Friday June 4th stock market commentary

The jobs numbers came out this morning. It's obvious that the government was responsible for job creation by hiring Census workers. Private sector jobs were up only 41,000 jobs. This was taken by the market very negatively. The Dow Futures before the report were at -60, but after the report they dropped to -200. I expect this to start the decline in the markets and to follow my predictive pattern I posted here in previous posts and repost today below, as well as what the market has done since this prediction.. This is going to be a bad day and Monday should follow through on today's drop.

You will notice from the chart above that the Eurozones Blue Chip Index looks bad and was pointing down even before the Jobs report, but the jobs report drove all of Europe's Indexes lower. Most are down about 2.5% currently.

I will add Updates on this same post during the day with comments and charts, so come back and see what has been added.

I am thrilled I am on the right side of this trade now by selling my TZA Puts yesterday and Buying the TZA Calls. Remember TZA is an ETF Ultra Short of the Russell 2000 index, symbol $RUT. So buy buying TZA Calls, the purchaser believes the Russell 2000 will be going down. TZA is a Triple short, meaning that for every 1% move down on the Russell 2000 Index, TZA moves 3% up. It is one of the most leveraged Option plays in my view.


Update: 7:00am PST
With 1/2 hour into the trading day, the Dow dropped down as expected about 205 points, but has recovered only about 25 points off the bottom. I haven't posted the Intraday chart yet, but it looks like a "w" pattern was formed and is slanted down. So I believe we will take out the current lows of the day and go lower.

Update: 9:40am
As the Intraday chart above shows we did go lower this morning. But if you look at the red line I have drawn, it points to even lower levels between now and closing. In view of this I purchased more TZA Calls for October for $1.50/share with a Strike Price of $9.00



Update: 11:00am PST
OK, here is the proof in the chart above that we did go lower. I do not know how low we are going today but several things are noteworthy. First, the volume is high today for this time at 120 Million shares traded on the Dow. Also, the Put to Call ratio has moved from 0.60 in the first 1/2 hour of trading to 0.91 this hour.

Update: 12:40pm PST
There's 20 minutes to go before the market closes. The key today will be if the Dow closes at the lows. If it does, it may mean a reversal of the market next Monday or Tuesday. If it doesn't, we have more downward momentum to go. Stay tuned as we are down 346 points!

Market outlook for Feb 5th and 6th: Update 2

Took a good look at the charts for the past 3 weeks for the Dow and the S&P 500. Looks to me we formed that "W" pattern but the second leg of the "W" pattern is lower than the first leg. It suggests to me the markets most likely will go down now the next several days. How low we go depends on the results of the Jobs report tomorrow. If they are bad showing at least as bad as last month, we will drop and possibly retest the previous lows on the Dow of 7,392 and 750 on the S&P 500. If the results are better than expected we will have a short rally up. However the news that will determine where we are going is the Stimulus Bill and how it gets through the Senate. It is how the process is perceived and how the President manages the news about this and how he uses the Bully pulpit. Time will tell, but we should know by a week from now.

My choices are going to be these. First, if the market drops down to retest the lows, I will purchase additional shares of the ETF's TNA and SSO. I will add shares of Ford, symbol F, and also Apple, symbol AAPL, continuing to add shares. I will not try to gain a little on the drop by buying TZA nor SDS as we are at the low of the range for these Indexes and I can't time the next leg up.

UPDATE: 5:30am PST

Jobs data out shows an increase of 41,000 jobs lost last week bringing weekly claims to 626,000 jobs lost. Productivity is up 3.2% and Continuing Claims have now reached 4.78 Million jobs.

UPDATE #2 8:08am PST

I purchased additional shares of Ford at $1.90/share, more shares of TNA for $24.90/share and more shares of Apple at $93.99/share

Market action Feb. 3rd, 2009: A waiting game

Markets are quiet, volume is low and volatility has decreased. All eyes are awaiting 2 important bits of information. First, what happens on the Stimulus package in the Senate will be very important as not only is it affecting the market but will have an impact on how President Obama's Administration was successful or not in his jawboning Republicans and Democrats to get a Bill passed. The other information will come out on Friday and it is the Jobs report for January. Until these two independent variables are known, the market will be dullsville.

Market still fading today. But where is the expected sharp drop?

The jobs report today showed an additional 50,000 job losses and the U.S. Dollar has weakened. These are both more bad news to take the wind out of the sails of the Bulls. If the dollar keeps dropping we are in trouble because foreigners like China won't keep bailing us out and then imagine how a long string of Dominos falls, when just one falls on another. I am sensing more fear creeping back into the market and wouldn't be surprised to see a major selloff here timed to the Senate action, or lack thereof, on the Auto Industry Bridge loan rescue plan.

Watch the auto industry share prices today and tomorrow fall. Ford closed yesterday at $3.25 and GM closed at $4.60/share

So I don't know what is holding up this market. The news continues to be bad but it seems some Institutions are trying to prop up this market with some small wish that some will do Christmas shopping. I guess if you are reading this you aren't shopping either. Bah humbug!!??!