May got off to a fantastic start. 

In our first week alone (see Part 1) we had 47 trade ideas between our morning posts and our Live Member Chat room and, already, 42 of them (89%) are winners.  Keep in mind the main purpose of these trade reviews is to look at the LOSERS and see if perhaps we have a better entry opportunity than we had before.

We missed on SDS (ultra-short S&P) but that was a hedge and we are still using it into June. We missed on PNRA and that's just a better opportunity to get in.  We missed on TWTR and we already doubled down on that one and already cashed out with a profit in our Long-Term Portfolio (see our other review), not because we don't still like it but because we went to cash on our Long-Term Portfolio, since it was up 19% in 6 months and we decided to sit out the summer correction in CASH!!! 

We don't know if our timing is perfect getting back to cash but even if we finish the whole year with the $98,430 gain we have now (out of $500,000) in the Long-Term Portfolio – we've certainly done our job.  Can we do better?  Of course we can – that's why we do these reviews – to see what's going right and what's going wrong so we can make adjustments along the way.

If CASH!!! turns out to be a mistake, then we can re-deploy it – that's not complicated, is it?  I know that, as a trader, you feel like you are SUPPOSED to trade – especially those of us who are retired and, if we're not trading – we get kind of bored.  

Well, we had 11 new trade ideas this Wednesday and Thursday alone (summarized in Friday's post) AFTER we went to cash – so it's not like we died, we just took adavantage of a positive turn in our portfolio to realize our virtual profits.  After all, they aren't really profits until you take them off the table!   Good poker players learn that the hard way…

We didn't cash out our Short-Term Portfolio or our Butterfly Portfolio or our $25,000 Portfolio and our Income Portfolio, which we cashed out at the end of March, is full of positions already that are all better entries than we had in the Long-Term Portfolio – so those we are still in.  Up 19% in 6 months means you rode your horses long and hard – it's simply time to get some fresh ones for the next leg of the race.  

Obviously, we were still pretty bullish in early May (since 89% of our trades worked).  It will be interesting to see where in the month we began to turn bearish but I can already tell you we didn't make too many bearish bets – we've seen what happens to bears in this relentless bull market!  

May 5: Monday Market Momentum – Slowing on China Data

Think about how many companies pin their hopes and dreams on the infinite possibilities of selling stuff in China.  If TSLA's stock can pop 10% because Musk announces he's going to put superchargers in China (he announced he'd put them in America 3 years ago – where are they exactly?), why does the stock then ignore declining auto sales in China or the slowdown of the whole economy over there?

The slide in Chinese manufacturing has been accelerating since the fall and we're in danger of breaking through a floor we haven't seen breached since we ignored it in early 2008 – the last time the MSM shrugged off a China slowdown as "no big deal."  

• LQMT at 0.19, out at .23 - up 21%

Chart by Dave Fry

May 6: Tempting Tuesday – Weak Dollar Props Up the Market

Whenever the manipulators need to boost the markets, they just crash the Dollar.  

And what a dive we've had!  As you can see from Dave Fry's Chart, the Dollar is down 7% since last summer and down 2.5% this year and that keeps stocks and commodities 2.5% higher – because we buy them with Dollars.  

Keep in mind, at the same time you are buying IBM shares for $200, someone is buying the same shares for 20,400 Yen and another guy is buying them for 340 British Pounds and yet another guy is buying them for 280 Euros.  

We're not betting heavily to the downside – we've been burned too often to gamble on that.  What we have done is cash out our non-hedged, directional longs at what we're pretty sure was an interim top and we'll see how things go from here.  Meanwhile, playing the Futures is one of the many fun things we can do with CASH!!!

• Nikkei (/NKD) Futures short at 14,350, out at 14,100 - up $1,250 per contract 
• S&P (/ES) Futures short at 1,880, out at 1,860 - up $1,000 per contract 
• Nasdaq (/NQ) Futures short at 3,600, out at 3,500 - up $2,000 per contract 
• Dow (/YM) Futures short at 16,450, out at 16,350 - up $500 per contract
• Russell (/TF) Futures short at 1,120, out at 1,090 - up $3,000 per contract 
• Oil (/CL) Futures short at $100, out at $99.75 - up $250 per contract
• SBUX 2016 $65 puts sold for $6.35, now $5.15 - up 19%
• 4 FSLR Jan $77.50/85 bull call spread at $2 ($800), selling 5 July $75 calls for $3 ($1,500) for net $700 credit, now net $120 credit - up 82%

We did a Live Futures Trading Webinar that day – you can view the replay here.  

