Positive Ending to the First Half of 2018

• Yesterday after the market close the Fed Stress Test results came in favorably for almost all banks. Thankfully when the banks are up, Amazon and Google go up too and I trade Alphabet (GOOGL) options primarily.
• Alphabet was poised to open $6 higher than yesterday's close. So I watched it go up and then come down in the first 10 minutes which showed me that it was going up to start the day so I jumped in buying 5 Call options with 1137.50 strike price. It quickly ran up to 1141 where it stalled. I was quick on the trigger after missing on $500 yesterday and sold for a max profit. See illustrations below:
  
• From selling my Call options at the top, Alphabet slipped down and came back, but didn't make a new high. That is where I bought a Put option. Unfortunately I sold it too soon as I made another $125, where if I had more conviction I would have held it a bit longer for a $400 profit.
• There is no guarantee with anything. I just try to make money based on momentum opportunities I see in the market with specific stocks. The option prices in Friday are the lowest due to the limited time they are good, but the opportunity to make a profit diminishes without momentum that is carried through the day. 
• Learning Lesson:  Never submit a Sell to Close at Market Price before the market opens at 9:30am. I bought back an out of the money call option on Best Buy with a strike price of 77 with the expectation that I could close the position out for under $10 because it closed on Wednesday for .06. When I looked at the transaction details I bought it back for $41 yesterday at market open. Best Buy ended the week below $75 and this option would have expired today worthless which would have saved me $41. I bought it back yesterday because Best Buy is a retail stock that moves with FANG many times and FANG was so low Wednesday that it was going up on Thursday. I expected Best Buy might have the possibility of going above 77 by the end of the week and I didn't want to chance it if I could close the position for under $10. MY BAD!

Market Oversold Created Buying Conditions

• The stock market was over sold for the past couple of days and especially yesterday. Everything was poised to go higher. Amazon had the nicest gain due to the news on the acquisition of a mail order pharmacy. Amazon and Netflix looked hot to open, but Google on the other hand looked as though it was still over sold.
• Not only was Google oversold opening down another 4 from where it closed yesterday, it went down another 6 after open. This is crazy since the Stochastic Indicator shows that it is over sold on the 1 and 5 minute intervals. This was a great time to reel in profits. Check out my charts below.
  
  
  
  

Big Drop in the Market Again

• Wednesday was a crazy day in the market. There were huge moves before the market even opened. The Dow Jones was poised to open down over 250 points at 7am and then there was news from the White House regarding stealing of our technology. Boeing led the market to high peaks until everything reversed led by technology stocks. 
• So my first chart will show Boeing. Assuming you had Call options or bought some at open you would have enjoyed a nice run. The chart below shows if you bought Put options at the peak and sold them at the first bottom.
  
• Netflix is my next chart and it signified what was happening with it's brother (Amazon) and sister (GOOGL) stocks. The stochastic lines were high on the 1 minute and 5 minute charts. There was some money to be made going up higher, but there was plenty indication that it was changing direction to go lower after 10am.
  
• I find that Alphabet (GOOGL) continues to experience the same movements to start the day that I have noted before. It showed upward movement, came down to near where it started around 9:40am, shot back up higher and peaked. Sometimes that peak happens at 10:30am, but today happened at 10am. This was a good time to get out of those Call options.
  
• Alphabet has movement throughout the day and below are some additional opportunities. I believe trading based on the 5 minute interval charts, but finding your entry and exit points based on the 1 minutes charts. You can get the 1 minute easier through Yahoo Finance.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Each dollar in price equals around 700 in option contract profit. It doesn't take a lot of time to profit, but if you don't use the signs you will lose money. 

Tuesday Market Pop

• Yesterday's big drop had a nice reversal at the end. That momentum continued Tuesday. Netflix had one of the biggest declines yesterday based on share price with no new causing it. Alphabet is that other stock that I follow closely and traded option based on.
• Alphabet (GOOGL) Tuesday movement is similar to Friday movement. Typically Alphabet moves one direction in the first 8 minutes, then reverses direction for the next 8 minutes. Then it will continue in the first direction sometimes beyond where it initially went. Around 10:45am it reverses direction to eventually pass the initial rebound. See charts below.
  
