Still in holiday spirit..

Perhaps many people are still out there enjoying the boxing sales, there's really not much going on in the market today.   Basically the market carried the same momentum/theme from last week.    Technology is once again the leader of the pack.   To us, that's a very impressive showing considering how much Techs. have climbed as a group since last week.   Earlier there was report from MasterCard saying that the retail sales for this holiday season has increased compare to previous year.    Amazon also released the number for its peak holiday shopping day which came at 9.5 million items.   It is pretty significant as it solidifies people's expectation for this behemoth company.

On surface, things do look pretty good as there's always some pocket of strength which we can point our finger to.   However, there's still this concern clouding over the financial sector.   News that the govt. is providing "unlimited" capital to FNM/FRE did not seem to inspire the sector as people are wondering if there'd be negative implication for other companies in the similar area.    Without the participation of financial group, this market just won't be able to climb up in any significant amount quickly.   This is not to say that the technology group can not carry this market, but they are taking quite bit of load by themselves.   Why is that?    When people realizing that the only group performing are the kind of group you want to own into 2010 and beyond, trade get too crowded.   You can forget about getting into some of your favourite names at a decent entry price.    When the strong group does pullback, the rest of this market will pullback even harder.    This is not the kind of scenario we want to see.   We definitely want to see a broad participation of this rally so other sectors can take some pressure off market leaders.

We bought some NEP today as this is a name that is generating quite bit of momentum lately.   Yes, it's true that last week's entry price would've been ideal, but we don't think the story/momentum is going to end any time soon.   We will be looking for dip opportunity to add to our starter position in the coming days if the opportunity occurs.   GMCR,  a play which we were fortunate enough to have held for a while, showed some very strong moves last few days.    We are happy to let some go today as it's nearing its previous high.    Basically, we wanted to lock in some profit after such a nice run from the recent low.    This is a play which we have talked about extensively.   The day when GMCR entered into a bidding contest against PEET for DDRX, we just sort of knew  who the winner will be.    By acquiring DDRX, GMCR becomes that much more dominant in its line of business.    We really like this stock but we love to see a pull back in order to add back some shares.    RIMM is another play we've been adding today.   It's definitely an under performer compare to rest of our technology favourites and we feel there's some good potential at the current price here for RIMM to catch up.

There's this saying among many people that the next major selloff from this market will be a great buying opportunity.   The only problme we have is, "Can we afford to wait? "

Very light action...

It was another light action day.    Yesterday there maybe was a hint that some traders may come back and trade this holiday week, today it feels many of them went out shopping instead.    Actually, we are kind of hoping more people shop and spend this holiday in order to preserve this recovery theme.

There's quite a few plays that are getting one or two percent moves.   However, as long as the big boys don't move that much, we'll essentially get a flat close.   This is literally what happened today.   If you were sitting in front of the trading monitor and hoping for something to happen, you'd be just as disappointed as we did.   Being disappointed for no action is definitely better than being disappointed for bad action.   Given the status of this holiday week, we just shouldn't give too much thoughts into today's action, or next couple of days' action for that matter.

So far, the back and forth action we were hoping for turned out to be a mini version.   Index is trading in a very tight range because there's not enough volume out there to push it deep in any direction.   For DJIM, we simply have to sit tight and enjoy the holiday.    When the break ends and real trading starts next week, it's going to get pretty hectic.   So, enjoy the slow time while it lasts!

looking forward to new year..

Well, this week might have been an off week for most traders.    Index again stuck in a very narrow range and closed the day with next to no change.   For most of us, the hardest part is trying to stay awake with the kind of slow action out there.

Looking back, there's one thing we felt we were spot on since a month ago is that we always felt the market participants were determined to "lock" this market up for a high close for the year.    With one day left in 2009, this is pretty much locked up.    DJIM traders will be on road tomorrow to spend the remainder of the holiday with their family so there'd be no journal till Sunday.

Again, we are wishing everyone an early "Happy New Year" because we all know how much we are looking forward to it.    So, enjoy the rest of the holiday!

Cheers,