Worth every bit of headline...

We had a little hope yesterday!   We hoped that the market today would at least close flat and not to lose any ground on the day following a rally.    Boy did we close "flat"!   To summarize the action today, it was simply breathtaking.    There are basically two parts to today's theme.    The first part is of course the 'trading part' and as long as you had a little merchandise from the day before, or played just about anything intraday, you'd come out on top.   This is good because everybody is making money today, even probably the shorts!   Why?   We are assuming some shorts would be smart enough to cover today and booked some of their profit.   This is least important as it's really about the possibility to trade and make money into the New Year, not just today.    The second part is the psychological part!    Yes, the rally today does resemble the rally we had two Tuesdays ago but both rallies do seem a world apart.    Today's move is followed by a very strong move off yesterday and this is a very bullish sign.   This tells us that there can be momentum on the upside, and this market isn't just a one way ticket down.    Over 500 points were made in two days' worth of trading.    You can attribute some of those point gains to short covering but shorts cover for a reason don't they?     Now granted, we've come from a very oversold condition that is almost a month long, and today doesn't guarantee the end of this downturn.     However, odds have dramatically improved that we have just witnessed a bottom couple of days ago.     Basically, we need to fall more than 500 points just to reach the previous low and somehow we don't think there's that much more merchandise left for people to dump.     Even the financials, all of them, had a great day today.     Ok, we aren't going to get too cute with the financials and we still don't think they should be on our playlist, except GS here and there.   However, seeing the financials behave the way they did today does inject some much needed confidence back into ourselves which benefits our trading with other names.

Let's talk about some names....    First of all, the rally today is so broad based, we couldn't really find anything that's not working.    We'll just stick to some of the obvious and highly playable ones from our previous leaders. 

RIMM BIDU AAPL GOOG, out of these liquid ones, we actually liked the action from BIDU the best.   It does give you the best bang for the buck kind of deal.    Of course, today's isn't one of those average up days, so we'd cash out most of positions toward the end and only leave a small one in case we have another positive surprise.    The odds of this market having another great day like today is almost slim to none but we still have to respect what this market is capable of.

Solars,  SPWR/FSLR/STP, these three have become our favourites among the solar names because of their relative performance to the rest of the sector.    STP, a recent addition here and FSLR are near all time high and SPWR went up the most today.    We think given the current rosiness of this market, these names may get another leg up.     Remember, short term players will always look for plays that are fast and furious when the market is in a good mood.

Shippers, although this is the group that took the biggest damage last little while, they are being cheered for today.    We aren't looking for extended gains in names like DRYS EXM since they were beaten so badly and there's probably tons of resistance on their way up.   We'd simply be trading them in a day by day case.

ISRG, usually can pull off more than a few consecutive up days when it changes trends and VIP, a recent noted for a pre-earnings move with a NCH in sight, cashed in on one and will now feed or not feed off the report. These are of trading interest as well.  SIGM, put in an impressive Q and we will watch for a pullback here most likely.

Now, if we can only get the Asian DJIM plays joining, maybe we just will as a Chinese official said the country "will' proceed with a plan allowing individual purchases of the city's stocks.  Remember, this is a big part of the rally in the HANG this year and is also a big part of why the market corrected recently after an official said this was most likely being postponed. The HANG was up 4% overnight, large part to the activity in North America, but also to this 'will' proceed.  LFT, STV, EJ, WX, a few of the most widely played here...let's keep a close eye on them today for an opportunity.

Bottom line, the action may signify the end of the recent correction.    We aren't completely out of the woods yet but odds are pretty good that we won't go visit the recent lows in the 'short term'.     This does not mean that we have to go 100% back into this market right away.   Remember, we still need this market to find a strong footing and let it go back and forth and go sideways a bit before mounting an assault higher.   It does look like a Santa Claus rally may just be possible this year.   

A new day with different drama....

One way or the other, it's not so easy to take advantage of this headline driven market.    Extreme emotion leads to extreme volatility and we have just witnessed two of the most volatile trading days.     Now that the Fed thing is over, we can move on and focus on events that'll shape up the rest of the year.   The big picture is that we are still in a much better shape than a month ago.   Regardless how you judge Fed's recent decision, Fed is doing something to help out the credit crunch by addressing the liquidity issues.    That to us, this the encouragement this market needs, but we have to see if it's enough.  Financial stocks are just weighing in on this market, day in and day out too much.    Soon we will get some good insights off reports from LEH and GS.   Hopefully, these two would provide the kind of certainty this market needs to get some stability from the sector.