• Netflix was down so big yesterday that it bounced back today. It doesn't move like Alphabet, but it does follow the movement higher especially on days like today. Initially it moved down, but then it went up, sideways for a little to be lower and then shoot up with Alphabet and other FANG stocks. When Alphabet topped out for the day around 1pm, so did Netflix.
  
• I expect them both to continue on a path higher on Wednesday and Thursday.

Big Drop in the Market Again = Profit Time

• The Nasdaq hit a new all time high last week along with FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google). The Dow Jones was up good before falling 8 days in a row. Today everything fell as trade war fear struck the market.
• Today I traded options on Alphabet (GOOGL). It opened down, spiked up close to where it opened and took off to the downside. As I have noted before, on Monday's Alphabet trades one direction typically. Today that direction was down. You could have made money buying Put options any time during the day. The best place to buy them would have been on the quick spike up at 9:40am (see chart below). What is interesting is that it bounced off 1120 similar to last year when it traded between 920-945. I expect it to be down to start the day and go higher for the rest of the day.

• I take no responsibility for anyone else using my information as they are based on my studies and opinions. Real money is made and lost based on many factors. 

Dow Jones Finally Closed Positive

• I have decided to only do one paragraph summary of the market and the rest of what I saw as being great option trades. The Dow Jones ended its losing streak lead by Exon, Chevron, McDonald's, United Healthcare, Verizon and even Boeing got in on the action. Oil took the headlines on Friday with the big Opec meeting where they discussed shrinking increased production. It doesn't make sense to me either, but it drove oil stocks up. 
• Tech stocks opened higher and quickly went down. Put options were the best to own for the first hour of trading on Friday. I bought Put options on Tesla with a strike price of 340 and sold them too quickly as Tesla went down past 335, popped up to 340 and fell further down to 332. 
• Alphabet (GOOGL) opened above 1171 and went up to 1175 before coming straight down where it bottomed at 1160 (1159 and change) which is where I bought Call options with a strike price of 1165. I noticed that the stochastic indicators for 1 and 5 minutes showed it was poised to go up. It showed some resistence at 1166, but ended up going up to 1174.98 and going down from there. Once again, the range on Alphabet on Friday is typically dertermined in the first 15 minutes. The turn around time almost every Friday is 10:45am. I bought my Calls around 10:40am and clearly sold them too soon.
• I took advantage of Home Depot as I notice it typically goes up Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. It looked a little hot on Thursday afternoon so I was expecting it to go down. It went down to 199.20 and took off to the upside. I prefer to buy Call options at least one week out when day trading a lower cost stock like Home Depot so I bought 10 HD Calls with a strike price of 200 set to expire next week. It did take off and went to 200.50 when it quickly changed direction. I sold my Calls at that point for a $400 profit.
• Next week is the end of the quarter and I expect to see the banks run up starting on Monday as they are far too low. When you follow a stock to trade, you want to follow its cousin to a point to give you indications of what to expect in your stock. Amazon ended down hard which indicated that Google might have more to go down on Monday.

Market Down Again

• The Dow Jones was down again today for the 8th straight day. The Nasdaq gave back most of yesterday's gains. Retail stocks looked up lead by nice gains in Best Buy and Home Depot. Walmart was even up decent today. The move was based on a new rule that will require Amazon to collect sales tax from sellers. Amazon led the FANG stocks down including.
• FANG stocks of Amazon, Netflix an Google were down big today. Amazon and Google closed near their lows, but Netflix made up most of what it lost in the morning. Facebook is still running strong due to the new video sharing options on Instagram.
• Mad Money's Jim Crammer says Intel is way under valued even with the CEO scandal. With the positive earnings from Micron (MU), I would have expected Intel to power higher also. It will over the next week and I would expect a new high by Intel's next earnings report.