Chart by Dave Fry

May 7: Weakening Wednesday – Can Yellen Save the Day?

“In China, there is a common saying,”says Lin Dong, of the Labor Dispute Center. “The government doesn’t help the people fix their problems. They fix the people who point out the problems, instead.”  

Workers who were valued principally as inexpensive production cogs during China’s initial economic flowering are now expected to star as consumers. Consumption accounts for only 35 percent of the Chinese economy, well below the 50 percent-plus characteristic of East Asian countries such as South Korea, which modernized earlier.

• Russell (/TF) Futures long at 1,106, out at 1,110 - up $400 per contract.  
• Oil (/CL) Futures short at $100.50, out at $99.95 - up $550 per contract 
• Dow (/YM) Futures short at 16,400, out at 16,300 - up $500 per contact 
• S&P (/ES) Futures shot at 1,870, out at 1,865 - up $250 per contract 
• Nasdaq (/NQ) Futures long at 3,500, out at $3,520 - up $400 per contract
• Russell (/TF) Futures long at 1,090, out at 1,100 - up $1,000 per contract
• Dow (/YM) Futures long at 16,300, out at 16,450 - up $750 per contract
• Oil (/CL) Futures short at $100.50 – out at $100 - up $250 per contract
• TASR at $12.80, selling 2016 $13 calls for $3.50 and $13 puts for $2.80 for net $6.50/9.75, now $13.27 - on track
• 2 TSLA 2016 $220/300 bull call spreads at $20 ($4,000), selling 2 2016 $140 puts for $22 ($4,400) and 3 Sept $200 calls for $26.50 ($7,9450) for a net credit of $8,350, now -$6,640 - up $1,710 (20%)
• Oil (/CL) Futures short at $100.75, out at $100.50 - up $250 per contract

That was an interesting day with a lot of Futures trading.  We started the day short and flipped long on the spike down in the morning – as it seemed overdone at that point.  

May 8:  Thankful Thursday – Janet Does it Again!

Not that Yellen said anything of substance but that won't stop her from saying it again this morning (9:30) so let the rally continue – for another day, at least.  

Yellen made an congressional appearance yesterday, where she argued the economy “needed more help”. She didn’t articulate how the Fed might help given the ongoing taper, although ZIRP would continue for a considerable time which bulls took to mean “indefinitely”.

Oddly she also suggested small cap stocks were near bubble conditions but then said she couldn’t see any bubbles.  All in all, it was the kind of obfuscating testimony that would have made Alan Greenspan proud.

• Oill (/CL) Futures short at $100.50, out at $100 - up $500 per contract
• Dow (/YM) Futures short at 16,500, out at 16,450 - up $250 per contract
• S&P (/ES) Futures short at 1,870, out at 1,867 - up $150 per contract 
• Nasdaq (/NQ) Futures short at 3,550, out at 3,525 - up $500 per contract 
• Russell (/TF) Futures short at 1,110, out at 1,103 - up $700 per contract
• Silver (/SI) long at $19.25, out at $19.40 - up $750 per contract 
• Oil (/CL) Futures short at $100.45, out at $99.80 - up $650 per contact
• TWTR 2016 $30 puts sold for $7.50, now $6.50 - up 13%
• Russell (/TF) Futures short at 1,100, out at 1,000 - up $1,000 per contract 
• S&P (/ES) Futures short at 1,875, out at 1,870 - up $250 per contact 
• Nasdaq (/NQ) Futures short at 3,550, out at 3,525 - up $500 per contract 
• DXD July $28 calls at .60, now .35 - down 41%
• CLF 2016 $13 puts sold for $2.20, now $2.92 - down 32%
• FCX 2016 $28 puts sold for $2.66, now $2.42 - up 9%

Notice how we were nicely in sync until late April, when the Nas and RUT began dropping out and, so far, the others have ignored the problem.  As I often say, think of them as tugboats and the S&P (thick line) is the big ship.  If they all pull in the same direction, the S&P will follow but, when they diverge like this, then it's chaos for  a while but none of these little ships can get too far away from the S&P before the tow line snaps them back.

