The stock market is just not looking too great this morning with a lot of very poor indicators out there for our enjoyment. We were unfortunate not to get involved in any new positions yesterday. Our Double Short Sale of the Days were not actionable because of ranges that I had set for safety. Our first Short Sale on Citi Trends Inc. (CTRN) was good for a 12% decline throughout the day, but we missed the entry by fifteen cents. Our second short sale was on ERX/ERY if crude inventories were significantly up or down, but they were neither. So, we made no play. Hopefully, today, we can have some better success with getting into some winning positions.
Let’s get to it with another round of short sales…since I don’t think I can recommend buys on a day when futures are down 165 points…
Short Sale of the Day #1: MF Global Inc. (MF)
Analysis: The Euro is in free fall once again. Europe does not know what the heck they can do to stop it. The foreign markets are in the red again today, and we are staring at one of the biggest gaps in the last couple months between predicted jobless claims and actual claims. Is the sky falling on anyone? The US Department of Labor reported that jobless claims were at 471,000 for the past week, more than the 440,000 predicted. It also was a rise from last week’s 446,000. Not good…
Overall, the markets are not looking at all tempting, and we are looking at trying to find a couple of groovy short sales to help us make some money in this upside down market. The first place I want to start today is MF Global Inc. (MF). MF is an investment brokerage who specializes as a derivatives clearinghouse. This company reported absolutely awful earnings this morning. The company missed their estimates by -1900% with an EPS of -0.18 vs. the expected profit of 0.01 EPS. The company, in addition to the bad profit, cut their FY estimates, and for the cherry on top, MF announced that they will be cutting 10% – 15% of their total workforce. Uh…yikes!
The stock is down over 4.5% in pre-market trading. Yet, with no good buys out there. This type of news, and the fact that everything is going to drop hard out of the gates. I think this might be a nice place…
