The day that was - July 9th 2007

You know how many people hate going to the dentist, they worry about going and have a bit of apprehension all the way to the door of the dentist office. Well the market action today reminded me of just that type of action. All day the market was trading like it was afraid of going somewhere. And one look at the charts it is easy to see where it was afraid to go. We were getting close to the top of our trading ranges again. And the market was apprehensive about it. Another way of thinking about today's market action was how you feel when you walk down a dark and unknown street at night alone, a bit of looking over your shoulder every minute. And the market did that all day.

There was some news today that under normal conditions would send the bulls on a rampage. Bond yields pulled back and oil also came down some today. There was some good corporate activity today and overall the analysts were bullish. But all of that did not help the market, it still kept looking over the shoulder every minute and just would not move freely.

One of the RebelTrader portfolio holdings had some news today during the lunch hour which was the Mexican Government is looking into an anti-trust suit against some companies, and AMX was one of those named. While the news may end up being a mute point and have no affect in the long run a swing trader needs to always protect their capital. In light of that news I posted that I was going to change the stop loss point for AMX in order to protect capital. I raised the stop loss to $23.90. At that level it would give AMX a fair chance to stay alive while at the same time it would protect from a loss. And by the end of the day AMX had hit the stop point and my trade was closed automatically. See this simple chart from today to see how the price started to dive on the news.

After the close of the market Alcoa (AA) reported their earnings. While the numbers were about as expected the market was hoping for tiny bit more. In after hours AA was trading down to $41.90. So far it does not seem to be weighing on the other companies in the metals sector but tomorrow will be a better indication if there is an impact on the sector.

JOSB reached the buy point that I have noted on the chart in the public chart list. But the buy point was reached at about the same time the market started acting "nervous". So I am going to wait until I see how the markets act tomorrow. If the markets act well tomorrow and JOSB continues going up then I'll consider taking a position.

Remember, in swing trading we always want to get in close to the buy point but it is not the end of the world if we don't. We never chase a stock to get a position, but we can certainly get on board at the next train station. If a stock ever gets away from us don't worry, there will be many other plays that will come along the track.