What a Week!

I got this image from a friend who reads the blog more than a month ago, but I haven't had the chance to post it with a good enough week to celebrate a little. It is fairly "down market" and I apologize in advance to anyone sensitive to these kinds of images, but I figured that with what we all endured with "Client #9" this week that it was no longer "over the top".

What a day and what a week. I was able to double-up my GS calls three times today on every dip and sell the new position each time for about a 20% profit an hour later. I also got to work building a long portfolio. I purchased AAPL at $125.00 (average prices on each), GRMN at $57.45, BOLT at $15.75, and ANSS at $36.00. This deployed about 50% of my cash.

today) didn't take the market down technically. I have been closely watching the 1280 area on the S&P and every time that the market dropped there today a series of buy program went off. Mr. Market is clearly defending the double bottom put in on the S&P at that What am I thinking? Well, I am very bullish that a Fed move (like the one with BSCintraday low of 1270. My long positions are merely picking up some values at these levels.

I have also been watching the VIX (see charts - daily and weekly). You can clearly see that the market very often improves shortly after the VIX rises above 30. While this is also temporary in a lot of cases, the uptick that happens the following week is noticeable and significant enough for me to take a chance long.

Until today, most of my portfolio has been in cash. Most of my options plays were with only about 10% of my portfolio, but the out sized gains realized this week has been enough to basically overcome any February losses.

A trader's confidence goes in cycles and mine is coming back after hitting what I thought was a major low point for me in a couple of years last week when I had to cover my long positions only to be in cash when the Tuesday rally started. The point is that if you use discipline and stay in the game, you can often turn things around. Time to wander down to the wine cellar and pick out a good one for tonight.