Market Held Hostage to Bernanke & NYC Blizzard
February 13th, 2006 by BWV
This was one of the most boring 1% down days (in the Nasdaq Composite, anyway) that I’ve ever sat thru. For both the NYSE and Nasdaq, it was the lowest volume day of 2006.
There are exactly six 65-minute periods in each trading day.. Each of these bars represents Nasdaq trading volume during that period. Pretty skimpy.
With many NYC folks snowed in and new FOMC Chairman Bernanke set to speak to Congress on Wednesday, today’s uninspiring action is not a surprise.
With volatility being cyclical, the recent pause will probably give way to some fireworks later this week.
Shorting strong stocks right off their highs is not my game.. and doing just that in the Energy and Commodity stocks has been the only real way to make much money in February. I didnt short them, but didn’t own them either. My accounts are about 1% off their highs.. although I’ve taken a few hits, I’m feeling OK about my positioning.. and glad I don’t have a bunch of losses to make up before taking the accounts to new high levels.
I added to my Silver stocks into today’s nastiness in that sector, and nibbled on two foreign stocks.. TKC (Turkish cellphone co) and GOL (the “Southwest Airlines” of Brazil). None of those are at “full” position size yet.
Still nursing IBM short.. it’s my biggest position at 2x “full”.
Long GOL, TKC, PAAS, SSRI
Short IBM
