Apple cleared, up 4%

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Apple Computer Inc. said its investigation of stock-option grants found no misconduct by current management, but it did find that Chief Executive Steve Jobs recommended or was aware of the selection of some favorable grant dates.

Currently Trading up 4%

**UPDATE**
I sold my $80 AAPL FEB '07Calls this morning for a quick 60% Gain in 2 Trading Days. Now I have covered almost my whole cost of the initial buy-in, and I am essentially in the trade for free. I have until February 16th, 2007 until expiration, so I think I'll hold on to the remainder until earnings. Apple always delivers.

Short Stop

I'm short IBM as of right now holding Puts. I have a stop in place, just in case IBM blows through the 52 week high of $97.40. It closed near it's low of the day, and could resume on more weakness. It's had a nice run since $83, and has been firmly in an uptrend after it's stellar earnings report on October 18th, 2006.

I can't explain it, but I'm starting to lean towards the bearish side....we've had this huge run up, barely any profit taking days, and there's just something that has to give. The S & P 500 is sitting at the top of it's channel, compliments of Trader TIM. As you can see from the graph, there is always a pullback, nothing goes up forever, only taxes...oh yea, and the price of marriage.

I'm just looking for some awaited profit taking until we resume our uptrend for 2007 if we even do. I'll be watching the S&P 500 closely for a swing short via Futures Indexes. There could quite possibly be an extreme amount of money to be made on this pull back...Futures provide the leverage needed to pull off such a task, and I'll be on the side with the large numbers of green.

Let's be sure to take notice of Apple's Official Filing this Friday about it's option practices and more information. There is certainly something very fishy going on, as it seems they're trying to alleviate all of the bad news before MAC World, and the possible release of the "iPhone" ? Apple releases it's earnings on January 17th, 2007.

Trade of Interest: Check out Day Trade Teams AKAM Analysis and further watch it's movement for possible leap forward after touching down on support. Great Call.
Out,
CalTrader

Trading on Apple Options News

As you know by now, every blog has mentioned the huge GAP down on Apple Computer ,Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:AAPL) on the stock options probe. What I'm concerned with is the strength in this stock. Investors that sold off in the pre-market only got out to make sure they didn't get hit with a huge crash in the regular market hours. When the market opened, there was immediate buying, and to my knowledge it seems as though every investor in the universe could care less about the news, and saw the buying opportunity.

Trader Jamie over at Wall St. Warrior seems to have caught the GAP Fade as well, as posted on Trader Mike's Comments.

I saw the up-trending pattern, and good volume and decided to take a look at how the options were trading. I thought the most practical trade would be to fade the Gap and go for the $80 strike price in January & February.



I tried to enter a limit order and hit the Bid to get in at the best possible price but what I realized is that I was getting over-cut every time and out bid on the price. The "ask" price kept shooting higher and higher and profits were just being blown out of the window.

I enter in a limit order and hit the "ask" price for $3.80 per contract on the $80, JAN '07 Apple Calls. I'm immediately filled and ready to ride the train up. I exited a few hours later for $1.10 profit, and sold for $4.90 per contract. That's a 29% gain.

I also picked up some of the $80 FEB '07 Apple Calls for a longer term perspective on the stocks release of new highly anticipated products, and cheap price at the time, since Apple's price was knocked down so much. My entry price was, $5.40 per contract, and now they're sitting at $6.40. An unrealized paper profit of $1.00 per contract, or 18.5% percent return on your money.

I'm going to have to watch this trade closely as Apple could turn on a dime with bad news currently plaguing the headlines.
-CalTrader

Fishing For Points

Today was a day for scalping the Russell 2000 E-mini. Objective was to get in quick and get out. We're still in the post-holiday volume, so I knew I should decrease my contract size to 5, instead of 10. Today's volume was approximately. 58,728 contracts traded, and the average daily volume 187,000 contracts according to CME.

I had a net gain of 3.58 points.




