Weekly Recap

November is in the books. A hangover? A bad hair month? No it was the subprime mess rearing its ugly head again that caused the markets to ring up one of its worst November on record.

Last Tuesday was a busy day for my portfolio, having sold ETFC for a gain, thinking that an AMTD deal would have happened by Tuesday (which would have had more upside to the stock price). As it turned out, the Citadel investment didn't move the stock and, so far, seems to have been the right decision. The proceeds from this speculative play went into more ROCM and the beginning of another position with SIRO. Both ROCM and SIRO were on-sale and usually hold up well defensively if the market moves south.

I also lightened up on my AAPL and GRMN calls - again getting slightly defensive. Finally, I bought some ZOLT puts on Tuesday to play the ZOLT earnings announcement on Wednesday night. This last trade was a mistake. ZOLT's earnings were good enough to propel the stock and I had to bail on these puts ASAP on Thursday morning. The trade was a token amount, but I hate to be so wrong.

Wednesday's market tape caused me to get more defensive. With the bulls driving up the DJI market tape more than 550 points, I started hedging my bets by buying some XLF puts and some TIE puts (after TIE rocketed up on Wednesday).

Thursday's tape caused me to sell those puts as it appears to me that folks began buying the dip, waiting for the Fed Chairman to speak in the evening (hopefully juicing stocks some more on Friday). Friday's tape began to convince me that we had come too far, too fast and I sold half my remaining calls shortly after open.

So I now have some cash on the sideline for next week - a week that should be interesting.

Jobs report next week which will be a set-up for the Fed meeting on the 11th. It seems like we have a very serious debate going on between the bulls and the bears, meaning volume next week may be heavy.