The Shortest 2010 Market Wrap You Have Ever Read (SPY)

If 2011 is anything like 2010 we could expect to see more of a slow grind higher as de-leveraging and currency revaluation continues. The S&P futures closed up on the year though we really did not gain a ton of ground considering the pullback early in the year and the brief pullback in late summer.

They closed the S&P's green on the final day of trading on huge buying. You can notice this in the chart below.

We closed the year at 1257.50 and opened around 1100 even. Not a bad run. Yes we all know i am a bear at heart though with the currency manipulation by the Federal Reserve via the constant electronically printing of US dollars.

Have a happy New Year.

Trade what you see, not what you think.
Hedge Accordingly

TRADING in 3D Coming To A Theater Near You (IMAX)

Welcome to the last business day of the year showing of, "which rumor is true: the IMAX saga". If you expected action like this out of a in play headline stock on a day like today you either have a sixth sense and you need to start a hedge fund based on that sense or your a lucky son of a B.

Anyway the rumor mill churning out all kinds of goodies this morning about IMAX. The first rumor was as follows 

"Sony may bid north of $40 per share for IMAX, Daily Mail reports."

This sent IMAX shares to 36 bucks pre market.. notice on the chart above. 

Next wire 

"Sony, Disney in talks with IMAX about a takeover, BNN reportsCanada's Business News Network confirms that Sony is preparing a takeover bid for IMAX  at more than $40 a share." 

Dealbook goes onto say, "Daily Mail has mixed history of predicting takeovers, NY Times DealBook"


The really big hit came when the stock traded up to the 31 level then completely fell out of bed as the company IMAX responded to the rumor mill...

"IMAX responding to a request from the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada on behalf of the Toronto Stock Exchange following recent trading activity. IMAX is not aware of any corporate developments to account for this activity. The company's policy is not to comment on rumors or speculation, and accordingly does not intend to comment further."

IMAX shares traded as low as 28 bucks so far this session..

NetFlix Class Action Lawsuit Go Ahead (NFLX)

Not looking good over in mamby pamby land... News of a Judge granting a class action lawsuit against NFLX brought on by WMT.

(Courthouse News) "A federal judge granted class certification to Netflix subscribers who accuse the online DVD rental service of monopolizing the market by conspiring with Wal-Mart Stores and Walmart.com.
     Consumers say Netflix was able to overcharge for subscription fees because it convinced the superstore to withdraw from the DVD rental market, leaving only Blockbuster as a competitor.
     The class will involve millions of members around the country, arguing the same points, according to the federal ruling in Oakland, Calif.z"

Interesting Rare Earth Elements Chart (REE)

5 min ascending REE

Mid Day Market Update, Futures Higher.. Again (SPY)

Is it groundhogs day? feels like it. We have melted up again today on declining volume as expected making new highs on the year up at 1258.50. This market is on a tear dont you say? The market is moving like a slug but oh well.

 Metals up just as economic burn mentioned though unexpectedly the dollar got decimated down through many levels of intermediate support.

1255 proved support. WE opened with a bit of futures selling before the open.....

Dollar is sitting on the the 80 level shelf looking weak. Though Not sure how sustainable the euro bounce is considering the light volumes. Next week should tell..

T3 Three Day Market Year-End Settlement & Contest (Top Step)

via Mr. Top Step.com

Video: Rocky 4.5 From The Floor.. bull run (SPY)

via @thecmz



Vi

X Marks The Spot (SPY)

Upper left to right: Spot gold 1 min, e mini 1 min, DX_F 1 min. EUR/USD 5 min

Interesting Netflix chart (NFLX)

5min 

Late Night S&P500 Futures Update (SPY)

ES_F 1 min 

Pretty quiet on the home front tonight ladies and gents, besides my babe of the day update the most exciting occurrence tonight was the EURO catching a bid off 1.308. (highlighted below)

As for the futures they have been testing AH highs most of the evening @ 1255.25. The 1225.25 level was the ledge at which we fell at the cash close earlier today. Perhaps someone got wind they were going to jack up the EURO again tonight?

We are within two year highs in the S&P mini's, i think if all goes as planned we are gonna run up nice

Low Volume = Buy Buy Buy (SPY)

ES_F 1 min "stairway to Heaven"

Today the above equation proved true once again, embrace the reality of the situation. Modern supply and demand theory must be thrown out of the door in our current market because no one participant is truly aware of the real demand for stocks.

We all know the supply, which shows itself on red candles when the bears glare their teeth. When you do not know where to shift the curve you have no idea where the true equilibrium price resides. This problem is precisely what makes our current market so dangerous to those who understand price action and economic theory... to some degree...

I a not claiming to be an economist nor am i claiming to be the next Buffet, i just call it how i see it.

Rare Earths Show Strength & Weakness (MCP)

Headline risk is a B*&H is it not? I think i have warned in the past about this sector of stocks and the power behind their momentum on both ends of the stick.

UP or down these darlings of the momentum trading world can move like blind bats without sonar at the drop of a hat, which is why i enjoy trading options on these names because you can define your risk and spread off risk if the trade becomes sour.

Your hedge today would have paid more then you original position considering you would have bought a low vol put option before the real puke

Throwing Punches... Where are the Bears? (SPY)

via @theCMZ

Late Night S&P500 Update (SPX)

ES_F 5 min. notice todays straight up low volume trend

Not much to report on the S&P futures as we have been slightly up to flat since NYC close. The 1254 level is proving to be fairly sticky with 1254.75 being the overnight high so far. 1255.75 is the upside line in the sand still as that is 24 month highs. Downside support again has not changed, 1250, 1246-1247 followed by 1240.

The real story tonight is in the precious metals and currency markets, my previous post tonight pointed to a possible central bank intervention in the EUR/USD cross as she

Currency Intervention Du Jour? EUR/USD (UUP)

EUR/USD 1 min. ascending failed triangle

So i open my laptop at Starbucks to check on my overnight futures positions i have been dabbling in only to find some massive candles in the currency markets.

Looks like some entity decide to take out the entire offer in the EUR/USD cross and tear down the bids in the US dollar futures down to the 80.22 level in 2 candles.

Anyway i have not seen any fresh

This Is What Good Short Squeeze Looks Like (AIG)

AIG 1 min, notice the ascending triangle with each squeeze higher

If you were one of the lucky guys who actually listened to my tweets or were in my stockMONSTER chat room you would have got into AIG when it was acting out off the open up about 1.5%. (AIG has 15% short interest and 7.5 days to cover as of this afternoon). The only news on AIG was the announcement of a 3bil$ credit facility, which must have got someone scared...

The financials were bid as well, what caught my attention was GS moving up sharply off the open, though i have seen that story before. This is exactly why i stay away from entering positions within the first 15 minutes of trading because usually the opening move is not the continuation move. Let the special stocks stand out after 15 to 30 minutes. Remember all you need is one or two solid winners to make a day, you do not need to be in 30 different stocks, especially in this god forsaken market..

I tend to spend the first 15 to 30 minutes closing out previous days positions or working myself out of

Anyone Awake? Late Day S&P500 Futures Update (SPY)

As expected today has been a very quiet day index wise. Volume is very low, SPY has done barely 50 million shares ES_F volume very low as you can see from the chart to the left.

As mentioned in the Economic burn this morning we expected flat equities and some movement in the currency and precious metals markets off the heels of the Chinese rate surprise.. we got a bit of the movement though gold is slightly up and the dollar is slightly

Snowed In? Slow Day of Trading Video... (SPY)

Via @theCMZ

Ivory Coast Tension Could Send Cocoa Prices Sky High (HSY)

If your a chocolate connoisseur or hot chocolate for that matter considering the blizzards drilling the east coast this might not be the article you want to read. Though if you are into trading cocoa futures and are looking for some trading ideas read further. 


Political tensions along the Ivory coast are escalating as Ivory Coast's non elect leader, Laurent Gbagbo refused to hand over power to his incumbent Alassane Ouattara, who is internationally recognized as the victor in November's elections.


Clearly their political system is tad bit broken but whatever, the focus of this article is the relation of cocoa prices and the tensions in the region. The north and south area's of the Ivory coast were officially united in 2007 peace deal. The southern region is where the majority of the crop is produced...

NYMEX COCOA. Daily

This peace deal has actually kept cocoa prices at bay primarily because the region produces some 40% of the worlds supply of Cocoa. With political cries to remove the defiant leader with force on the heels of The World Bank freezing $800 million in committed financing for Ivory Coast this past Wednesday the situation is indeed heating up. 
Now focus on the below paragraphs...

