The market dropped below SPX 1300 on Wednesday, but quickly bounced back to 1320 all in the same day. Today, the market didn’t do much "better". It slipped down to almost 1310, then bounced right back to 1320 for the close. Things have been really volatile in the past couple of days. One could have traded puts in the morning and calls in the afternoon and made profits on both sides… and on both days!
Well, we did manage to do some quick trades, with a nice overnight double on P:
- May 24, 2012
- 06:45 | Ecstatic Plays P ($11.94) Sold to Close 06C10 Jun 10 calls, at $2.00 +82%
- 06:44 | Ecstatic Plays AAPL ($571.50) Sold to Close 0525C565 May 565 calls, at $9.00 +13%
- 06:40 | HappyTrading CF ($168.00) Sold to Close 0525C165 May 165 calls, at $4.40 +65%
Industrials were weak again today as China released weak economic data the night before: CAT -1.14%, JOY -6.66%, CLF -4.35%, WLT -3%. Last night, NTAP gave a disappointing outlook; its shares tumbled more than 12%. FFIV -7.88%, VMW -6%, CRM -2.92% were all affected to the downside.
There are however, stocks that pushed higher: MNST +4.25, FDO +3.37%, DLTR +2.4%.
The Dow was up +33.6 points; SPX added +1.82 points; Nasdaq slipped 10.74 points:
BTK (biotech) was up +0.54%. SOXX (semiconductors) was down 1.41%. OIH (oil services) slid 1.02%.
SPX
SPX added +1.82 points to close at 1320.68. Its daily MAs were little changed and the MACD was slightly up.
Nasdaq
Nasdaq was down 10.74 points to close at 2839.38. Its MACD flattened.
Well, this market is trying hard to draw bottom, in the face of all sorts of bad news (which, we won’t need to count out one by one here). Memorial Day long weekend is coming (Monday 5/28). So, tomorrow may be an important day to see where the market closes. However, volume may be on the lighter side. The pullback in FFIV, CRM, and VMW may be buying opportunity as all three reported strong quarters and gave solid forecasts.
Good night and HappyTrading! ™ 