Nothing too exciting today. When I'm not trading in the Futures market I tend to take a glance at my old 50 stock trade screen I used to trade from each day, and I just think to myself, that is seems much easier to watch 1 chart, with MACD, Exponential Moving Average, and Stochastic.

Check out the panic selling in Telik, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:TELK) down 70% today. Does this bother anyone to know that someone might have to 2nd mortgage their house to cover the losses in this stock for missing Phase III clinical trials on a lack of evidence to help cancer patients? Sheesh. I hope I never have to worry about a market I'm in, crashing 70% of my investment.



Also, I'm taking a 1 month test drive of Phil's Stock World & Options Recommendations. I've been reading his blog for quite some time now, and he's very knowledgeable, legit, and I love his market commentary. He had a average gain of around 80% gains in his realized option gains. He also had a 1400% winner in one option. I will keep an update of the progress and success I'm having with his website. It's $40 a month, and with winners like those, I couldn't refuse.

Can't Wait For the New Year & All that the Future Holds,
-CalTrader

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone.
Set your goals for this New Year, hopefully it will be a profitable & happy one :-)
Study Up!
-CalTrader

Hustlin' and Bustlin'

So what's the controversey over? Everyone seems to have been reading my blog about my futures trading, and seems to be quite un-informed. First of all, I've been studying the Russell, and the S & P 500 intra-day e-mini contracts for about 6 months now. I paper traded them everyday along with day trading stocks. I've watched videos, I've gotten in on webinars, listened to conference calls, read articles, forums, blogs, books, speakers, etc. If you're considering trading the Futures markets you need to do your research, you need to learn how the Futures trade, and you need to limit your risk by taking, HIGH PROBABILITY SETUPS!

Okay, I'm sure the main question you'd like answered is, "What's a high probabilty trade set-up with the Futures Indexes?"

Here is a typical trade I ALWAYS take. It's a high probabilty trade in which the direction is extremely strong, either up or down, rally, or sell off, either go long or short. I NEVER, EVER trade futures just to be trading. That is the best way to lose money, waste time, and make someone else's pockets bigger. Futures is cut throat, hard core, I'll kill your momma for the next tick extreme.

Here's the Process:

1.) Step one. Wake up at 6am EST and find out what news has been released, see if the Futures are indeed trading strong in one direction.

2.) Step two. Go to www.briefing.com and go to "Free Content", then click "ECONOMIC CALENDER". Find out what news is coming out today! Major major news would be FOMC meetings, Corporate Profits, CPI, Inflation Data, etc.

3.) Step three. Do not enter any trades until the specified news you're awaiting has been released. Compare the numbers "Actual" vs "Consensus" and mentally figure out if it beat, missed or matched the "actual". I've stressed on this blog already the importance of my main style is based on NEWS Trading. I don't always trade spreads, or tick extreme's, or pivot points, or retracements, or Fib's. I like to trade NEWS. One shot kill on a 99% chance the market will turn in a strong direction.

4.) Step Four. Look at your charts, see if any Key Support/Resistance Levels have been surpassed or breached.

Let's take a look how today played out.

1.) 6am, http://www.briefing.com I found my news, The Philadelphia Fed is going to speak today at 12pm.

2.) I awaited the news. It was released. Here's what happened:



December Philadelphia manufacturing index at -4.3 (-9.4 pts), this means that -> The weakness in orders from the auto and housing sectors now add to stalled business investment from a break neck pace just a few months ago. Risk is that the weaker business confidence which is driving investment may weaken further if the manufacturing sector falls in to decline.

Immediately at 12:01 markets turned, Wall Street was discouraged by this data, and markets sold off.
Russell 2000


S&P 500 Index, right at 12:01pm



These are very sizeable moves and could have been very profitable had a trader realized that news was coming out today.

I don't see why other sites are bashing my number, my methods and my name. If you can't trade the Futures, then stick to stocks. Whatever is profitable for you and works is wonderful. We all have niches in the market, and once you've found it and make money then stick to it. My purpose is trying to provide insight to other traders in the world that there are ways to use leverage in a positive manner, which you can reap rewards from.

