Trading Plan for October 20, 2010

Current Long Positions (stop-losses in parentheses): TICC (9.62), BRKR (14.75), ITW (48.89), QQQQ (50.62), DTV (41.99), EOG (97.52), ANN (21.06), ESRX (46.42), AAPL (305.59)

Current Short Positions (stop-losses in parentheses): SDS  (29.31)

BIAS: 59% Long

Economic Reports Due Out (Times are EST): MBA Purchase Applications (7am), EIA Petroleum Status Report (10:30am), Beige Book (2pm)

My Observations and What to Expect:

• Futures showing some strength after a huge sell-off yesterday. 
• Asian Markets down hard, while European markets are showing gains. 
• Yesterday’s price action in the S&P broke the upward trend that started back on 8/31. No lower-low though. Thus, no new trend developing. 
• At this point, it would only be prudent to consider the trend line to be flattening some. 
• Wednesday will be filled with more earnings reports. 
• Bears will want to push this market below 1156 and ultimately break 1150. 
• Bulls need to hold yesterday’s lows and begin chipping away at the losses yesterday. A close above 1178 would kill the bear morale. 
• Today’s focus will once again be earnings. Little in the way of economic reports to move the market. 
• I am curious to see whether the dip-buyers will continue their bold behavior and buy this sell-off. 

Actions I Will Be Taking:

• Stopped out of BRKR, ITW, QQQQ, and ANN. 
• Increased my stop-loss in Apple (AAPL) to $305.59. 
• Added SDS to my portfolio as a short, but works as a long position (as if I had bought SSO). Did so to take advantage of the time decay in 2x Ultras and also a bounce from yesterday’s sell-off. 
• Not hedged heading into the open.
• Will wait to see whether this market bounces before adding any new positions to the portfolio. 
• After reviewing all of my swing-trades for this year, I have discovered two things: 1) I need to be more aggressive with profit taking, and not stay in positions longer than necessary, 2) Avoid new positions in aging market trends. I’ll be doing a video on this today.