Good Times (Archive from 6/20/2010)

Another crazy week. Absolutely zero good news came out and the market still managed to shoot higher. Every bit of news seemed worse than the previous bit of news. Markets didn't care since the Euro appreciated (most likely a short-covering situation). The market even moved higher than it should have based strictly on forex movement.

It seemed like such an obvious move. The new mantra seems to be if the news is absolutely horrible, stocks stay flat. If there is no news, then stocks are going to move higher. You can actually see the points where someone with deep pockets was gunning the markets higher each day. Also, it would seem all stocks are exclusively moving in the same direction at the same time. Like a bunch of lemmings blindly following the SPY/QQQQ. Apparently, there isn't much need to buy individual stocks anymore, just bet on the indexes.

No one is a loser as long as you aren't net short. So, basically everyone is a winner again. I haven't had a chance to really pay attention to Q2 earnings on the macro level yet. However, I have to assume all of this Euro trashing cannot be good for the export-driven companies. However, I don't think they will show a ton of strain unless this keeps up into Q3. The banks all are projected to show a healthy profit in Q2. So since they report first, I am thinking the market moves higher as long as the Euro doesn't trash again.

This week I got lucky on the move in silver. Even though I had to take a 100% loss on my SLV puts, I still made many times more on my CDE calls. Lucky me, my Jun 16's only got into the money the last day. My Sep 17.50's were absolutely on fire and I took half off the table.

Ironically, the only stock I feel confident in holding more than 1 day is a bankrupt, pink-sheet traded stock. WAMPQ continues to be not just my largest position BUT the only actual stock I own anymore. That is how screwed up the market is now. I would rather own bankrupt, pink sheet stocks than anything in the S&P 500. Washington Mutual equity managed to put WMI debtors on the ropes now and just need to win one more time to put themselves in charge of their own destiny. I have absolutely no issue with holding this stock through the July court case.

Gambled on Jun 113 puts on Friday and came out a winner. I really thought the market would sell off bigger there at the end of the day but someone was keeping a bid on that market. Gambled on SPY puts earlier in the week and was a big loser. Gambled on BIDU puts and made a slight gain.

Overall, a positive week. Very happy with the results. It could have been better, it could have been worse.

I go into next week with just a position in CDE Sep 17.50's and WAMPQ. I have most of my money in cash and don't have an opinion at this point where I think the market heads from here. My gut tells me this rally has legs and will keep slowly moving up into earnings season.