If you'd like to hear a great broadcast from another Russell Futures Trader, Lee_Leibfarth, Click Here. He is based more on technical trading, and even uses a fully automated bot for trades, this is something I'm currently looking into.
Out,
Cal

Learn How to Cuss While Learning to Trade the Russells

This is a Russell 2000 Trader giving insight as to only using the Bid/Offer screen. See if bids are real, get in, and get out fast. I prefer the charts myself..

New Portfolio Idea! Motivation For All!

I've got plans to open another brand new futures trading account. This time there will be a twist involved.

Here are the Details:
1.) I'm going to make a deposit of $5,000 dollars into the account.

2.) I'm going to day trade the RUSSELL 2000 E-mini with this account along side of my larger account trade for trade of proportional contract size. This means if I'm trading $15,000 dollars in one account with 30 contracts, I'll trade 10 contracts with the $5,000 account.

3.) My goal of this project is to show all of the viewers, investors, not-yet-started Futures Traders that it is possible to first of all, make money with little start-up capital, successfully day-trade futures using 1 point scalps, and start a goal to double your portfolio.

4.) I've recieved criticism for posting my big days and not focusing more on losers. I've been called a newbie and that I'm going to fall flat on my face. Well this trading demonstration is to prove that this blog is serious, and that with hard work, dedication, and a search for more knowledge & experience in the financial world anyone can make some extrordinary money to pay necessary bills or even make a small fortune. Strict guidelines in trading the futures markets will be employed.

5.) Okay, you start with $5,000.00. The goal is to sucessfully scalp 1 net point each day, while simultaneously increasing your contract size for every $500 earned by one contract. (each Russell 2000 Emini contract cost $500 to trade).

Here's how things could thoeretically play out if one could trade flawlessly:
Day 1.) $5,000 (capital) x 10 (contracts traded) = $1,000 (1 net point for the day)

Day 2.) $6000 (initial capital + net profit from previous day) x 12 (contracts propotionate to capital amount) = $1,200 (1 net point earned)

Day 3.) $7,200 (initial capital + profits from previous days) x 14 (contracts) = $1,400 (1 net point profit)

Day. 4) $8,600 (initial capital + profits from all days) x 17 (Contracts) = $1,700 (profit on 1 net point)

4 Days to Double the Portfolio,Total Capital (profits included) = $10,300 -> Done!
(excluding commissions, but with $0.75 cents per contract this is minimal)

Obviously no one can trade perfectly, markets do fluctuate a vast amount of points on different days, and some days will not net a full point for the trader (possibly even a loss). If this sounds to good to be true, it isn't, and is totally achievable and if everything goes according to planned the results are posted. My recommendation to anyone wanting to get into the Futures markets is to set up a "virtual trading" account. This will allow for some time to monitor how rapidly the Futures trade and get some insight as to what it would be like. On another note, some traders might not be comfortable with maxing out their capital to trade the most amount of contracts (very level-headed trader). You could decrease your contract size to offset the risk you're taking, and granted it would take longer to achieve the ultimate goal, you wouldn't be risking as much per trade, and gains would be slow and steady.

I've stated my goals, and I'm motivated to help other traders get started with setting goals, making profitable trades, and providing to be a good example of a disciplined trader.

To open an account with only $0.75 cent commissions on trades go to
IB Direct Futures Trading, $0.75 cent commissions
More to Come,
-CalTrader

Russell Me Up

Today was a great day to trade the Russell 2000. There was a large, True Range, of how many points it fluctuated from the opening high to the closing low. There was a gap up this morning on good news, yadda yadda, but I started to see weakness when there was no follow through on the GAP up. Most major indicies started to pull back and fill in the GAP from the "over-buying". This is one of my favorite plays as most of you know, the Opening Range Breakdown.