So, we should, if the market is healthy, expect to see the RUT snap back up off the 1,100 line (-5%) but we also know, from the 5% rule, that a 1% move in the RUT (10 points) is only 1/2 the weak bounce we expect off the 100-point drop from 1,200 in March.  We already had a strong bounce off the April low so only getting a weak bounce now begins to form the dreaded shoulder side of a head and shoulders pattern.  So, either the Dow, NYSE and S&P will snap lower and join the RUT in oblivion or the RUT will get back in line and move up.

That's why the RUT is so important at the moment, confirmed by the Nas, which seems very bouncy as well.  

• 

Charts by Dave Fry

May 9:  TGIF – Can We Stop the Week Before Our Indexes Fail?

I know that I've been sounding like a broken record and you can call me Chicken Little but cut me a little slack as we are protecting profits here. 

Perhaps I'm wrong and the Nasdaq and the Russell will recover and the other indexes will all move up to new highs.  Even if they do, our worst case is we miss a bit of a rally.  If we're breaking out to new all-time highs from here – there will be plenty of money to be made.  BUT – if I'm right and the market drops 5-10%, then our taking 110% off the table at the top means that when we buy stocks again at 90%, we are buying 120% of what we could have bought had we not wisely cashed out in the rally.  

Our guys know we have lots and lots of ways to make money with our sideline cash – we just put on a different trading hat for a while.

Yesterday, for example, right in the morning post– FOR FREE – I told you that we LOVED shorting oil at $100.50 (/CL Futures contracts) and that you could make $2,000 on a drop to $98.50.  After the open, oil dropped to $100, for a $500 gain, then back to $100.50, then down to $99.80 for a $700 gain then back to $100.50 and then back to $100 overnight for another $500 gain and, this morning, it's back at $100.50 again.   We're still targeting $98.50 but, if they want to pay us $500 ten or twenty times along the way – we're OK with that too!  

• Nikkei (/NKD) Futures long at 14,200, now 14,730 - up $2,650 per contract
• ABX long at $17.30, now $16.11 - down 6.8%
• CLF long at $17, now $15.68 - down 7.7%
• TASR long at $13.12, now $13.27 - up 1.1% 
• IRBT long at $32.60, now $35.33 - up 8.3%
• LQMT long at 0.18, now 0.24 - up 33%
• TWTR long at $32.23, now $32.44 - up 1%
• CMG long at $499, now $547 - up 9.6%
• Oil (/CL) Futures short at $100.50, out at $100.60 - down $100 per contract
• Oil (/CL) Futures short at $101, out at $100 - up $1,000 per contract 
• USO June $37 puts at .93, now .27 - down 70%
• Dollar (/DX) Futures long at 79.88, now 80.44 - up $560 per contract
• Gasoline (/RB) Futures long at $2.90, out at $3 - up $4,200 per contract

On moving to breakeven – if you have a winner and let it turn into a loser – you are doing something wrong!  It's all about momentum and, if you catch a .10 move on oil and it reverses on you – then you were WRONG about the momentum.  The idea is to take the money off the table, NOT when the momentum reverses on you but WHILE IT'S STILL GOING YOUR WAY – when the momentum slows and shows even the smallest sign of reversing – THAT is a good time to get out.

It was another busy week with 47 trade ideas and all but 6 worked out for an 87% winning percentage.  As I say often – there are plenty of fun things to do with our sideline cash and we're reviewing these trades just 3 weeks after we initiated them – so it's not like you have to wait very long for your profits, is it?  

CLF, FCX and ABX (4 of our 6 misses and the other two were index hedges) are 2016 trades that are merely "off track" – it doesn't mean we've given up on them – it just means we were fortunate that our other long-term trades like IRBT, LQMT, TWTR, CMG, TASR, SBUX, FSLR and TSLA – all happened to give us nice returns in the first month.  We don't expect our timing to be perfect but, when it is – we don't complain!