Thursday, June 7, 2007

And so the slide begins

A couple of weeks ago when I said the slide was going to begin and I sold some stocks and put stop-loss orders on others, I was convinced it was imminent. And then the market rose for more than a week. I kept on hearing "the trend is your friend" and wondered if maybe I pulled some of the chips out too soon. But I was so sure of it. My gut told me so.

And now it has begun. Okay, okay, three days don't make a trends, but with the market down almost 200 points just today and no good news in sight, I think it is going to keep falling. Not even the iPhone release will be able to save this. Sure Google is at an all time high, Apple is on a tear still, and Amazon is kicking some ass, but I don't think that will be enough to prop up the overall market. The money sitting on the sidelines will be comfortable there until the end of the summer when the end of year market rally begins. Of course I could be wrong, but even if I am, I won't be as painful as some of the other mistakes I've made.

With the increased volatility, now is a good time to start playing some options. Of course with a falling market, you'll need a strong stomach, but there is still lots of money to be made. With an uptrending market, I've been on the put side. Time to switch if the market keeps on going down. I'm not going to do anything, but after the next option expiration weekend, I'll jump back in and see whats happening. This will be an interesting summer.

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