Wednesday, January 23, 2013

No Fish

It is not an S&P trader's market, unless you are a fearless bull.  I have been leaning bullish since the beginning of the year and even yesterday's strength surprised me ahead of IBM and GOOG earnings.  Of course both companies beat low expectations.  Last quarter really lowered the bar for this quarter's earnings so you will have lots of pops on earnings reports, even though they really aren't good.  I have learned over the years that odds usually favor the bulls for most earnings reports, just by the nature of how the earnings expectation game is played. The sell side keeps the bar low for easy beats. 

Right now, it feels like another 5-10 points higher this week and that's an OK short opportunity for a quick 1-2 day trade.  But really, this market is so bullish that playing short is really going against the odds here.  And it seems like its too late to get long, but I am probably wrong about that. 

We have the big Kahuna, AAPL reporting after the close today.  The bar has been set low of course, with AAPL's absurd lowball guidance.  But I don't see the stock popping much on an earnings beat, with its deteriorating fundamentals and likely weak guidance.  The options buyers in AAPL will probably be unhappy tomorrow, I don't expect a big move either way.

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