Wednesday Market Recovery

• The Dow Jones opened higher, but ended up trading flat for most of the day. GE didn't help and Boeing was marginally better. The good news was the news that Germany is going to eliminate import tariffs on automobiles. This appears to be a good sign for the markets and I would expect that we will get more good news on Thursday that will spur the markets higher.
• I don't know that the Nasdaq has much room to go higher as Amazon, Netflix, Facebook and finally Alphabet (GOOGL) hit new highs on Wednesday in the noon hour. It was around the same time that President Trump was speaking about the illegal immigrants. Unfortunately the FANG stocks are so high that they may hit another peak in the morning before falling hard when there is a rotation out of them into the big industrial names like Boeing and Caterpillar. 
• Alphabet already started selling off after 1pm. Tesla continued its run higher throughout the day. It actually looked straight up from 2:30pm through 3pm.
• Home Depot went down, then up, then back down again. It appears to be bouncing off the 198 level and I believe it will do it's regular Thursday afternoon through Friday morning run up. I will look for a draw down a little further after a spike higher in the morning. That will be the Call option buying opportunity on Thursday to sell around 10am on Friday.

Something Extra for Tues/Wednesday

• It was announced Tuesday after the market close that GE will be replaced in the Dow Jones Industrial Average by Walgreens. Due to GE's dismall performance over the past few years, this was not a surprise to many. The news did drive GE lower and Walgreens higher in after hours. CNBC's Fast Money crew feel that the one to leave typically performs better after the dust has settled. Mad Money's Jim Crammer happen to do a peice that included Walgreens using Fibonacci chart patterns that suggest more upward movement. This was performed before he got the news that Walgreens was replacing GE in the Dow Jones, so it appears more real.
• Starbucks dropped after the market close as they announced they will be shutting down 150 stores that are not performing as well. Starbucks is opening a store every 15 hours in China and is thought they might be subject to government boycotting should the tariffs go into effect. Starbucks was the Fast Pitch by Pete Najerian this afternoon. So any dip should be seen as a buying opportunity.

Tariff Pain Hits the Markets!

• Almost everything was down big to open the day today. Boeing experienced the biggest drop. It bounced off 338 as JP Morgan bounced off 106.50. From those lows, they went up and down, but didn't fall as bad as this morning.
• Verizon received an upgrade today and it was one of the few stocks that was up all day. I said it was going up from the 47.30 bottom.
• The FANG stocks were down this morning hitting their bottom around 10:30am. They came up some, down some and took off to the upside from 1:30pm through 3pm. Alphabet was within 1 point from yesterday's close, but Amazon and Netflix hit new all time highs today.
• Tesla wend down and didn't come up much today.
• Money is made when the market is up or down. I hope you have time to make yours.

Dow Drops Again to Start the Week

- Retaliatory tariffs from China started everything down on Monday. Boeing was a big drag as was Intel.
- Intel might have been down, but most tech stock ran way up. Amazon and Facebook hit new highs. Alphabet was up big the whole day after the announcement that they are investing $550 billion in JD.com. Alphabet has a lot of catching up to do with the over bought Amazon.
- Best Buy was the leader when it comes to retail today. Macy's and others ended the day near even which brings me to think that Best Buy has runs like a hybrid retail FANG stock.
- JP Morgan started lower and had a good run back to the 108 mark. I expect it to get up to 110 this week.
- Other than that it was a boring day as most stocks were trying to play make up to Friday's close.

Market Drama, Dow Drops and Tariffs, Oh My!!!

• We woke to news that President Trump was going to impose tariffs on China again. After what appeared to be a successful meeting with North Korea's Kim, this might be a surprise that the tariff talk is heating up again. The market dropped on this news from open.
• The tech stocks had nice runs the whole week even despite the rest of the market being down on Thursday. Friday they remains pretty even. Some were down and some were up, but Apple appeared to be down a little more compared to others. Apple was going to make all new phones with the high resolution OLED screens. Due to higher priced materials increasing the price of their phones, Apple has decided to keep the course unchanged and remain with their standard LCD screens. I doubt that means they will drop the price of the new phones as they will continue to try to get $2 out of 3 quarters.
• Boeing dropped hard in the first hour of trading on Friday. It had a nice run up from 2:30 to 3pm only to give most of it back to end the day unchanged, but down for the week.
• Home Depot had it's regular Friday rally first thing in the morning. It appears to be the one stock that you can load up your Call options on it's low from Thursday  and sell by 10am on Friday. Sure it went down, but not below where it closed on Thursday and went back up higher.
• Return to retail was lead by gains in Best Buy, Macy's and L Brands. I like these for their high dividends and positive track record this year. I have found that when you have these in your portfolio, they are good to sell Call options when they hit their relative highs in about 10 days.
• The same is true for Verizon who went down with AT&T over the past couple of days. When Verizon hits $49.50 it is good to sell a Call option against your position. At the same time a speculative person would consider buying a Put options to sell when it hits $47.50. I don't know if you will be that lucky because if Verizon follows AT&T, the bulls will run up the price over the next couple of weeks since the AT&T acquisition of Time Warner is going through right away.
• I found that JP Morgan bottomed this morning when it got down to 106.27. JP Morgan has traded in a range between 106 and 110 over the past month. It ran up past 108 after that and came down a little. I expect it to go up more this coming week as interest rates will settle in. You might get another chance to get it at 106 next week, but not likely.