Each Russell 2000 E-Mini contract (ERT) costs $500.
If you got short 1 contract after the opening range breakdown, which was very clear today, and had little risk involved, you would have netted anywhere from 5-8 points depending on your tolerance for holding onto a winning position, and letting it run.
With the $500 initial capital for the contract you could have made $500-$800, which is a 100-140% return on your money (stand up and dance if you like these).
Most people still can't grasp the concept of these types of gains. There is leverage involved, yes, but imagine using one's keen day-trading skills to harness even more profit using the same principles, this isn't about GREED, it's about pure EFFICIENCY!

Hey we can't expect to walk into a huge house and see all the rooms at one time, right? Well the same applies to the Financial Markets and all the Derivatives, aka "trading vehicles", available to us traders.

I consider today, easy money.
I consider day-trading stocks harder earned money.
Your Pick, Your Time,
Just Stay In The Green,
CalTrader

New Day To Day Published E-Mini Portfolio Coming..

I've got a new investment portfolio idea in my head. All this week I've been taking the necessary steps to complete my idea and have ready by next week to publish for all my viewers/readers. It will be strictly a E-mini Futures portfolio focusing on the Russell 2000. The account will start with a specified sum of money and there will be a goal to double it based on the guidelines given coming in the next week.

Stay tuned because this is going to be interesting.
For those who have commented positively on my blog, thank you. For those of you who have not, your taste of my reality is coming soon enough, and you shall see the light.

Until Then,
-Caltrader

When It All Goes Horribly Wrong - Day Trader

Glenn getting stressed at www.dehtrader.com.
Come on we all lose a little money!

1 Hour of Work, Biggest Day Yet..

Today is my 2nd day trading futures.
My focus today was on the RUSSELL 2000 E-mini Futures (ER).
I traded for 1 hour....
Net P/L: $8,272.50



The Chart on the left is the Russell 2000, and the chart on the right is the S&P 500 (ES).

Remember, for every point you earn on the Russell 2000 E-mini, that's $100. So If I'm trading 10 contracts like in this case, that would be a profit of $1,000.

Now also keep in mind, that the R2k E-mini, has a nice intra-day fluctuation, there are waves that travel through it, and it goes up and down, ideally you would like to profit from these waves, and sell out. It's peak was at 792.88 and it's bottom was held by the 787.84 level. That's a net fluctuation of 5 points. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange just enacted a new rule allowing a person/institution to trade a maximum of 10,000 contracts. If you scalped 1 point on 10,000 contracts, that's a profit of $1,000,000.

How I traded it:
The market was moved up nicely by lower oil, better than expected Retail Sales (up 1%), and I was on the long side of it.
The Crude Inventories came out, and the market turned, and I was on the short side of that trade as well.

In this case there was no technical trading involved, only news trading, this is not rare, but cannot be sustained everyday as there is market stagnation some days.

And you thought the NYMEX scalp was noteworthy?
Hah!

I used exactly $50,000 to make $8,272.50. That's a hefty 16.54% return on your money.
But don't take my word for it, listen to why everyone else loves to scalp the E-Mini Futures:

-It's generally liquid enough. Market orders are instant..
-The spreads are never going to be huge like they can get on stocks.
-One can day trade without needing $25,000+ as a min. requirement
-Most people dont like having to list out every single trade on their taxes. With futures you don't have to.
-Focusing on one instrument day in and day out is less complicated and more productive, than scanning 50 stocks
-I can sleep in! As I dont have to wake up at 6am and scan for stocks to trade
-Share size allocation is easier. I trade from 3-8 contracts depending on the setup
-Some people said they held a stock that plunged 20 pts due to random company event. While economy reports move the futures. You can hop on the train at any point after good/bad news for a scalp.
-You will pay less taxes..
-You can bet directionally with the news..
-There are always shorts avilable!
-Comissions are reasonable (I pay around $4.10/round trip)
-No uptick rule, meaning you can short on a downtick instantly...whereas stocks you have to wait for an uptick (someone's buy order) to short the market

Check out my inspiration. Austin Passamonte from Coiled Markets E-Mini Trading. He consistently makes $15,000 a day trading the futures markets. He is up 500% this year alone. Way to Go!
His free series of day trading futures videos can be found HERE

More to come and thanks for reading.
-CalTrader

Hedging your positions..

