Time Out

I'm calling it on myself. I deserve a time out. AAPL is getting crushed. The market will open lower this morning and I am on the wrong side of these trades in both cases.

AAPL nailed earnings and beat the Street by a wide margin, but guided lower for their 2nd quarter (this current quarter). This guidance is killing the stock, down another 11% in pre-market to trade below $140.00. This puts my long calls in a new worthless position.

I should have taken yesterday's Feb155 call buy off the table at close yesterday with a profit. Instead, I am looking at a major loss on this trade. With 68% of my portfolio in cash, it won't kill me, but the last two weeks are setting off alarms in my head that this market is currently very dangerous to trade in.

So I am taking a time out. At noon today I am heading to the mountains with my family to play in some snow and relax for the rest of the week. These plans were made yesterday. I need to clear my head and improve on the portfolio's performance (which is down for the year).

I am keeping most of those AAPL calls for now. I expect them to be nearly worthless (especially the Feb175 calls (depending on this morning, I may take the loss on these today).

All my charts and indicators tell me that the market will turn, but I have so far been wrong. Maybe this is stubborn, but the long trade seems to have less risk at this moment in time for at least a minor snapback.

By the way, EGY's latest well in the North Sea came up a dry hole (technically unproductive). The stock took a hit on this news yesterday. I will add more under $4.00. Their program for 2008 still looks good.