More Tariffs Equal Selloff

• After a great Wednesday in the market, Trump announced more tariffs on Canada, Mexico and Europe and the market reacted Thursday. Boeing was sold off as was some others that have risen quite a bit over the past week. I would expect them to rebound Friday as they realize the tariff talk is just talk.
• Alphabet (GOOGL) took off while everything else was down. The tech sector did was mixed today, but Alphabet was the big winner as once it past 1100, it touched 1098 twice. What was really interesting was how it took off when everything else was down and when the market would come up some, Alphabet would go higher. Typically 2pm shows a peak in the momentum direction. It was a dipping pont for Alphabet as it went back up with the market in the last couple of hours of the market.
• Facebook (FB) was up nicely on Thursday as they held an investors conference. Jim Crammer of CNBC's Mad Money made a nice point today how the European new privacy rules will probably affect smaller websites more than huge web marketers like Googe and Facebook.
• General Motors (GM) had a nice pop to the upside today as they are teaming up with Waymo in autonomus driving. Jim Crammer pointed out that until today GM was the most undervalued stock in the S&P. I might believe that GM is going to benefit by Ford (F) reducing their automobile line up, however Ford is making a shift for more profitability and I would not count them out in their new auto lineup. I am sure Ford will produce the most economical vehicles and their stock will take off in the long run. Buy and reinvest your dividends as you will be very happy by 2020.

Profitable Wednesday Marketmakers

• Everything was over sold on Tuesday. Especially the banks as JP Morgan was in the 105 area and if you bought Call Options on almost anything (except Apple) you would be very happy when you sold to take profits around 3pm. Oil had a nice pop too as it too was over sold and the oil sector was nice today. I saw Halliburton was over sold as it dipped to 48 on Tuesday.
• Apple received a downgrade this morning with doubt that the service revenue would keep up. I am not an Apple lover, but this news is fake!
• Boeing took off as it was way over sold on Tuesday but held above 350. Buying Call Options by 10am in Boeing would have been nice a couple of hours later.
• Alphabet (GOOGL) dropped sharply on Tuesday, looked like it was taking off early before falling back down to slightly below where it closed yesterday. If you bought Call Options at 10am, you could have sold them just after noon for a nice profit. Google then dropped and took off again by 2:30pm to 3pm and then again at 3:50pm. 
• NOTABLE: I saw Tesla in the news again this morning as one of their vehicles in auto piolet hit a parked police car. I thought this would for sure send the stock lower today. Tesla took off to the upside as Consumer Reports gave an upbeat report on Tesla's improved braking.
• TRADING TREND: Google has demonstrated a pattern over the past 3 weeks to go up in the first 20-30 minutes of trading on Monday and Tuesday only to drop for the rest of the day. Wednesday's have started higher, fallen back to the opening price by 10am only to take off to higher levels for the rest of the day. It does appear to peak around noon.
• MARKET TREND: Thursday's have started off going down for the first couple of hours due to tariff or other political news only to reverse direction by noon if not 11am. I would expect more of the same tomorrow as it was announced after market close that the tariffs were going to be enforced for European countries. I don't know how this changed from Asia to Europe, but I guess we will see what happens in the morning.

Tuesday Selloff... Again!!!

• Everything opened down and went further. Oil dropped sharply due to more barrels being released across the world. Interest rates dropped sharply due to overseas risk specifically in Italy and therefore bank stocks dropped sharply. 
• Netflix hit an all time high today despite still dropping some during the day. 
• Home Depot dropped below 185 and I would see this as being a great buy for Call Options on Wednesday morning. Walmart also appears to be bouncing off 81.
• Other than that, it was a little boring day. The trend appears to be sell off from Monday highs and continue through Tuesday. Since Monday was Memorial Day, we had more selling to do to catch up with the world on Tuesday. Wednesday should be a great turn around day as we are the United State of America, not Italy!