When the market turned today, unfortunately my Call stock options did turn down in price as the volatility kicked up and the strike prices became further away. Some are still in the green, longer term options stayed the same and the other 50% of the Call options lost value. I was ready for the downturn in the options value and decided to hedge my positions by Shorting the NASDAQ 100 Futures.

What I didn't realize at the time was that I would be making even more money than I had planned, by planning ahead. A good rule of thumb is to Plan your Work, and Work your Plan. I thought I would just go ahead and try and protect the gains I had already made, and hedge my positions. Instead of betting against the Stock Options I had in place which would require MUCH more effort, research, and let's not forget commissions cost, I decided to short the Nasdaq 100 Futures Contracts (ERT). Here's how you calculate what you can make day-trading the Nasdaq 100 Futures contracts, $0.10 scalp is worth $10 for E-Mini Nasdaq.

My Call Options were down about a total of (-$5,000) today, the Best Buy Calls killed me.

I ended up making out nicely on the hedging position with the Nasdaq Futures trade in which I scalped 9.45 points. Worth a total of $3,213.00

Trading E-minis

Jason from www.hindsighttrading.com, turned $5k into $8.3k by trading 10 contracts of the Mini Russell.

Stock Traders

Breaking News: Short Sellers Sniped!

As posted from this morning, I had my Call Stock Options already in place from last week. Call Options are an agreement that gives an investor the right (but not the obligation) to buy a stock at a specified price (strike price) within a specific time period (expiration date). It may help you to remember that a call option gives you the right to "call in" (buy) an asset. You profit on a call option when the underlying asset, or stock, increases in price. All my Calls behaved very nicely today, in order to help snipe some short sellers, running up a total Net Profit of: $2,570.00


Thank You, Simply Options Trader, from Simply Options Trading for mentioning that Best Buy is reporting earnings tommorow.

On a side note, as far as being long on these Call Options, I saw a very very interesting chart today. It is one of my regular stocks to watch on my watchlist and it behaved in a very abnormal way today. As we all know the market was lead higher this morning by Merger and Aquistion News (M & A), but for some reason this stock traded in the entire opposite way, and commenced what I call a "blood bath sell off".

NutriSystem Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:NTRI)




After testing yesterday's low, and printing a Bearish Engulfing Candle, a chart pattern that consists of a small white candlestick with short shadows or tails followed by a large black candlestick that eclipses or "engulfs" the small white one, I decided to short this stock with good risk management, and a tight stop in place.

Bearish Engulfing Candle:

Locked & Loaded

This week we're going to have "21 new IPO's coming to the market next week that will raise $3.2 billion" as per Day Shark's link to Minyanville.com who was recently a part of Wall Strip's interview.

You can check out the interview Here if you'd like to see Todd Harrison's interview sitting down with Lindsey Campbell of WallStrip.com to discuss Minyanville and the markets.


As for those who are wanting to buy a new High Speed Desktop computer......WAIT!! I'm getting antsy about the prices of the Blazing Fast Intel Core 2 Duo CPU Chip coming down, and I'm ready to purchase a Desktop, but after doing some homework and finding out the NEW Intel QUAD CORE Chip is already out and ready to be shipped I'm waiting till around or after christmas, because a recent article from Marketwatch indicated that, "Microsoft has set aside $1 billion for coupons designed to convince holiday-season computer buyers to choose machines from Dell and H-P as they await Microsoft's new Vista operating system, which is due in January."

I've got my call options locked and loaded coming into the week. I'm going to try and see if I can damage as many short sellers accounts as possible.

