15 cents. I’m leaving all other Iron Condors alone. It looks like I will make money on every IC this month. This has been a good year for Iron Condors so far.....

1:55 pm MT: I stopped the RIMM call for a small loss. I don’t like the price action over there. I sold the ADSK calls for a nice profit. In addition, I sold the last of the KSS calls, and I sold part of the HOT calls. I’m keeping very small call positions on HOT, AMZN and SHLD. That’s all I’m willing to carry through the weekend.

3:00 pm MT: Here are the final tallies on the closed trades: KSS was a .66 cent profit or 23% gain. ILMN was breakeven. GENZ was breakeven. ADSK was a .30 cent profit or 16% gain. RIMM was a $170 loss on the total position. And I made .26 cents on the IWM IC, .30 cents on the SPY IC, and .23 cents on the DIA IC.

For the week: I made $1,304 on swing trades and $790 on Iron Condors for a total of $2,094 on the week. It was a decent week of trading, nothing special but onward and upward.

9:00 pm MT: Market Wrap: The simple thing I want to say in the market wrap is that the drop in oil is starting to disconnect a bit from the stock market. The major indexes had every chance and excuse to rally and stick on new swing highs today when oil dropped through the five-day support level and down to $111.35. But Smart Money wasn't buying the drop in oil anymore, and oil bounced back a bit by the end of the day. Based on the apathy towards new oil lows I'm speculating that the sharp move up in the Naz and the RUT recently are probably going to consolidate early next week. The Dow and the SPX will need to show that they can continue to hold support in the grinding, wedging uptrend that they are in. We should have interesting market action on Monday and Tuesday. I will be taking it one trade at a time.....