Tech and Media Up, Retail and Banks Down

• With the rise in the Fed Funds Rate you would expect the banks to be up. Interest rates actually dropped this morning and took the banks with them. JP Morgan actually dropped below 108 and bounced up some from there. 
• Boeing spiked up this morning shortly after the market opened to 367 and then fell sharply to 359 where it bounced up. I would expect a bigger bounce for the day on Friday, but don't believe I will be trading it.
• FANG participated to the upside today with Amazon, Netflix and Nvidia hitting new highs today. Alphabet opened up, dipped to where it opened and drove higher until 1:30pm when it gave back 10 points to go up another 5.  I traded the movement from 9:40am to 10:20am for a nice gain. 
• I heard this morning that Amazon Prime membership might have peaked and is feeling pressure from Walmart. Amazon is so much more that just shopping and apparently the market didn't believe that as Amazon hit a new high and Walmart faltered with the rest of retail.
• A retail name that did not falter much was Best Buy. Best Buy trades like a tech on some days and like a retail on others, but more like a tech. 
• Macy's, L Brands, Home Depot, Walmart and almost everything else retail related was down today after there was a very positive number regarding retail price index this morning at 8:30am. Verizon hit a nice bottom around 47.30 where it went up from there. Home Depot hit a bottom around the same time at 198.25. I would expect Home Depot to have it's regular Friday morning run tomorrow and hit 202 by the end of the day.
• Towards the end of the day there was news that the Department of Justice will not challenge the court ruling allowing AT&T to acquire Time Warner. Disney, Comcast and Netflix were up nicely. According to a chart maker, they see Netflix will hit 415 soon.

Let the Mergers Begin!!!

• The biggest news for the day was the Fed Funds Rate increasing .25% and Fed Chairman Powell's speech about the state of the economy. The rate increase was expected and the market traded like it through out the day. Most things were up, dropped at 2pm when it was announced, went up during his speech and dropped hard for the last half hour of the day. Based on this reaction, I would expect the market to drop a little more on Thursday and turn around mid day
• Boeing dropped sharply more on news that an airline was considering dropping their airplane order. This should not be a big deal as they have a long list of customers waiting for new planes. I would expect to see Boeing move up for the rest of the week as it was over sold.
• Tesla was up and down for the day and back up again. After the market close it
  
  was announced that Elon Musk is going to buy more shares. He is already the largest shareholder and he will own around a third of Tesla. I would expect to see shares jump on Thursday on this news.
• The banks were down in the day and were the first to spike when the interest rate was announced at 2pm. They were also the first to fall in the last hour of trading. I would expect to see them lead the way in the next couple of days.
• Home Depot was down sharply at open and fell below 200. When ever this happens it should be bought with Call Options. It still ended the day down, but still above 200. Home Depot typically has great Thursday afternoons and Fridays. 
• SunRun was up again breaking through the 14 mark. Its PE ratio is low and has more run to move up under the sun. lol
• H&R Block was a great buy if you got it at $24 or less. They moved up to 24.70 during the day which was good movement for this stock that typically has little movement. Like Macy's and L Brands, this was a great buy based on earnings, dividends as the depressed forecasted earnings drove it down yesterday afternoon. I would expect to see it back to the 30 range when a couple of analyst upgrade it in the next couple of weeks. I would not purchased Call options on it unless they were 2 months out. Given the low volatility, they could be purchased at a great price.