Call Options List:
Oracle Corporation (Public, NASDAQ:ORCL)
NVIDIA Corporation (Public, NASDAQ:NVDA)
Google Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:GOOG)
Apple Computer, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:AAPL)
Best Buy Co., Inc. (Public, NYSE:BBY)
Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:AKAM)

After a big week, I plan on relaxing and going to check out the new Movie "Blood Diamond" released by Time Warner starring Leonardo DiCaprio & Djimon Hounsou. You can read a great review from Market Watch.com here

Ninjas of the Screen

Let's face it. Almost everyone who reads this blog is a trader or investor in the market. Obviously, we aren't floor traders for private firms, and don't have a seat on the NYSE, which may I remind you cost $6 million dollars per seat. Make that, then anything over that is just your profit. Yikes!

I want to point out a great analogy, informative insight, and also a great site that you should mark on your regulars to visit for market information.

Trader Feed's Dr. Brett Steenbarger. Yes, this man has written his own book, and is the author of The Psychology of Trading.

I would like for you to read how us screen traders have a great disadvantage to trading from home or the office compared to the floor traders. There is a way, however, to try and help gain a better edge through one of this methods.

Click HERE to find out more.

Have a Nice Weekend,
CalTrader

What a Head Fake Day!

Don't get screwed by going short, this market is strong, and I'm glad to be a part of clear reversal patterns. For some reason I'm always drawn to trading the same stock, Apple Computer. Yay! Here's my only trade for the day.

1.) The first chart is on a 15 minute time frame, the hammer reversal is not as clear as it was on the 10 minute time frame in which I was watching for the trade.

2.)The Hammer is a bullish reversal pattern that forms after a decline. In addition to a potential trend reversal, hammers can mark bottoms or support levels. After a decline, hammers signal a bullish revival. The low of the long lower shadow implies that sellers drove prices lower during the session. However, the strong finish indicates that buyers regained their footing to end the session on a strong note.

3.) The second chart clearly indicates the specificity of the hammer reversal. Take a glance..

*UPDATE*
I've had a lot of commentary by fellow traders and viewers of this blog. I'm going to expand on the issue of me calling the candle a wrong name. What we have is mearly a Long-legged Doji candlestick that has two very long shadows. Long-legged Doji's are often signs of market tops. If the open and the close are in the center of the session's trading range, the signal is referred to as a Rickshaw Man. . The Japanese believe these signals to mean that the trend has "lost it's sense of direction."

*On a side note, as stated by Jamie, over at Wall St. Warrior, there was support back from the GAP on November 21st, 2006. I was aware of this support, and was looking for the reversal after it had some selling pressure. That candle signaled to me that I should be looking to get long after it did not break support. I chose this candle to get long and named it wrong. You guys rock, thanks for your Insight! -Cal








*The Fourth candle stick prints the Hammer Reversal, and you even had the chance to get long on the 5th Bar for the trade. Risk was $0.15 cents, and the trade netted 1.85 points. (12R)

Sorry for being so short with this post. I'll be looking for more great ideas this weekend, and I'll post some great blog articles I've come across.

Stay Tuned!
-CalTrader

Investment Ideas - Long Term & Swing

A great swing trade Idea! The last few days ORCL has felt very bearish given the move down and the increase in volume, but when you look at the big picuture, the trend is still clearly up. Right now ORCL is sitting on the top of a $1 dollar gap which is from 16.50 to 17.50. This area should provide some support or short covering from the fall it's had. ORCL also has it's 200 day moving average which is rising rather nicely. So in my opinion the trend is still up and we need to wait for some kind of buy signal in this gap area if we are going to be a buyer. What would be a buy signal? I'd like to see a bullish reversal day closing on it's high with volume... Maybe some bad news comes out but ORCL closes on it's high...etc.. Right now I'd be on the sidelines waiting patiently to buy...but there is no buy signal as of yet.

Chart:







Also check out Level 3 Communications. I know not everyone is a Jim Cramer fan, but I bought some LVLT a while back based on his recommendation, and made $1,000 on the trade, so I'm not complaining. I bought ORCL before earnings as well and make another $1 grand on that trade as well. As for Cramer's confidence in the stock he recently had the CEO on his show to tout the company's future, which Cramer thinks is going to be a double in a year or so. Hey, I'm not saying the guy is perfect, but he's seen his share of company's fly and drown, and I'm willing to bet this company will do the trick. It's earning should be in the actual green within the next year or so. Keep it on your radar.

