Sunday, November 30, 2008

Black Friday

It was a relatively quiet week with the US Thanksgiving celebrations.

After a big meal the shoppers were out in force, but most were out looking for bargains and bargains is what they got with huge discounts offered by a number of retailers.

Coming into Friday they new that consumer spending was already down, there were job losses everywhere, tighter credit and the already reduced home values and stock portfolios from this crisis. Discounts are what were needed to get these wallets opened.

Keep tuned for the results, but the feeling is that retail spending if growing at all will be at significantly off.

Although volume was light the markets did have the best week in 2008 with the NYSE +12.9%, S&P + 12% and the Nasdaq + 10.9%. Of course for November we still have NYSE - 7.6%, S&P -7.5% and the Nasdaq -10.8%.

Although I still do not think the bottom is in place yet we cannot ignore the nice set ups in a number of stocks and following the rules take a stab at some of these rallies.

For bottom pickers we have DIS, DD, C, BA, AA, MRK, INTC, IBM, GM, and GE to name some of the Dow stocks that have had KRD's at the low and have begun to rally off.

For continuation trades try PETS, AFAM, EBS, or THOR.

All these look good if there is any follow through after this weekend.

I am still holding a number of puts but am willing to hedge with some longs depending on how things open on Monday.

You cannot forget that the market is a leading indicator and will turn before all the bad news is in place. This week we will find out how the sales were as well as a number of other significant indicators.

Let’s see how the market reacts!!!

No comments: