Summary – Friday, 2008.III.28.

Another decent win for the bears, their 3rd in a row.  Seems that the BSC-shenanigan ‘mini-rally’ is officially (?) over and we’re ready to kick the bucket next week.  Q1 ends on Monday and, according to briefing.com, we’re set to have the worst quarter since 2002.

In light of that, I’ve closed out several bullish positions, booking profits ahead of the weekend.  No new positions – I’m planning on putting 100% concentration towards the NCAA Tourney and the last skiing day of the season.

DP Sells:

• Closed out remaining calls from the [[SEED]] straddle. 
  • Booked 100% profit on the calls, thus guaranteeing a profit on the overall straddle, which has now been turned into long put.
• Similar action taken with the [[CSUN]] straddle.
• Sold call-leg of the [[FLIR]] straddle (for a small loss), turning it into a long put
  • Has failed once again to break through resistance @ $30
• Closed out entire [[FINL]] straddle for a nice profit.
  • 13% gain in the underlying as the earnings beat expectations (while on the whole still being atrocious)
• [[LIFC]] calls stopped out on the trailing stop.  30% profit booked.
• Sold [[EOG]] calls on market close as they’re showing signs of weakness. 
  • It’s still trading near 52-week highs, so it should be worth a re-visit eventually.

And since it’s Friday, here’s a video for the weekend.  Behave accordingly:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KUJE2xs-RE 450 300]

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They’re moving on, despite doing their best to spectacularly let W.Kentucky win.  This obviously warrants another appearance from our favorite cheerleaders.  Well, just one, in this case:

Perhaps she can take the pain of Wazzu’s craptastic performance against UNC off my mind.

There’s a good chance that the stock market takes a similar dump tomorrow.  Ragin’ has a good post of several short candidates.  I’ve posted a few ideas in the comments, including [[ALK]], [[AMLN]], [[AUXL]], [[CMG]], [[GSIC]], [[HOKU]].

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This week seems to be turning in the favor of the bears with a 2nd straight 100+ red day.  Have we given up on 12,750 already??

Opened 4 more positions today, without closing out anything.  This is fine for now, but should the market show continued signs of weakness tomorrow, I will look to close out my long calls. 

Been playing it a bit more conservative than earlier in the month; partly in an effort to protect the big profits reaped at the time and partly stemming from opening more straddles/strangles, which I size smaller than long calls/puts.  My standard 2% risk/position is usually equivalent to a ~30% loss in a long call/put position, but almost always equivalent to a 100% loss in a straddle.

In other news, death to [[MER]].

DP Buys:

• Trying the [[KCI]] calls again.  Still holding support @ $47.  Much better entry this time.
• [[CYMI]] puts – had pulled back to its 3 month downtrend-line; ready to head lower.
• Bought straddles in [[CPHD]] & [[FLIR]], mostly because I couldn’t decide which way they were going to break (both are at support/resistance lines).
  • FLIR is biased to the short side, CPHD is distributed at an even 50-50.
  • On both, I expect to close out one of the legs as soon as they pick a direction (rather than letting both legs ride together).

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This is iBankCoin!

March Madness starts its 2nd weekend of action with 4 games on Thursday:

• Can Wazzu continue its under-the-radar season and topple the mighty Tar Heels? I sure hope so. Go Cougs!
• Can W.Va ‘pittsnogle‘ Xavier? On a side note, whatever happened to that guy?
• Louisville vs. Tennessee should be a great one. Should UNC lose, the winner of this one is almost guaranteed a final four spot.
• Look for UCLA to give a better account of themselves than on their last outing against the #12 seed W.Kentucky. Bye, bye Hillbilliestoppers!

And can Patrick continue his dominating run in iBC March Madness? Leader since Day #1, stomping on his opposition like Bear Stearns stomped on its employees.

Here are the Top 10:

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Thanks to The Fly’s sacrifice of the Golden Bull, the bears won the day.  Oddly, almost all my existing long calls gained on the day:  [[CMED]], [[EOG]], [[LIFC]], [[SWN]].  Get crunk!

DP Buys:

• [[CMG]] puts from yesterday’s idea post.
  • Was looking good until it jumped 3 points in the last 30 minutes.  WTF?
  • Still, It finished right at resistance ($115) without hitting the trailing stop, so I’m holding.
• [[PALM]] May 5.00 straddle.  Need it to move over $1 in each direction in the next 2 months.
  • Has been trading in a range b/w $4.25-$7, so I’ll be selling either at $7, or after a breakdown.

DP Sells:

• [[KCI]] calls were stopped out on the trailing stop for a loss.
  • Frustrated with this one, as several mistakes were made, including entering the trade too far above support and improperly protecting a 25%-30% unrealized profit.

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Late to the party, as usual, but I’ve listened to this song upwards of 20 times in the last two days (it’s about 2 years old). Apparently this guy is the male Shakira:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Figrqlf11lM 450 300]

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