Sunday Night Correlation Update: Gold/Currency (UUP)

Notice the 5 charts on the left, you have Silver at the top followed on down by dollar futures, gold futures, S&P futures and the bottom chart being the AUD/JPY cross.

Notice the interesting near 100% correlation. You have dollar showing marginal strength with gold right off futures open showing weakness though the assets have come back to pretty much flat once the china rate hike baked itself in an traders adjusted their positions.

What i am watching is the AUD/JPY as she bids off 82.80 the dollar has come off the 81 level and gold is staling at 1380. 1247.25 in the SPOOZ is proving to be resistance and 1244.50 is support line in sand.

Silver futures got hit the hardest falling from nearly 29.40 to 28.80ish still down almost a percent...

I hope everyones holidays went well.. lets see how tonight and the blizzard plays out...

Clinton Endorsement Boosts Rahm's Emanuel's Bid For Chicago Mayor

With all the hoopla surrounding "chummy Rahm's" residency status possibly affecting his ability to run for mayor because he was not technically a resident of Chicago has in my opinion only boosted his public profile among Chicagoans. We all knew he was going to be able to run.... I placed my bets....no more bets please...

Now with President Clinton endorsing his bid for mayor, Rahm's campaign has now achieved a new level of player status. Chicago needs someone to get into office and kick some ass, do some real work. Out with the old and in with the new. As a cook county resident for many years now all i have seen nothing progressive.

Only thing that has progressed is the sniper like precision of parking tickets/meter maids, higher sales taxes

Merry Christmas! China Raises Rates 25 Basis Points (UUP)

I applaud Communist China's effort to curb their massive inflation, most in two years according to Bloomberg. Though in my opinion a 25 basis point raise is equivalent to shooting a squirrel with a Daisy bb gun, the squirrel will surely feel it, though it will only piss it off and will continue making a mockery of your tree's!

Monday im expecting hardly any reaction out of equities, but do expect the metals and the currency markets to move around a bit. Though remember this coming week is still considered holiday trading and the big traders who press the big buttons will

Trim Tabs CEO Charles Biderman On Who Is Buying Stocks (FAZ)

Great video for those who wonder.. Who is buying stocks?.... It appears according to Charles Biderman the only buyer is the Fed....




Charles Biderman's response on Zerohedge...

Merry Christmas..Santa Gave Us Twitter (SPY)

Hard to believe Christmas 2010 is near and not a thing has changed fundamentally regarding our economy though our index's, specifically the S&P500 closed at or near 24 month highs 1255.75; pre Holidays. The sanata rally was a reality.....The "crash" of 2008 has been retraced... much to my dismay......

How many of you were able to capitalize on the move? I for one traded in an out of the move up to the highs, though as you all know and iv heard it a million times from those in and and out of my circle of "trust" i am bear at heart, yes i am; but you have to take this market down to you terminal and turn a profit. Money never sleeps though bears can hibernate until they feel the need to pop out and rear their heads and take down a nice meal. Shorting a up-trending market with the the

Mid Day S&P Futures Update & Euro Intervention (SPY)

ES_F 1 min

Today the markets have been arguably out of whack when speaking on terms of correlation breaks across assets normally correlated. The extreme lack of volume can be a catalyst for interesting "interventions" during regular market hours because you get more "bang for your buck", well at least someone at the Swiss National Bank thought so.

The Euro shot up like a rocket out of no where, though one can argue Crude going over 91 and the FTSE at 9000 might have trigged some wild shit, me personally i think it was a good old fashioned intervention. What makes this intervention much or brazen is that fact that is done not at 2 or 3 am US time but during regular market hours of US currency session.

Guess where the intervention was? EUR/USD 1 min

As for the futures, nothing to say here we are slightly down though but basically flat. I mentioned this morning in Economic Burn letter if we break down through 1255-1254 in the Emini futures we could see some more selling.... well here we are sitting at 1251ish with nothing but HFT drifting us around..

1255.75 is so far the high of the year... so above that level is nothing but air and whole/round numbers. On the downside we have 1250 and 1245 to watch. These could come in to play if the correlation of gold and dollar comes back into a meaningful pattern.

As i type this we broke through 1252 with ease all the way down to 1249.75.. Very interesting mid to late day sell off with the financials, especially BAC leading the pack lower..