Level 3's (LVLT) stock has not done very well since it reported results in late October. In fact it has really been hanging down in price while the market has been rising. Market goes up, LVLT goes down, like clockwork. But some things to consider are:

Gross margins improving nicely
Customer reception of new product portfolio very solid
Indications that business will further improve
$2.2 billion a year in core revenue, growing 26% organically
Operating margins are improving

Level 3 is seeing substantial demand for its 10 gigabit products, the high-end product for telecom. Whether Level 3 gets acquired or not, fundamentals should drive this stock higher. It's building the high speed infrastructure such as fiber optics and even signed the deal with GOOGLE, to be it's backbone in the bandwidth department.

Check out 24/7 Wall Street's Article on Level 3 Here

Apple Computer Puts Up 183%

Hedge Fun!

I've been hedging my long term positions, one of which is Apple Computer (AAPL). The idea of buying Put options is to buy the strike price at a higher price in which the stock is currently trading so when the stock goes down, you profit from the fall. You must remember that you still are Long shares of the stock, because one would be long term bullish, short term bearish, and the idea is to protect your initial investment from short term losses. Your Put Options contracts lock in your specified sell price for however many shares you would like to have covered, based on the amount of contracts you bought. Let's review my trade, and chart.

I bought the DEC 2006 Put on APPLE COMPUTER INC at $90.00 for $1.20 a contract.

Apple's Chart:



I think this is just a short term breakdown, Apple has been ridiculously overbought by every mutual fund, and hedge fund manager in the universe to "window dress" their portfolio's for the year end preview of their % figures they've gained. The Stochastic Indicator clearly show's the stock has been Overbought for over a month now, without breaching the 80 level which would signal selling and weakness. I hope this gives insight as to how I trade. I like using techinical terms, and never understood a single one of them until I started reading other blogs and sat down to due my own research and find my style of trading. I'm still on a personal adventure to further my knowledge in the options world, and so far, it's paid off quite nicely. Icing on the cake.

Thank you for reading, and please feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section!

-CalTrader

Good Afternoon

Well it's 2:00pm ET and I'm up $704 for the day. I've decided to quit trading. I've just been doing some thinking, and I've come to the conclusion that when you say making $700 dollars in a few hours isn't enough, then you may be showing signs of greed. So, I did some more thinking and the rule of thumb I ALWAYS like to use is that if you make $250 a day, every working day (no weekends), for a calender year, that's $65,000 (pre-tax). Now I'm not sure how much money anyone else is comparing, but by any standard, that's a nice chunk of change, some people don't make that in 3 years.

I had some very profitable scalps today, to include SanDisk (SNDK), Best Buy (BBY), and then my biggest intra-day mover Xyratex (XRTX).

Here's the chart:




*Evening Update*

After over-looking the Exxon Mobil (XOM) chart and identifying the run up it's had, and reviewing oil's current status, I decided to buy some of the JAN '07 XOM $75 Puts, for $1.25 a piece.







Maybe I'll have a nice Christmas. Breitling watch.

Go Long!

Well I covered my shorts for further continuing of this bull market has resumed. I found some nice setups today, for some decent profits. I have a feeling with the Bulls taking the lead we're just gonna splurge higher, and breakout from the already monumental highs. I think the bottom buyers have overtaken any type of bearish investor to the core and rattled their bones. I'm sure there were lots of bear traps out there as we had a brief pullback, and continuation higher in most sectors. I'm going to highlight the strength of the market, show you how the volatility is pulling back into it's complacency territory.



Interesting Chart:
Pfizer (PFE)



Today's Trades:

Apple Computer (AAPL)




Best Buy Corp. (BBY)



Volatility Index ($VIX)



As you can see it's heading lower, which means the market is getting more complacent with it's "bullish intent". The sell-off caused a spike in the VIX and shook things up a bit, but it was a false alarm sell off, and the VIX has now gone to rest again.