New lows

Like I posted here at the start of the trading year the markets came all back to their lows set out last year and below. February is always a brutal month and so far this holds true for this year as well. There wasn`t much to post in the last couple of days as we just keep on grinding lower, slowly and steadily. For me it seems like the days of panic selling that we saw in October/November 2008 are gone for now, and the markets are entering a new phase in this bear market, namely the slow and steady bleeding. This is part of the game, and I tend to interpret it as a positive, although we are still far from finding a bottom we come one step closer. But no doubt, there`s still a long way to go and it will get even more difficult to make money in this market. Back to the shorter time frame, I am careful here with entering new shorts as the market is heavily oversold and a bounce might be coming up soon. For today, mostly I will watch the AG`s which had a terrible session yesterday and seem to be setting up for a move down shortly. Stay smart.

Buy the rumour, Sell the news

After all, that is one of the few sentences that holds true most of the times on Wall Street and so did yesterday. And honestly, the speech of Geithner really didn`t offer anything "great" the market was clearly looking for. No solutions at all, just the plan that they are planning to solve it, just how this could happen seems still in the dark. Now we are close to support levels on the SPY and the market seems ready to head lower over the next few weeks. Like I stated here before, I think we will re-test last years low and probably break them. Although it was a nice rally over the last 2 weeks. Today is another important day, as we will see if bulls can regain some of their momentum after yesterday`s plunge or if they`re giving it up for now.

Big Week Ahead

Nice rally on Friday, unsurprisingly as the markets love to rally on announcements of upcoming bailout/stimulus plans. This week the stimulus package should get the OK and tomorrow details about the recovery plan for financials will be released. From the past we know how hard we can sell off after the bailout is finally released. Let`s hope this time will be different. Good luck for this week to everyone.

Nice

There was a nice party going on yesterdays morning (GOOG,AAPL,CF just to name a few), and even some of the financials joined in (GS). Later we sold off and you got to be quick to lock in profits. As I said here yesterday, in this market environment its best to take what the market gives you and not hang around out there until things turn against you. ISRG, from my yesterdays note is another example of that. Futures are down today and it could get intresting with unemployment figures out tomorrow. ENR looks like a short to me if it can break 46.

Choppy

Another choppy day in the market with light volume. The only intresting thing about yesterday was, that we rallied while the financials were down and didn`t participate at all. Let`s see how this will play out. I guess today will be not much different from yesterday, it seems like the Street is waiting for something - maybe the pass of the stimulus package. As always, some names of my list: ALXN might be ready now for breaking 38 resistance, and if ferts are on the move CF has an intresting spot at 50 for a long. ICE above 60 mCF, ight offer another setup.

ISRG

That was ISRG yesterday with a nice move on good volume out of this basing area. Usually in this environment its best to take profits rather soon as stocks are rare to be on the move for more than 1-3 days.

Ugly

As I warned here last week when the market moved up in the pre-fed days it all ended soon, with some stabilisation coming in yesterday. We are sitting near support levels again in the SPY and sooner or later we will break through imo. Right now, I don`t feel its much of a friendly environment out there for traders like me, and you`ve got to be extra careful in order to stay profitable or at least in the business. My guess is 2009 won`t get any better for us, however hopefully I am wrong and we will get a nice environment for trading. According to all that, I don`t have to many to watch today, mainly keeping ISRG above 107 in my mind for a possible trade. GOOG had a decent run in the last weeks and might go a bit more far, so I will keep looking for possible entries if markets going up today. However, most charts are just looking ugly and so is my feeling on this market, we will retest - sooner or later.