Mid Day Video: Ho Ho Ho Lou Holtz say "WIN" (SPY)

via @theCMZ

VIX Sonar Report: VIX Holiday call protection (VXX)

Via @theCMZ
Im with Jamie on his analysis of the VIX options into the holiday..... Remember we are at pre flash crash levels...

Irish Government Takes Control of Allied Irish Bank (AIB)

This just in, fresh off the heels of a US dollar futures spike, we have the Irish Government taking control of Allied Irish bank. Perhaps this Thursday will not be quiet as quiet as we had planned or hoped for...

"The Irish government will invest EUR3.7B into Allied Irish Bank (AIB), bringing its ownership stake to 93% says Reuters. AIB will end its listing on the main Irish and British stock markets. The bank will apply for listing on the enterprise securities market of the Irish exchange."

Also just out, Fitch downgrades Hungary to BBB-; outlook negative.

Spot gold took a dive through 1380 and the SPooz broke support at 1253

Accuride Upside Flash Crash...? (ACW)

Interesting trade here after hours, 140k or so shares went off up to a price of 199,999.99 all the way back down to 15.20 then .02c . HELL OF A MOVE LOL..., a stub quote was for sure was taken at the 199k mark.... Merry Xmas .

Danny Riley with Pre-Christmas Trade and Holiday Wishes (Top Step)

via Mr. Top Step.com

SEC Investigating China Stock Fraud (FAZ)

First you must understand the phrase "reverse merger" is usually something a bit shady as a reverse merger is a backdoor way to list your company that may not have the correct requirements to be listed as a stand alone company....

That being said... I expect more of this to come, do not trust nearly anything which comes out of China, especially their economic numbers. What i do not trust even more are penny stocks based in China listed in on the US exchanges.... The Street.com put out an article this afternoon i found interesting, though definitely not surprising.

(The Street.com) "The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating allegations that U.S. firms and individuals have joined with partners in China to steal billions of dollars from American investors through stock fraud, according to people familiar with the probe.

Individuals with direct knowledge of the investigation say that the SEC is focusing on stock promoters, investment bankers, auditors and law firms that have been active in recruiting Chinese companies to U.S. stock exchanges and raising capital for those companies by selling new shares."

China is not the only spot the SEC should be focusing on, as the OTCBB and PINK sheet crowd is a bunch of bullshit anyway........ 

Here Comes Santa With His 1250 "kiss"... Mid Day S&P Update (SPY)

ES_F 5 min .. 1250 "kiss"

Something i have been chirping about and writing about here and on Economic Burn is the slow melt up of all most asset classes, especially the futures. Last night we put in fresh 24 month highs of 1246.50 then again early this afternoon we "kissed" 1250.

Well all be damned just in time for santa to climb down the chimney... I thought i was surely getting a lump of coal because of all my bearishness. I am a bear at heart but this markets volume is so low there is nothing that can move this market down so why not give the bastard and upward skew into the holidays? Yeah why not? The chart up to the left is a 5 minute of the ES_F, nice slow non alarming upward skew.

What is interesting about this move is the US dollar futures are on the move as well, hanging in nice and strong despite their opposite correlation earlier this year. Also precious metals are not up really enough to talk about they they are up and are showing signs or breaking the all important correlation until the new year begins when the big money comes back into this market and shakes things up a bit.

When i say shake things up a bit i mean volatility might pop a bit up into the new year because

Video: Groundhog Day & Peter Yastrow (SPY)

Via @TheCMZ

VIX Sonar Report: ViX expiration + 4 trades (VXX)

via @Optionsmonster

MrTopStep - Danny Riley Reiterates Quiet Year-End (Top Step)

Mr. Top Step.com

Vix Sonar Report: VIX 17 straddle on VIX (VIX)

Via @theCMZ

Using Twitter Mood Analysis to Predict Market Moves? (SPY)

School of Fish i.e. Twitter users/traders

There has been much quiet debate about the topic of quantifying tweets to gauge sentiment the past year or so. Most of the debate and hypothesising has been behind closed doors and of course off the twitter streams in my opinion because the real power behind this potentially highly profitable technology.

The potential energy stored in the brains of individuals who are developing and or those already using sentiment predicting/quantifying systems is massive. Understanding the school of fish mentality can greatly benefit traders/funds/governments alike, though understand which direction the school of fish will turn next is where the money resides.

