Well I Expected an Inside Day But…

Context is a clever arsenal of details. You could take the neutral extreme we printed yesterday, all by itself, and say it carries strong directional conviction for today’s trade. You can cite the longer term trend as skewing the bias to the upside. You can lean on the seasonality of December.

But there were a few other pieces giving us pause. The December seasonality, when sliced into weeks, tends to show this week as the, well, weakest. Then you have tomorrow, ‘contract roll over’ and also the Thursday before OPEX, a day famous for its shenanigans. Third there was the nature of yesterday’s neutral day-it never ‘checked back’ after second range extension. That bothered me a little bit. Finally you had the two-three day trend which, despite yesterday’s valiant rally, was down.

I often refer to context as baking a cake. You put all these ingredients into the pie and then the market opens aka the oven is turned on. Sometimes you just let the cake sit and other times you have to poke and test it because an observation changes your perception.

All I bought today was add to a small BIDU weekly call position I have. This position still looks constructive especially if it can survive tomorrow’s purported shenanigans. Obviously I wish I had a bit more time attached to my position, but I will play it to the final buzzer if need be.

All I sold today was the pop in LAKE. I got out before these earnings. It was a small win but a win nonetheless.

The funny thing is how my positions careened lower and took a bigger chunk on the way down then they accumulated on the way up. Even with less exposure on the net. He he heh, funny.

At this rate, the year needs to end. I can see no other way out of this mess. That, or a Christmas miracle of biblical proportions.