IT'S ALL ABUOT THE JOBS...

Good morning traders! We need to sit pat today and let our winners ride out what will likely be a strong storm today. We get the all-important new jobs number out this morning. Consensus is for a higher reading than last month and anything in that range or lower should be welcomed by traders concerned about an inflating economy...but any higher and we may see the markets do a steep dive. The charts are poised to go either way here with a slight technical leaning to the long side. Futures are down ahead of the number but that may all change by 8:30 am, EST.
Yesterday's modest rally was built on gold, oil and biotech...but again volume was below average making it 14 days in a row with light trading. That should all change today as professional money steps up to position itself either for the next leg up, or another leg down. We should know which by the close of trading today. If down, it may not be a bad idea to use one of the new "ultra" ETF's to put on a hedge position against our open longs (QID is a good one to use).
Other stocks to consider: (longs) FWLT, FCX, RIG; (shorts) ATHR

Sept. 6th, 2007: Good morning traders!

Futures have been up most of the morning, slightly, but now trading a bit below fair value. There are a lot of SSS's numbers to digest this morning (WMT among them, which came in strong), and unemployment rolls out in a few minutes. Yesterday turned out to be a trend down day after showing some early headfakes. The indices traded precisely as we predicted (gap down, gap fill, rollover) but I still got whipped out of my hedge short position in the Q's for a minimal gain. Also made a mistake in jumping on CROX early only to get stopped out when some bad news hit the airwaves. Otherwise we would have been strongly green on the day (have a real nice winner in the MTT letter: SCUR) with our longs continuing to outperform the markets and our short finally hitting some profit. Can't beat seeing the Swing Trade Newsletter trades up on a day when the markets were down over 1%% How sweet is that??

Today I expect some minor chop chop early as the indices look for support, and then the beginnings of a recovery rally this afternoon into tomorrow. I don't expect that to get very far however. We should trade within a tight range until we hear from the FOMC later in the month.

Stocks to watch: (longs) GRMN, RIG; (shorts) HON, ICE, MICC, BEAV

Market Notes: 08/31/07

08/31/07: Good morning traders! Despite this being traditionally one of the lightest trading weeks of the year, the bulls put on an impressive show yesterday, rescuing the markets from an early drawdown. We were able to cover our Q's short hedge for a nifty gain early, and re-shorted later in the day (twice) for further gains on the late-day slump. But the last 20 minutes were something else...as if the overnight news about Bush's "suprime rescue" speech had been leaked to the street...hmmmm. Today Bernanke gives his speech (not yesterday as I had reported) and with Bush outlining a rescue plan for subprime loans, and reform measures, traders are ramping the futures to the highest levels I've seen in many months in anticipation of good news coming from the two chiefs. Are we being set up for a "gap and crap"? In all likelihood yes because volume should be light going into the holiday weekend and without sustained buying pressure there will be a dropoff. I myself plan to fade the opening gap on the first sell signal for a quick turn trade.

Other stocks I like (but not risk worthy for our newsletters), all long: ELON, SPWR, GRMN, ESRX, BOOM, FWLT, MTOX, BIDU.

A reminder that US Markets are closed on Monday.