The Stock Market - A daily diary

Back to the markets for today... The big (tech) companies just keep getting bigger, as well as some other "stay at home" stocks  , too.  Stocks like Zoom Video went up almost +9%, as fear slowly starts to set in again about the re-closing of cities around the country due to recent virus outbreaks.  On the opposite end, casino and airlines got smacked around today.   

On to some more numbers .....  

The Nasdaq went up +2.5% today, almost hitting its all-time-high.  Big tech is knocking it out of the park. 

The S&P went up +0.84% today , and  people might look at this and say it had a good performance today !!  It did, but if we "peek" under the hood at who is moving the market... Again,  it is BIG TECH mostly pulling up all the other companies in the index by their hair .  LOL.   It's days like today where my "daily dashboard"  of 40 or so stocks gives a much more complete picture as to what is going on in the market.  ((As a short review, the dashboard is made up of a variety of market sectors - banks, energy, industrial, consumer discretionary, consume staple, etc) 

Of the 40 stocks I follow on the dashboard, EIGHT were positive today.  That is NOT Healthy, and shows there is very little market "breadth" .  

Here are the 8 stocks that were positive ; INTC, JNJ, GOOGL, MSFT, AAPL, FB, UBER, and PE.    The last one (Parsley Energy), isn't exactly a household name, and the only reason this oil stock went up is because people see it as a takeover candidate, witness Chevron's purchase of Noble Energy today.  

So, 32 Negative Stocks today, 8 positive (6 Tech !!).  That is unhealthy.  

They just don’t make em any dumber than me.  I’m watching Alpha Pro Tech sit at $20 the entire day without firing.  Trump posts that mask tweet five minutes before close then BOOM.  It shoots up over 2.5 points then sells off a point.  So of course I get in LATE.  I swear there was over 2M in volume the last five minutes.  This stock just cannot get the volume.  
So this is what I purchased 

9  $25 July 24s at 1.03 

12 $30 august 7s at 1.55 

I am obviously really excited about earnings ... but so is everyone else AND their dog.  as I mentioned earlier with Netflix.  ALL the news was positive before earnings then it tanked which the stock has a history of.   I just hope this thing does what it’s “supposed” to do over the next few weeks.  ZERO DEBT.  how the hell can there be so many shorts out there when they look at their balance sheet ?   cannot wait till these azzholes get squeezed and this thing takes off.   masks aren’t going anywhere.  Regardless of this phony bologne vaccine trial nonsense.  

Concave,

Did you see my post earlier on last page?  Asking if you stuck with it — after it jumped a couple of times today.

This is exactly what we talked about last week or two when you brought up the earnings and PPE issue.  

When you spot something like this and feel that strongly about it — you have to have a plan to see it though.  Until/unless you get new information that changes your mind.  Nothing changed; everything so far has affirmed what your initial analysis showed. 

Right?

Nothing NEGATIVE has changed in my mind so yes   it’s like I stated earlier.  I thought this stock cost me thousands in the last month , but me not getting out and not understanding the rules Of options was the real culprit.  this game takes so much patience which I need to learn.  I’ve watched this stock everyday for the last five weeks as new states’ hospitals get over run with patients.  more and more need to stockpile PPE.  yet APT doesn’t move or goes negative.  that’s what makes me hesitant.   but I’m putting all that BS behind me and tell myself this thing cannot stand put or go south at the current pace we are going. So can we please have a damn POSITIVE full week for once.  Hot damn.  it’s so hard for this stock to rally B2B days.  It’s down a dime AH.  but let’s not put too much “stock” into that. ahhhaha

So why do you not just buy the stock itself?

That is fairly straightforward 

I'll be dammed if the entire market isn't getting away from me. I have missed every buying opportunity that I have been researching. For literally the first time in my life, I have no idea where to put my cash. 

My latest idea is UPS. Fed Ex is a complete mess right now. UPS is paying over 3.3%

Thoughts?