 As you may or may have not seen already there has been a fund seeded with nearly 35$ million dollars based out of the Cayman Islands using exactly the sentiment quantification systems i talked about above as the basis for their profit model. This is the first real press release i have seen explicitly stating sentiment gleaned from twitter is an accurate way of predicting which way the market will move.

Stay tuned i have more to come.....

The InterMune Upgrade Party (ITMN)

As you may or may not know biotech company InterMune is up over 100% today on massive volume.. The catalyst: InterMune announces positive opinion for approval of Esbriet in EU... So lets take a look at the upgrade party in the order listed....

1. InterMune upgraded to Buy from Hold at Canaccord
2. nterMune upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at JMP Securities target 35
3. InterMune upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at WedbushPrice target raised to $55
4. InterMune upgraded to Outperform from Perform at OppenheimerPrice target $41

DEC Quad Witching a Dud. S&P Index Rebalancing Left Today (Top Step)

Mr. Top Step.com

HTF Anaconda & Brawl in Ukrainian parliament (CMZ)

via @TheCMZ

Late Night S&P500 Update (SPX)

ES_F 5 min 

Not much to write about tonight as the futures are very quiet and tomorrow is quad witching which is much hyped but usually always disappoints in regards to price action. Spot gold is up a bit with dollar futures down a bit.. looks like tomorrow gonna be a boring day...

Since the Spooz is up at Resistance of 2 year highs we are probably are going to need some stellar economic numbers or a hell of a buy program from the depths of hell to move us higher, or even a sell program from the high heavens to move us lower. Tomorrow 1242 is the upside line in the sand, 1239 is the lower line in the sand followed by 1236 and 1232.

I still cant really believe this is the last OPEX of 2010, but here we are and here we are at highs of the year... I was wrong about us diving back into the depths of hell but i have the patience of a cockaroacha (Scarface voice)

Tomorrows calendar is as follows....

Dec 17

10:00

Leading Indicators

Nov

1.0%

1.2%

0.5%

Late Night Distraction: Pretty Lights - Finally Moving

Moderately late night music break..

Post Close S&P500 Futures Update (MA)

Quiet the range today... with the fake out morning sell off combined with the mid morning buy program catching many traders off guard who were short; today's price action became quiet tradable.

 I found the break higher over over 1232 to be the signal buy programs were gonna dominate the low volume environment as we were going into NYC lunch. The 1232 level was the level yesterday we breached on high volume, thus this level was fresh on traders minds.

The small buy program took us from 1232 up to 1236.75 before we traded sideways on nothing volume until another small program took us back up to highs of the intra day session 1239.25 after hours we were lifted by RIMM and ORCL earnings up to 1239.75. To me there was not much conviction today on the buy side, buy programs put the index up on shelves they could not fall from, even at the close where you expect volume to pick up a it, it did not.

The biggest volume candle of the day today was this morning when we fell off the open from 1230.25 to 1227.50 where almost 35k contracts traded in a 1 minute period, dwarfing all other volume of the day.

The biggest news of the day was the V and MA sell off which the blogging community and stocktwits were all over way before CNBC decided to mention the story.

ORCL earnings came in
 Oracle reports Q2 EPS 51c vs. consensus 46c
Reports Q2 $8.6B revenue vs. consensus $8.34B.


RIMM earnings came in 
Research in Motion reports Q3 EPS $1.74 vs. consensus $1.64
Reports Q3 revenue $5.49B vs. consensus $5.4B. 

New Debit Credit Card Fee Schedule Pummel MA and V (MA)

Yowaazaaa talk about buy the rumor and sell the REAL NEWS once the terms of the document actually hit...

MA traded up sharply ahead of the announcement the fed had reached a deal on the new fees, these fees came in much lower then what the market was expecting which is what caused the massive sell off in MA and V, MA was down at one point 30 points to 218$ a share.

(Reuters) - U.S. banks and other debit card issuers could not charge retailers more than 12 cents per transaction under a Federal Reserve staff proposal released on Thursday.

 The negative response in V & MA is in response to the Fed's rules establishing the interchange fee standards, which appear to cap fees at $0.07-0.12 per tansaction, in order to align the fees with the costs to the issuers. Several analysts have already come out and defended MA & V, so it will be interesting to see the interpretations of the proposal as analysts have time to digest it. 