Tuesday Boring Market Woke After Close

• Around 5pm on Tuesday the AT&T purchase of Time Warner was ruled on by the court and allowed to proceed. This drove the stock of Time Warner up and AT&T down. Any company that is considered a take over target shot up in the after hour trading session on Tuesday. Netflix was seen as receiving increased competition and went down in the after hour session also. 
• Fox is the next merger target for Disney and Comcast. Disney had an offer for Fox, but Comcast has a higher all cash offer. Those stocks should rally the next couple of days.
• Home Depot continued its run higher and so did my favorite solar company SunRun.
• Tesla ran up big only to change courses to go lower around 1pm to the end of the day with news on lay off of salaried management team. This should be positive as they are restructuring to save money and when that have not made a profit, it only makes sense. Tesla still ended the day where it started which was up 10 for the day.
• Other than that, it was a boring day waiting for Tuesday's Federal Reserve Board announcement.

Monday Ups and Downs in the Market

• With so much news happening this week, the market is going to react. With optimism for President Trump meeting with North Korea's President Kim drove the markets up some on Monday.
• Tesla opened up, took a mid day breather and went higher. Tesla will continue to go up for the rest of this month despite any negative news that doesn't have to do with production. CEO Elon Musk says they will produce 5000 vehicles in the last week of June. This production figure was promised multiple times for the past year and a half. If they don't meet it this time, Tesla will plummet in July.
• Alphabet (GOOGL) jumped up after 10am to hit 1048, but gave half of its gains back after 2pm. I have noticed that Alphabet would go up for a week and down for a week in the first half of the year. Recently in the past couple of weeks those changes have happened more rapidly in less than a week. Last week Alphabet completed a 5 day run mid day on Tuesday and went down for the remainder of Tuesday through Friday morning around 10:45am. Since Friday morning it has gone up.
• Boeing has tread water moving between 369 and 374. When it dips, there is an opportunity to buy Call Options and be out within a couple of hours with nice gains.
• Home Depot continued to go up on Monday. It was a focus of CNBC's Option Action on Friday with expectation of breaking out to a new high by the end of July. At it's current pace that will happen by the end of the week, but I would expect a pull back before then. Right now it has broken 200 and doesn't appear that it will trade below 200 again.
• AT&T's purchase of Time Warner will be ruled by the court around 4pm this afternoon. We won't get a market reaction until Wednesday. This is a big deal for Disney, Comcast and Fox as the Fox sale competition increases.

Friday Market Up Again

• Once again there was news about Apple phone sales are slowing because suppliers have announced they are receiving less orders from Apple. I find this funny since we have an idea of where they are made (China), but Apple is secretive and uses multiple suppliers for so many parts. Because of the news Apple dropped 3 points at open and recovered some during the day.
• Home Depot and Boeing dropped at open with everything else including Alphabet. By 10:45AM everything changed direction and moved up. Home Depot has run up strongly this week from 190 to 197. I would expect to see it give back some Monday through Wednesday and have a very strong Thursday and Friday. Wednesday afternoon will probably be the best time to buy Call Options.
• Alphabet (GOOGL) got sold off by the end of the day and completed it's 4th day in a row of downward performance. So far this year, Alphabet would have one week where it changes direction from being down to moving up on Tuesday and have a big Wednesday through the end of the week. The opposite is true as it reverses direction from the upside on Tuesday as it did this past Tuesday and dropped from there. The movement from the prior week was from 1065 to 1162. Half of that would put it at 1013 as a floor to look for it to rebound to new highs and that should happen Tuesday morning. 
• This week Twitter graduated and is now listed on the S&P 500 and has gone up all week. Who knows what is going to happen next week with Twitter, but there is a lot of news happening:
• President Trump meeting about trade this weekend.
• On Tuesday is the summit with North Korea.
• On Tuesday there will be a court ruling on AT&T purchase of Time Warner.
• The Federal Reserve Board is meeting on Wednesday and we will have an announcement at 2pm on inflation and if the Fed Funds rates will be raised. Given the strong start to June, I would expect the rate to be raised and interest rates to start going up on Monday.

Dow Up, Nasdaq Down!!!