Solar plays,  basically you just can't go through a trading day without playing these it seems.   Crude broke $90 signalling a possible technical recovery and that should bode well for the solar group again.   LDK has been active the last couple of days and think this one needs to catch up to others in terms of valuation in light of the recent development and therefore might have more leg room.  SOLF is also becoming one of our favourite to trade along with STP JASO and FSLR.  Again, remember we noted the upgrades seen recently as a possible prelude to their action as we've seen in the past.   At least, 2 more are out this morning, including one on FSLR with a $300+ target.

GXDX, this is a biotech co. similar to WX and it's based in U.S noted in the forum Oct 31.   It came out with an eps report tonight and we think it's a very good report that showed a tremendous growth rate.    The issue size was only 5 million shares.    This one also doesn't trade a lot so the volatility can be high when it comes to trading.    Knowing what they just reported, we are putting this one on our active playlist and will add incrementally when opportunity comes.  There hasn't been many good eps report from small caps lately, so this is definitely refreshing.  It will be interesting to see if there is interest in this kind of play from the market.

Turned out the prudent thing to do yesterday was to sell the gap and not just consider it as we noted in yesterdays pre trading note. The swings are wild and you have to your trading hat on or lose all or most of your gains as the market digests the rate cut and the follow up liquidity plan.   It may take a few more days and it's best we wait it out to see a trend emerge.   Again.. .."what we need to see is the indices recover and hold 13500 on the DJIA and 2700 on the NASD to start thinking of accumulating positions of substance".  This would be a start!

Santa showed up...

The so called Christmas rally or the Santa Claus rally has been something of a mixed bag in the past.   There were years we just wished the Christmas season would last longer and there was last year which we all would like to forget.   This year, Santa is back to give us traders something to remember as of now.    This of course, is probably due to the fact that we had a very very tough fourth quarter coming into the Christmas holiday.     All of the problems we have had to endure as traders during the last while, from credit crunch, housing bubble and recession worry are being put behind this last few days of the year.    Put it this way, we won't deal with it until the new year.    It is about time that we can end this year in a rather peaceful way.

If it's peace you want, then you are glad to know that major indices have held up well and many big cap stocks have either inched up or stayed unchanged, in a non volatile way.    If you are like us who like to take advantage of this opportunistic time, then the only thing you'd be doing on a boxing day is buying and selling hot stocks online.     People, if you are serious in trading like us, then you would've tied yourself to your chair during the last few trading days.     These past few trading days have produced some of the best action since early October.    And if you were hurt by the downturn in the late November period, then now is the perfect time to get some respect back from this market.

Basically we are about half way over this holiday trading and we'd imagine most traders would be back in force after Jan 1st.    This gives us another 2 1/2 holiday trading days to do our thing.     Right now, we are playing stuff that are currently in play.    It is crucial that we stick to that theme for the next few days.

Solars, 2007 is the year of the solars and we think we'll carry some good momentum into the new year as well.    Today's action seemed to be spreading all over the smaller and less established solar players which include SOLF CSIQ CSUN ESLR CTDC etc., while the bigger names seemed to pause to catch some breath, with the exception of FSLR.      Yup, we are playing just about every single one of those smaller names today and we'd continue to play until the momentum stops.    Keep in mind, many if not most of those less established solar names are still not proven in terms of earning track record.    When some of these names reverse, it is crucial that you don't buy the dip thinking all solars are created equal and have awesome earnings growth.     Buying dips on plays like FSLR STP JASO SPWR... have good probability that they will come back in a hurry.   Buying dips on the smaller ones may get you into a situation that you'd lose another 30% before even seeing an uptick.   Bottom line, you have to know what you are playing distinguish the type of plays among solar names.

MELI, then there's this one!   If you cashed out last time after Cramer's mention, then today's the day to get it back.    We alerted early in the morning that it looked promising but we did not imagine it'd pull a move anywhere close to 20% today.    This one, unfortunately we have to agree with Cramer for once, has the marking of being a monster.     Yes, it can definitely go into triple digit based on what we have seen with other similar type of stocks.

Bottom line, there's no need to go nuts with all of the hot plays out there and just trade the ones you are most comfortable with.   Stay focused and stay clear headed, and we may just finish this year on a high note.