Jeff Kilburg on- What does drop in commercial paper mean?

Via the CMZ

Triple, Quad Witch Expiration - Danny Riley (Top Step)

Mr Top Step.com

Late Night S&P500 Update (SPX)

US dollar futures 1 min

Echoing what i wrote about in my pervious post tonight, the tape today was quiet interesting and mirrored Monday and Tuesday's tape.

Tonight we see metals down a bit but basically flat, though dollar futures pushed up against intra day highs of 80.62 before falling back a bit. I am reading heavily into the the dollar remaining strong and equites reaming conservatively weak.

The levels i am going to be watching for tomorrow

Roasting NFLX..(NFLX)

funny video for those who have not seen.. i was arguing the book value with Hamzei .. i said it was 1.13 a share.. Hamzei found out it was a little over 3 bucks. i was close... anyway.. NFLX is going to be added to the S&P500 Friday so im sure we are going to see some dip buying in this name.. though i think it will only be a temporary bounce....

Video shot by CoffeyGrinds

U.S. sues BP over Gulf oil spill (BP)

We all knew this was coming... watch the other drillers RIG APC and of course HAL..

"The Justce Department has sued BP (BP) and eight other companies for the Gulf oil spill, according to the Associated Press, which did not identify the eight other companies.The U.S. is asking that the companies be held liable without limitation for all the damage and removal costs related to the spill."

HAL not named in complain from DOJ, or CAM... doj asks to hold APC RIG BP liable wout limits....

A 2X Top 1247 DEC / 1242 MCH??? (Top Step)

mr top step.com

Post FOMC Musings & S&P Charts (SPY)

ES_F 1 min 

Surprise surprise Bernanke left the rates UNCH. I was kinda hoping for some fun, but of course i was disappointed. Though we did get some decent comments out of the committee regarding unemployment and the fact that the economic "recovery" is not substantial enough to improve unemployment.


Take these statements for an example:


Fed says recovery insufficient to bring down unemployment
The FOMC said, "Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in November confirms that the economic recovery is continuing, though at a rate that has been insufficient to bring down unemployment."          So are they are admitting they are out of bullets with this?


and read this...


FOMC maintains existing policy of reinvesting principal payments
The FOMC said, "The Committee will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. In addition, the Committee intends to purchase $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month." 

Looks like the fed again has no real play or idea in hell what to do with our economy, they are just throwing shit at the wall hoping something sticks..


So they will keep printing money... Check...Considering the sell off from 1242 to 1232.75 in 45 minutes
following the release that should tell you something about what a few big traders thought about the market and FOMC.

US dollar 5 min chart. ascending triangle

Clearly there is money rotating out of the wall street darling tech stocks today as NFLX still down, AMZN, FFIV, PCLN etc all getting hit. 


I believe short term the money coming off the table in the form of profits in these stocks is being rotated into US dollars as the UUP and US dollar futures have seen large buys following the FOMC.. 

Sonar Report "VIX Low 20's into the New Year" (VXX)

via Option Monster

AIG Shares Surging On US Stake Update (AIG)

Shares of AIG are up to their old games of surging higher on seemingly endless bids with only a few key headlines moving the stock.

The company stated they plan to get rid of their US stake in the company in 1-2 years.. I guess this is if all cylinders fire and no speed bumps are hit... Also on Bloomberg TV the chairman of AIG says CEO Benmosche is "doing terrific".

These comments are enough to move the stock over 7% higher?  I guess so, though i believe its a lot of algo's and momo chases because i have not forgotten how that stock can burn you badly if you are not careful. AIG has run into resistance at 52.45......

Also Fairholme Capital now holds a 28.6% stake in AIG according to Barrons


AS for other news. WHR had takeover chatter sending the stock to 88.27.....

Yahoo To Layoff Nearly 600 to 700 Workers (YHOO)

If you remember the rumor of Yahoo laying off staff i posted November 11th stating nearly 20% of the force would possibly be let go; i was not far off.

Yahoo just announced they are preparing to lay off between 600 and 700 workers. Chalk it up. This is a little under 1% of total work force...

(AP writes) "Yahoo Inc.'s holiday trimmings will include 600 to 700 layoffs in the Internet company's latest shake-up triggered by lackluster growth.