Help me out here on why Fedex is a mess?  Three weeks they beat analysts EPS by over a dollar which is unheard of.  UPS next Thursday Q2.  I can’t see how it’s not a play since retail is shot and everything is online 

Two years ago the P/E on FDX was over 100. The trailing P/E is in the mid 30's I believe and earnings are not on the rise. Obviously, the stock was overvalued for a long time and has come back to reality somewhat. Wouldn't we prefer to see rising earnings be the reason for a shrinking P/E? Then we might conclude the stock has significant upside.

So, is this what a "market top" feels like ?? 

Yesterday, I spoke about the "stay at home" stocks (aka tech stocks) knocking it out of the park .  I didn't post any number besides ZOOM yesterday, but TSLA +9.5%, AMZN +7.5%, and MSFT +4.5% all rocketed higher.  It is ALL momentum right now, and technicals and fundamentals have been thrown out with the kitchen sink for some time now, and has really accelerated these past couple of days IMO.  I am calling this "panic buying", or "frenzied buying."  Heck , even Jim Cramer is calling this action the craziest he has ever seen.  

What was interesting is that the tech stocks sat out today's rally, and virtually all those stocks that were down yesterday (on my daily dashboard) were UP!!   But there was no news to explain why the "cyclicals" should recover today like they did .  My oil stocks CVX and XOM up +6% and +5%, respectively ?  On what news ??  Why did oil spike ??  Again, there is now "new news" to justify today's action on things getting better.  It is simply IMHO traders trying to push stocks up, ... much more aggressively particularly these past two days.  This is why I've taken the time to share all of this...    But this all makes no sense at all the economic front when you hear about more cities rolling back their re-opening efforts. 

Add to this "frenzied buying" a realization that the Federal Unemployment Benefits expire in 10 days, unless Congress can get their act together.    You want to see a market go down ?  Watch what the consumer discretionary stocks do if nothing is passed in 10 days.  Stocks like TJ Maxx, ROSS, maybe even HD will get hit.  These have not only benefited from the stay at home orders in recent months, but because many people chose to spend their stimulus checks (and perhaps extra unemployment benefits) on discretionary items like fixing up the house and clothes.   I got all 3 on my stock radar, but TJ Maxx and ROSS are particularly vulnerable because they both have almost 0% online business, too. 

I took this opportunity to  raise a little cash today.  Not a lot, but enough to make it worthwhile if we see a correction of some sort (-10%).  FWIW, I did the selling mostly in the S&P500.  Big Tech has disproportionately effected this index's results, so now seems a good time to take some profits.  

If I had a choice, I'd probably pick UPS as well, Gamble.   The dividend is nice, and probably safe too in the light of the fact that so much (more) is going e-commerce.  The pandemic has only accelerated that shift.  Another nice bonus is that Fed-Ex chose not to renew its contract with AMZN about a year ago.  They do NO business with AMZN now, a nice benefit for UPS.  If you're willing to buy and Hold the stock for awhile, you're probably alright and will make money AND a nice dividend.    But short term, keep in mind that UPS reports earning next week as Concave eluded too. 

Lastly, I like UPS better than FedEx , because those knuckleheads at FedEx are forcing Daniel Snyder to change the Redskins name.   Fed EX <-----

Another dumb question. Today I bought 12 SLV $20.5 calls for .22 cents an hour before close.  Silver is going nuts AH.  One guy just said his calls have increased 10 fold.  I thought the options chain doesn’t update till next day open ?   is there a site for this.  I remember once raiders you said you woke up to something like this.  

Yes.  But there are limitations and disadvantages to this.  The numbers you see during open sessions are based on a consolidation against all of the open available sources.  After hours numbers may be coming from one or two sources — and, therefore, not always reflective of a true opening price.  

There may also be additional fees.  All types of orders are not going to be available and the interest is not always there.  

Now with so much automated things this is available on limited basis and at limited times.  

You will have to check your particular trading platform for availability.  

It, of course, has not always been this way.  