Investing in the Ups and Downs This Week

• Interest rates and oil hit highs at the beginning of the week only to drop by the end of the week. Bank and Energy stocks rose and fell the same way this week. They should have a nice bounce starting on Tuesday.
• Boeing hit 365 on Monday afternoon and fell back to 351 on Wednesday where it bounced to 359 and finished the week there.
• Wednesday and Thursday looked very similar. Morning drops were reversed from noon on. Wednesday news was from the Federal Reserve and Thursday was from President Trump and the tariff front.
• Netflix (NFLX) was a huge success once it was announced they will have a special on former President Obama. It shot up on Wednesday and Thursday and ran out of steam on Friday while still finishing higher. I would expect it to hit 375 by the middle of the week before coming back.
• Home Depot (HD) came down on Monday and Tuesday and bounced off 175 to go higher, but it didn't run away. It appears that it has a new level to bounce off at 175 as Walmart bounces off 82. Walmart is a hold for me as the further it goes down, the more valuable the dividend becomes. I feel Walmart is one of the only companies in the US that is using the tax break to get bigger rather than wasting it on stock buy backs. Walmart is a growth story that will be written about in the next 5 years.
• Best Buy (BBY) beat their earnings report but gave a poor outlook and disappointing online sales. It fell from 79 to finish the week at 68. I think it was over sold and would expect a nice bounce next week to 75.
• L Brands (LB) also beat on their earnings report and it sold off in the after hours due to dialing back earning expectation, but they still expect to earn around 10% for the year. I picked up 100 shares in the after hour session for 32.06 and it opened there on Thursday then took off to over 35. The dividend is strong and it will stay in the portfolio and will sell call options after it settles.
• I used L Brands to replace Roku (ROKU) in the portfolio because the Roku didn't have much movement and doesn't have a dividend. So I sold a 35 strike price call against it when it was at 34 on Wednesday. It was announced on Thursday a huge short seller is now long in Roku so it blew threw almost to 39 by the end of the week. 

Tuesday Selloff

• Auto stocks were up (except Tesla) on news that China was going to lower tariffs on imports. Who knows if they will stick?
• Banks were up when everyone else was down from the vote on the restrictions removed from the financial crisis of 2008.
• Everything else started higher and ended lower. Home Depot (HD) moved down quickly as it was announced that the CEO of JC Penny's is leaving to become the CEO of Lowe's who reports earnings tomorrow morning. I see this will create further opportunity for Home Depot after Lowe's earnings is reported. I would expect Home Depot to go further down and reverse course Wednesday around noon.
• Boeing moved down further due to the trade talks or just cooling down. Either way I thought it moved too fast last week and Monday. I would expect it to go further down on Wednesday and change direction around noon also.
• Micron (MU) moved up yesterday and further after the market close on Monday. It held on to the gains while Nvidia went further down on Tuesday.

Market Boom with No Trade War

• Over the weekend it appears that the tariffs may or may not go into effect. Whatever the news the market loved it on Monday. Boeing was the biggest beneficiary on Monday moving within 6 of it's all-time high established earlier this year. 
• Google was the focus of Sunday's 60 Minutes edition claiming to have a monopoly on search. Investors ran Google's parent company Alphabet in early trading. Most of technology stocks were up with the exception to Nvidia and Roku. 
• Tuesday should bring more of the same. The market will probably start up and have a sell off to break even for the day.

Friday Market News

• Since 2pm on Wednesday, Boeing (BA) and Tesla (TSLA) have moved in almost exact opposites according to their charts. Thursday and Friday, Tesla was down and Boeing was up. Tesla appears to hit a level of resistance to the downside Friday at 275 and Boeing is at a level that I have seen it stumble on this year. I wouldn't be surprised if both continued in their direction on Monday and reverse course on Tuesday.
• Alphabet (GOOGL) dropped prior to the market opening on Friday due to old news that Google may face monopolizing claims based on their shopping results. Sounds like garbage to me and according to the charts, it was due to come down. I would expect it to start down on Monday, hit a level of resistance around 1060 and take off to the upside for the remainder of the week. 
• The banks came down further on Friday, Walmart was nearly unchanged, but Home Depot had its regular Friday run. Trump tried to blast Amazon again with a Tweet to say that he recommends the post office to double shipping rates for Amazon. I wish they would double the rates on businesses mailing crap post cards and Discover with their crap credit card offers of 3 to 4 a week.
• What should we expect for next week? Higher interest rates? Higher oil? More tarrif talks? Korea issues? There are enough issues in the world that you can pick a number of reasons why the market might react in a negative way. Ultimately, the market is based on earnings and cream will rise to the top.