Employees could be notified of the job cuts as early as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with Yahoo's plans. The person asked for anonymity because Yahoo hadn't made a formal announcement.

The planned cutbacks represent about 5 percent of Yahoo's work force of 14,100 employees. It will mark Yahoo's fourth mass layoff in the past three years."

Late Nigh S&P Futures Update (SPY)

ES_F 5 min

Today the tape was your classic fake out. You got the initial uptrend all day until the last hour of the day where you get a sell off out of nowhere? Out of nowhere i do not think so... There were a few signals which told traders something was about to turn especially in tech. 

You saw NFLX getting crushed, AMZN reversing and the Q's getting slammed all before the SPOOZ aka ES_F really gave up her lunch...  if you are worth the machine your trading on you should have told yourself this market cannot hold itself up after the 1240 failed.

Think like a trader, you must understand this market is about correlation of index's and assets. Tonight

NetFlix Rocked, Choo Choo (NFLX)

I have not done a post like this in a while but why not, NFLX is one of those story stocks where everyone piles in and everyone piles out. The stock is still up huge on the year, though is substantially off highs.

Where did a lot of people buy? Up over 200 or in the 198 area.... Now why do you think fast money and the likes of CNBC are now bearish on the name.. well for one the blogging community had this trade weeks ago and when the big money needs to get out cnbc pumps up the jams, though usually when a story stock like this falls the institutions get back in when

VIX Sonar Report: VIX looking for home on 20th Ave (VIX)

Via OptionsMONSTER

Global Equities Continue to Rally on Mutual Fund Monday (Top Step)

Mr. top Step.com

Late Nigh S&P Futures Update (SPY)

All is quiet on the home front here.. the futures of course are up a bit as you can see by the chart above, the market has been in a large ascending triangle on a 5 minute as you can see about also.

Looks like 1136 is the line in the sand though we did touch the 1137 handle briefly after the regular session close on Friday.

The lower line in the sand is of course support where the bottom trend line on the chart lies. 1132 is up first then followed by 1127..1217 is also a lee to watch also as this is where we caught a bid Wednesday morning last week and did not look back. Im sticking by my call of if we break and hold over 1136 we are going higher tonight into the morning.

Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co Files for Bankruptcy (GAP)

NO this is not the same company as "The Gap" the clothier which ticker is GPS. This company is a grocery and who's margins have been affected by strong competition and profit margin issues.

This company has been around for quite sometime, though the stock price the past year or so show clearly showed something was not quiet right. GAP is trading under a dollar in late Friday trading. Sad to see another American stable falter...

(Reuters writes) "Once the largest U.S. grocer, the owner of about 400 stores under brands such as A&P, Waldbaum's and Super Fresh filed for Chapter

Goldman Sachs Programmer DID Steal code (GS)

When you got a solid script which runs the world someone is gonna want to get their hands on it.. Looks like the programmer could get 15 years for stealing the property....

(AP writes) "The jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan convicted Sergey Aleynikov of North Caldwell, N.J., of theft of trade secrets and transportation of stolen property in interstate and foreign commerce.

Aleynikov, 40, of North Caldwell, N.J., could face up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced March 18. Aleynikov and his lawyer, Kevin Marino, declined to comment after the verdict."

Mark Madoff Found Dead

Sad story... cant imagine what he has been through the last two years whether he did know or didnt know about the ponzi its still terrible.. All im gonna say on the topic....

(AP writes) - The eldest son of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff hanged himself by a dog leash in his apartment Saturday after two years of "unrelenting pressure" following his father's arrest in a multibillion-dollar fraud that enveloped the entire family, law enforcement officials and a family attorney said.

VIX Sonar Report - Hour and 10min head start on VIX futures..1st day (VIX)

Netflix To Be Added to S&P500 (NFLX)

I though this was BS, i was wrong.. but i still think there NFLX does not have enough track record and what not etc to be in the SPOOZ....

NEW YORK, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Four companies will join the
benchmark S&P 500 index .SPX after the closing bell on Dec.
17, S&P said in a statement on Thursday.

Netflix Inc (NFLX.O), F5 Networks Inc (FFIV.O) and
Newfield Exploration Co (NFX.N) will replace Office Depot Inc
(ODP.N), The New York Times Co (NYT.N) and Eastman Kodak Co
(EK.N) in the S&P 500.

