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.

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.

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.