Thursday Market Movers

• Walmart beat their earnings estimates and the stock price rose before the market opened and went straight down just under 84, up past 85, Below 84 to finish 84.50 approximtely. Home Depot didn't fair much better. Best Buy shares were up close to their all time high which was set yesterday and finished below 89/share.
• Boeing was a leader throughout the day. Everything dropped for a bottom at 2pm today. Alphabet (GOOGL) opened down, came up to 1090, down to a bottom at 2pm of 1075 and finished the day down around 3 dollars.
• Boeing might have been one of the few that came close to the morning high in the afternoon. If you were buying calls, hopefully you sold them by 11am because Puts were the only way to go for the rest of the day. I would expect similar market movement on Friday as it appears to be a theme for this past week.
• Macy's appears to be one of the few that the market loves as many other companies have beaten their earning estimates but still would go down once the market opens as there is something the market decides was not perfect.

Wednesday Market Stuff

• Interest rates were a big driver in the market for the past couple of days. The market was mixed today with the higher interest rates as a head wind to a small upside. Macy's (M) held it's gain throughout the day ending the day up 10%. I believe this is a strong stock in an dividend structured portfolio, but don't see much volatility for some time. I could see it hitting $40/share by November.
• Home Depot was down today to the lower levels that it was at yesterday after earnings report. Walmart was up yesterday and again today as they report earnings tomorrow morning before the market open. I could see it dip, but come up big on the conference call.
• Apple made up some of the loss from the last 2 days. Google tried to make it up but gave it all back in the last hour. Nvidia opened down, raced up and went back down to finish the day flat like Google.
• Cisco reported earnings after the market close today and the reaction was not good. I would expect a similar reaction as Home Depot had yesterday. It will start down, bounce up and slowly give some back towards the end of the day.
• Some interesting action happened around 1:45pm today. Boeing (BA) went straight down from 343 to 340.40. That is not a huge movement but when looking at the chart, it was sharp. As was Tesla's movement to the upside at the same time from 283 to 287. I didn't see or hear any news that would have created that kind of reaction, but based on their movement, I would look for them to continue in the same direction Thursday morning before reversing around 10 or 11am.

Monday Ups and Downs

• The market opened Monday up and peaked around 10am. It went down, back up, then down... it finished the day on the upside although at its lowest levels of the day. It sets up for a great week at Home Depot reports earning Tuesday morning before the market open and HD has a history of beating expectations for over 13 quarters so we expect the same tomorrow. 
• Home Depot pulled Walmart along with them to the upside as they report earnings on Thursday before the market opens. I would look to buy Walmart options Tuesday morning if the market has a positive reaction to HD earnings. If the reaction is negative, I would wait until the afternoon to buy those options and I would look for 2 weeks out at the money.
• Tech stocks including the FANG stocks were mixed today. Microsoft appeared to be a winner today. 
• Another boring rainy day watching the stock market in Orlando today. Hopefully tomorrow will be more exciting.

Another Approach to Healthcare Reforn

• There was not much movement in the stock market on Friday. If you were buying options expecting the movement we had on Wednesday you would be disappointed. This often happens ahead of President Trump speaking.
• Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies were up to start the day on Friday. Trump spoke about reducing the cost of prescription drugs by eliminating the middle man along with allowing Medicare to be able to set price limits on medication. I have believed for a number of years that it is necessary to bring down the cost of Healthcare before providing it for all. I believe the health insurance companies like United Healthcare will continue to rise on the news and the drug companies will not fair as well.
• Tech companies cooled off on Friday after Nvidia mixed earning report on Thursday afternoon. Monday should resume the tech run by Amazon, Google, Netlix, Apple and Nvidia. Because these companies ran up so much over the past 2 weeks, Thursday and Friday was a pause in the market.
• Home Depot has been up for the past 2 weeks and they report earnings Tuesday morning before market open. I don't know that they will go up that much after the run it has been on. Walmart is almost opposite case of Home Depot. Walmart had a great 4th quarter earnings report but the market was expecting more online revenue growth which beat the stock down and Home Depot went down with it. Walmart closed some Sam's stores and is in the process of buying India's Flipkart which will hugely boost online business. Walmart has nowhere to go but up after they report earnings on Thursday. 

