I am trying to get bullish, really I am.

As I said to Members on Thursday morning in chat, like Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction: “I’m trying hard to be the (bullish) shepherd” but the data makes it hard – so very hard!  Anyway, I’m not here to complain about the market forces moving against us but to review the carnage of our picks going all the way back to Sept 10th, when we decided the prior day’s beige book was not going to be enough to break out over 9,600 on the Dow.  Now, with the Dow at 9,820 after testing 9,900 it’s a good idea to look back and see what we missed in this last 2.5% leg up

On Thursday the 10th, we talked about patterns.  One pattern I recommended following right in the morning post was the famous “stick save” investment.  Simply buying high-delta DIA calls at about 2:30 each afternoon and selling into the pumped-up close.  That was a winning play on the 10th, 11th (Fri), 14th and 16th but not the last two days, when we turned a lot more bearish – but we’ll get to that furher down this review. 4 out of 5 days is pretty good for a patten and seeing it broken 3 of the past 5 days is also significant.  I did promise that Thursday that we will look for more bullish opportunities once we have a clear break over our last two levels (NYSE 6,959 and S&P 1,056) and we did make those this week.  If we hold it through Tuesday, it will be time and we’re going to line up some trades this weekend.  True to my word on that Thursday, we chose a variety of bullish and bearish plays in Member Chat.  I’m posting the plays along with suggested adjustments if needed as it’s a nice way to review our various strategies in progress – especially under “adverse” conditions.

Trade ideas of the day for Members were:

  • DIA $95 puts that ended up being rolled and doubled down for a net 20% gain (too much bother to detail).
  • SUN at $23.36, now $28.45 (up $5.09), short Oct $25 calls at $2.20, now 3.70 (down $1.50) and short the Jan $22.50 puts at $1.15, now .70 (up .45).
    • Another buy/write at net $23.01/22.76, already up 17.5% so can be closed early here. 
  • FDO short Apr $25 puts at $2.10, now $2.40 (down 14%).  No change.
  • CEPH 2011 $50/$60 bull call spread at net $5.50,…
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