Good to be back with you today after having to miss yesterday. We had an okay Monday as we went 1/2 on the day. We had been expecting the market to make a major pullback, but it instead had a nice rise on some M&As and bargain hunting. Still, our short sale of the day, LDK Solar Inc. (LDK) worked well for us. Solar has been in the pits, and we were able to buy LDK at 8.80 early on in the day and sell off at 8.63 for a sweet 2% gain. The buy pick of the day, Ultrashort Proshares Financial ETF (SKF), was not as successful. We got involved with the stock at 25.75, and we got stopped out at 25.00 for a 3% loss. It was our first miss on the buy pick of the day in a week, and it was the first 3% loss in weeks. Today, we will have to bounce back to getting both of these right.
Here we go…
Buy Pick of the Day: Fifth Third Bancorp Inc. (FITB)
I am going to get behind a market rally coming on Wednesday, in the wake of Tuesday’s losses. There are just too many positive indicators, and while I want to be bearish (like usual), I am going to restrain myself and look at the short term fundamentals of this market. It all starts with the GDP report that came out at 8:30 AM. The GDP for Q2 was revised down by the government to a loss of only 0.7%, while the expectations were that it would be revised upwards to 1.20% from 1.00%. The suprise gain shows the economy really turned around in the latter part of Q2, and it sets up Q3 to be hopefully a growth quarter…ending the recession. Nonfarm unemployment rates were higher than expected, but the way futures are playing out, it does not really seem to matter, which will get to in a moment.
Fifth Third (FITB) is the pick of the day. This is one to get excited about if the market does rally because of its oh so sexy 2.44 beta rating, and its close connection to a company that got an upgrade today, Huntington Bancshares (HBAN), which is the best news that company has seen in a very long time. Both companies are regional banks in the midwest based in Ohio. The company’s upgrade from Duetsche Bank should give…