Boeing broke through for another new high at open and then went down and didn't come up for air much today.

Home Depot led the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Thursday as it ran up until 10:50am then fell sharply, but did end the day higher. I would expect to see more of the same on Friday. Verizon also made a nice more up today to break through 49.

Tesla broke out to 328 and fell for most of the day after that. It would have been a good day to buy a Put Option on them around 10am. Every day there is more news of another crash involving a Tesla, so I would not be surprised to see them dip again through Tuesday. The pressure will be on for Tesla to deliver results by the end of the month when Elon Musk says they are going to produce 5,000 cars in the last week of June.

Amazon, Alphabet and most other tech stocks sold off sharply today. This appears to be typical trend after so many hit new highs. I would expect this to continue through Tuesday. Buying Puts on Friday and Monday might be best. 

Banks sold off also today after starting the day up. They still finished up, but marginally.

Tues/Wednesday Market Gains... BOOM TESLA!

• I am starting to sound like a broken record as Amazon and Netflix hit new highs today... but they went down along with almost all of technology stocks on Wednesday. Retail stocks were up again on Tuesday lead by Macy's and Best Buy, but they were slightly down on Wednesday. 
• Tesla was down some on Tuesday, but with a positive shareholder meeting on Tuesday drove the stock dramatically higher on Wednesday blowing through to 321. I saw Tesla hit a bottom on Tuesday and thought that was a good time to buy a Call Option. You would be up so big if you had done that yesterday and held it today.
• Banking stocks led by JP Morgan were up on Wednesday as they appeared to be left out of the rally over the prior week. This was spurred on by rising interest rates on Wednesday.
• Boeing led the Dow Jones on Wednesday as it broke out to a new all time high.
• Alphabet (GOOGL) was under pressure on Wednesday as there is a threat in Europe of being fined for their integration in Android phones. It was flat on Tuesday and down on Wednesday. I believe it is still trailing other technology stocks and has much room to move upward for the next couple of days. 
• I would expect to see more positive movement for banks over the next week. Oil stocks have lagged and have room to come back up also.

Exciting Start to the Week in the Market

• Apple is holding its annual developers conference starting today and this time the stock didn't drop. It actually hit a new high again. Amazon hit a new all time high as it was up the whole day. Alphabet was up for most of the day also. Facebook didn't lose too much after the new report on the sharing of user data.
• Microsoft hit a new high with news of their purchase of Github.
• Nvidia hit an all time high also today. Netflix was up, but Micron was not. 
• Almost all retail stocks were up today including Macy's hitting a 52 week high, Home Depot gained 4 points, Walmart and Best Buy were up too. 
• Boeing was up with positive news before market open which appears to be a reoccurring theme, but it struggles to hold on to its gains.
• Verizon, the bank stocks and oil stocks were down today. 
• Tuesday is setting up to be a day of retraction and I am sure Trump will have something to say for Wednesday to create a drop. The market is going up as the Nasdaq hit a new all time high today, but there appears  to be a reason every week for a drop.

Friday Market Boom!!!

• Trump Tweeted late last night that he can't wait until the jobs number is released this morning. It was a good one and the market reacted positively.
• FAANG hit new highs today. Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Netflix hit new all time highs today. Alphabet (GOOGL) had another day with a big run up. It closed Thursday at 1100 even and shot up to 1138 which makes 70 points in 3 days! Apple is hosting a developers conference next week. I would believe that FAANG will run up next week and Alphabet will break it's all time high by the end of the week, but might fall next Friday.
• Ford released sales numbers that were up .7% when it was expected to be down 1.4%. Many think that GM is the less expensive stock, but Ford is restructuring and going to excel in the long run.
• Sunrun (RUN) hit a 52 week high today. I am fond of Sunrun as I went with them to put the solar panels on our home. I believe they are over looked in the solar sector as they make a profit and most others have not reported a profit.
• All most everything was up today including the banks like JP Morgan. Boeing ran up quickly to 358 in the first 15 minutes then fell back below 355 and ended the day just under 357. 
• Yesterday's reaction to the tariff talk was mild to the downside. Today's positive job report erased every one's memory of what a tariff is. Now that earning season is just about over, geopolitical concerns may be all that drives the market.