Thursday Market Craze

• Another day another way to clear President Trump from allegations. Many things have begun to spur the market higher. 
• Google had it's annual I/O developers conference at the beginning of the week where they announce new technology they will be producing. After such event, I have noticed that Alphabet (GOOGL) makes a strong run as it did yesterday. I thought it was a great time to buy a call when it was 1068. If you had, you could have quadrupled your money.
• Wednesday appears to be a turn around day like Tuesday. Boeing was up early, down to 338 and after sputtering there for about an hour it took off. 
• Unfortunately I sold out of my positions around 1pm. If I held another hour I would have more than doubled my profits. There was no turn back before 3pm on Wednesday.
• Roku was beaten down just under 31 a share since there last earnings report where they gave poor guidance. They started running up on Monday and on Wednesday was up 4 by close. They moved up another dollar after reporting their earnings Wednesday afternoon. I expect Roku to hit 50 a share in the next month.
• Sunrun (RUN) is my solar provider and they have moved up part of the energy run over the past few months. They continued higher after their earnings report Wednesday afternoon.
• The biggest news that the market didn't like was Walmart (WMT) buying a 75% in Flipkart which is larger than Amazon in India which is the 2nd largest population in the world to China. This is the biggest and best news from all of the earnings reports. CNBC's Jim Crammer loves Apple and Apple is spending $100 billion dollars on Share buy backs which does not equal dollars to shareholders. The tax reform should be made to make companies better through acquisitions and mergers rather than share buy backs. I expect Walmart to double in value by December.

Tuesday Market News

• ValueAct is an activist investor that has taken a $1.2 billion stake in Citigroup. It was announced yesterday afternoon and drove the price of Citigroup up along with the whole financial sector while most stocks were down today in anticipation for Trump's announcement on Iran sanctions.
• Turn around Tuesday was interesting. Alphabet (GOOGL) hit 1065 before falling down to 1051. It touched it again at 11am and was up from there. The middle of the day high was just over 1060, came down to 1057 and spiked up along with the rest of the market about 5 minutes into Trump speaking. I bought a 1055 Put for 6 and sold it for 7. Google continued lower to 1055 and I could have sold that Put for just under 9 before coming back up to 1060.
• Boeing bottomed at noon just under 337, so I bought call options. I had 10 with the average cost of 2.05 per contract. I place a limit sell order for 3, but changed it to 2.5 as we got closer to 2pm. I missed out on at least $500 as Boeing spiked up to 341 during the speech before coming down quickly to 337. There was news about Boeing having a contract to sell plans with an Iranian company and so it is unclear how the market will react to Boeing for the rest of the week. I would expect it to start down tomorrow to 335, move up to 342 and possibly higher. 
• Home Depot had a nice run up this morning before changing direction to the downside around 11am. HD still finished up for the day. Walmart was a boring stock all day until it moved up at the end of the day.
• As will other Trump speeches, everything spikes in the market a couple of minutes into the speech and comes down quickly after the speech. Great for option day traders. Plan accordingly.
• Disney reported better than expected earnings after the market close today. There is very little movement after hours. Disney doesn't move much as it is so option sellers would love this. Everything might be different tomorrow, but I wouldn't count on it. 

The Monday After....

• Apple continued to move higher today on the heels of the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting with Warren Buffet over the weekend. 
• Alphabet (GOOGL) quickly shot up almost 15 points shortly after the market open. I benefited from buying one 1060 strike price call on the way up for 7.6 and selling it less than 10 minutes later for 11. It came back down to 1058 and going back to 1064 (another sell opportunity if didn't sell earlier), back to touch 1058 and floated between 1059 and 1062 all afternoon until 2:30pm when it made it to 1064 (sold for the 2nd time today, 1070 strike price) and then down past 1058. Based on the limited price movement today, I would expect Google to open on Tuesday lower, move higher before falling more than 20 points throughout the rest of the day.
• Walmart and Home Depot fell today, made mini runs up before falling more. I have observed this trading pattern for the past couple of weeks. It may hit 185, but may trade below 182 first this week. Friday's have looked really good to take advantage of buying after being down all week. Both report earnings next week. They both should knock it out of the park when they report. They might be the last step to bring the market higher.
• Boeing held strong most of the day and when everything else fell, it came down 2 points, but it trades over 340 when that happened. Based on the trading patterns, I would expect it to hit 335, come back to 342 and fall to 330 like it has done over the past couple of weeks.
• More earnings this week means possibility of having more upside, but given the major market components have reported already, I don't know that we will see that much upward movement before coming down to an area similar to last week.