What I was saying happened to me was that the after hours news affected my position and the stock simply opened way, way, way up from the close and jumped right over my sell price.  This was way before the after hours trading days.  

Also   Not a dumb question.  If you don’t know, you don’t know. 

Optionsprofitcalculator.com kinda neat.  You plug in where you think it’ll reach and it gives you rough estimates of every day leading up to expirey.  Neat stuff 

Has anyone else noticed that we are just about even on the s&p500 for the year.  We have gone  through so much, and yet haven't gone anywhere at all !  Lol.

Stay buckled up and seated on this rollercoaster at all times ! 

Yes. But as you mentioned, carried by some.  But yes, overall a great recovery. 

Well, as it has been pointed out many times the true test is coming up IF the $600 weekly bonuses go away. It is my opinion that the $600 weekly bonus was way to generous. I personally know many very young kids that were working $10 an hour jobs working 15-20 hours per week ($600-800 per month) that currently have more money coming in than they have ever had in their entire lives. They went from $600 a month to $2,600 a month thanks to the Dems pushing through an amazingly generous rescue plan. I also know of 50 plus year old men still living with their parents that were working less than 20 year old kids.

Did you know that to qualify for unemployment, you only had to make $780 in income over the previous 90 day period leading into the March Covid outbreak? This has resulted in millions of people having more income than they had earned previously. 

I'm all for helping out legitimate people in need, so unemployment will need to be extended. The normal rule is 40% of the normal income. For sure the $600 bonus has got to go away but the compromise will be somewhere in between. The Dems and Rep. are still far away on this issue and the clock is ticking. 

So...I guess my point is that up to 50 million people in this country were given the greatest "crisis gift" we have ever seen in this country. Add it up. That's a ton of extra spending money for a ton of people in need, but also a bunch of people living off of their parents with extra spending money. This has, without a doubt, kept consumer spending supported in an unprecedented fashion. 

The true test for the economy and our markets is coming when this "crisis gift" expires. The $2,400 bonus per month is surely coming to an end. 

too generous....I hate typos

Gamble... All great points on this topic..  I remember reading somewhere that the "average" person that's been laid off over the years , gets something like $400/week from the "regular"   unemployment benefits doled out by State.  So, that's a total of $1k/week for these folks.   They get 2.5x the money that would otherwise get !!  That's why this is such a big deal.  I think Congress will come to some sort of agreement, but if they don't ??   Look out Below !!!  

Why can’t everyday be like today?  my silver $20.5 calls went up 509% in half a day so I got out and didn’t wanna roll the dice these last two days.  and that damn APT.  went up two points the last two hours before another point sell off as usual.  But sold half of my calls expiring on Friday just in case this thing doesn’t continue to go up.   Minnesota Ohio and Indiana mandating masks today must’ve fueled this rally.  Along with the NFL requiring masks in the stands IF they’re even allowed into the stadium.   and how bout tesla?  Good god.  beat after beat after beat.  just when you think this “bubble” can’t go any higher.  

Crisis gift?

I have to stop myself from going bonkers reading things like this. People want jobs, they want to work and be productive..just because some kids are being stupid does not mean there are not millions in despair and millions not making mortgage payments. 600 a week is nothing, why are we so quick to attack the least and ignore the theft from the wealthy?

Makes me sick, I cant stand it when people are judgmental and short sided like this. The theft is these loans to millionaires, the theft of interest rate reductions so corps and governments can float more debt.

600 a week to the least and to MANY who had jobs and now are in a bad spot.

Unreal...

I saw this about NFL, too.  How DUMB can they be !  They only have to look at Disney World to see what is happening (i.e. failing)  today.  People are skirting the rules,  walking around the amusement  park without a mask on, while holding a bottle of water..... giving them "an excuse " not to have their mask on.

For the NFL, just substitute beer for the bottled water.  Lol.  Just think of all the knuckleheads at an NFL game !

Rush51 - You have a lot of WISDOM & common sense, enjoy reading substance !!!