Thurs/Fri Bull Market Runnin'

• Thursday was a continuation of Wednesday afternoon's sell off after the Federal Reserve made their meeting conclusions. By 11am, everything turned around and took off all the way until close. 
• Boeing (BA) went down to 319 when I saw it as a screaming buy so I bought 2 Call options with a 320 strike price. I sold too early for 5.50 when BA was at 325 because BA ran up to 330 by the end of the day.
• Alphabet/Google (GOOGL) fell to 1006 whe I bought 3 calls and it ran up to 1030 and closed at 1026.
• Apple was continuing it's run up which was fueled Friday morning when it was announced that Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway accumulated 75 million shares in the 1st quarter of 2018. On Friday's market open, Apple was the strongest positive influence in the market and everything rallied throughout the whole day. You could have bought a call on almost anything and done great.
• Home Depot (HD) opened at 183 when I saw you could buy the 185 strike price calls for .17 and when it hit 186 around lunch time you could have sold those calls for 1.20. So if you bought 10 for a total of $170, you could have sold for $1200.
• Even Tesla had a great rally to finish around 296.
• Alphabet hit 1018 within the first few minutes of market open on Friday. I bought 2 1025 calls for 2.90. I sold them when GOOGL hit 1040 for 15, but if I held a couple more hours until 3pm, I could have sold for 25. $594 into $5000!
• I advised a friend to buy a 1030 strike price on GOOGL. If I knew he bought it, I would have told him to sell for $10 minimum which would have been a 85% profit for one day. Instead, I thought he bought a Boeing option because it was still low when GOOGL started climbing and I told him to sell it around 3.5. He sold the GOOGL option that would have been worth 20 by the end of the day. He did not specify what he owned or I would have told him to sell for a higher price. 
• Day trading is fun and profitable when you follow the technicals, avoid making emotional trades/non-trades, and follow a discipline.

Apple Rally While Other Bore

• FANG is alive and well with Apple having an above expected earnings report yesterday and shares continued to climb all day. Amazon, Google and Netflix were down more than up today. I thought Apple was a screaming buy at $162 last week, but that is where I bought before when they dropped to $152 and then went up to $180. They are on pace to hit $180 before falling again. 
• The Fed's announced that they were not raising interest rates and the market had a huge spike up at 2pm before falling for the rest of the day. I believe the Federal Reserve Board won't raise rates more than one more time this year because it has not helped lending and has actually tightened everyone's money despite great positive movement in the labor market. English: I don't know. lol
• Tesla reported a lower than expected loss after the market close today. Tesla ran up in the afternoon to $306, but fell from 2pm to market close. They were trading up 10 after reporting earnings. The Model 3 production was improved in the first quarter. I would not be surprised to see nice upward movement on Thurday.
• Spotify announced a loss after the market close. SPOT ran up most of the day before falling after reporting earnings. Square was another disappointment in their earnings call this afternoon. I think people will stop calling the a crypto currency play.
• Home Depot and Best Buy were strong again today. I think these 2 companies are huge positive signals for the direction of the market for the rest of the year.

Golden Apple

• Stocks didn't move much Monday. McDonald's (MCD) reported a great first quarter. Tuesday was started by Merk and Pfizer reporting earnings. Pfizer was disappointing and the market went lower on Tuesday. 
• Turn around Tuesday was lead by tech. Google hit it's low for the day around 10am and everything else was around 11am. The charge was lead by Apple in anticipation of their earnings report after the market close. Fifty percent of Apple's revenue came from services which is giving them a pass on their unit sales. Apple is spending $100 billion to buy back stock and increasing it's dividend by 16%. The shares popped in the after hours trading. These were expected. I would expect today's gains are given back tomorrow plus some. Apple past $175 after hours which could be a signal for them to go higher in the short term as we have found Apple has shown resistance at $174/share.
• Snap had a disappointing earnings report and was down after hours and would expect it to go down further tomorrow and the next coming days.
• Sell in May and go away was the old story because most stocks are up in the first few months of the year. This year the market hit a high on January 26 and has not revisited it so there is more room to the upside.
• Wednesday the Federal Reserve Board will meet and possibly raise the Fed Funds Rate. It is expected to happen, but not tomorrow. If that rate goes up, the market may hurt from it. It doesn't make sense to raise interest rates as higher rates means less loans that people want to apply for mortgages, auto loans, new construction,... 
• The tax reform appears to have freed up cash for most companies, but have not increased wages. Instead companies are using it to buy more stock back to raise the stock price for the investors rather than the middle class. The combination of higher rates and tax reform are what is keeping the market in a trading range that it might not break out until the end of the year or sooner with updated legislation.
• Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook made a great speech at a developers conference today where he discussed how you can clean your browsing history in Facebook along with further focus on increasing the personal connection with friends and family.