AIG Offering 10 Billion To Repay Fed (AIG)

Well you wonder who was pumping the stock the past year or so like mad men, i guess you know now.. They needed this stock price nice and high to offer out more stock to sell to lemmings to pay back the government. The fed still owns something like 90% of AIG still and the stock despite its Hong Kong IPO.

The stock is currently halted right now, the stock is down considerably on the day to the 42.27... down over 3% on the day. Aig is going to be on my radar tomorrow as they did not re open the stock during regular session, they could open the stock after hours. If they do that is coward move, as small notional can move that thing around..

VIX Sonar Reports: 1X2 swap trading (VXX)

Economic Burn Preview "On The Border" (NFLX)

On The Border
THE WAY OF THE MINT:
I will be brief due to time constraints regarding tomorrow's big event at the Waldorf Astoria here in New York City: Global Markets Summit. As I have said before, anyone wanting to attend can do so by emailing me at economicburn@gmail.com and I will get back to you today.

Futures are mixed with equities essentially flat. We lost a little steam yesterday but do not think that the end of this bull run is done, for you would be mistaken. The big news right now is Netflix (NFLX). Their CFO left in a "pre-arranged" agreement after cashing in over $40 million worth of stock. Suffice to say, if Netflix drops below $184 today (it is around $185 right now pre-market), then the January 180 puts are looking mighty attractive to me.


THE MUSINGS OF SELLPUTS:

The Mint, here. Sellputs is flying in to NYC today for tomorrow's conference and so we can take care of some business related to Economic Burn. So in his place, I present: RESEARCH! So here is an excerpt from HEDGEYE's Keith McCullough (who is also speaking at tomorrow's event) and his equivilent to the 

Daily Burn, THE EARLY LOOK:

Early Morning S&P Update (NFLX)

From the looks of the overnight market it appeared there would be some selling into the NYC open today, though the Emini caught a bid off 1217.25 which was the low of the after hours session.

Currently we are setting at 1226, quite the move of 10 handles on no fresh economic news or data. Only thing i am seeing is a NFLX downgraded to 195 LOL and OREX and VVUS upgrades alike.

As for levels to watch this morning of course 1230 on the side followed by the round numbers 1235. downside levels include of course the line in the sand 1200 and 1217.25. 1222 was a sticky number which was the ascending triangle break out resistance. If we break 1216.50 on the downside today we should see a lot of stops getting hit and more piling into shorts if the large paper sells down in the pits.

We got a few numbers coming out today, calendar at the bottom of my post from lastnight 

The NASDAQ 100 fell 0.46 points Tuesday, closing at 2,189.35. The Russell 2000 rose 8.00 points Tuesday, closing at 764.42. The HUI fell 14.51 points to 576.48 Tuesday, after setting a new all-time high intraday. January Gold fell to 1,400.90 after reaching a new all-time high intraday;Silver fell to 28.94, while January Oil fell to 88.31. The U.S. Dollar rose 0.34 to 79.91. Bonds fell almost 3 points to 122^16. The VIX was flat at 17.99.   -Robert Mchugh ....

Late Night Correlation Update (SPY)

All 1 min charts

As you can see we have all the major products which move our overnight markets in nearly perfect harmony tonight... To the left you see silver futures, dollar futures, gold futures, S&P futures, and AUDJPY...

Of course the dollar is up .42% which is pushing down on told which fell through 1395 support..ES_F is hanging by a thread at 1221, though the real support line in the sand is 1220.

As for the AUD/JPY the correlation tie to US equities is very much intact.. a test of 82.40 failed... support is 82....

Bears Roar The SPOOZ Back To 1225 (SPY)

ES_F or ESZ 1 min intra day and after hours

The market today was placed on a shelf by the overnight session i highlighted last night. When notional value is low, you walk the futures up overnight. Think about it this way.....

*If you are a large firm who bought the closing cash print it is in your best interest to walk the futures up overnight in a thin market so you can sell the opening cash print for a nice profit. This does happen and happens a lot of the time, the key is doing this in a market in consolidation mode with no major economic numbers the next day, like we saw today is the best time to execute a trade like this. The cash market gapped up over a percent from Monday SPY close, that is a great trade with very low risk.

Anyway the bears roared back the last two hours of trading as 1233.25 failed... The bears took the horns of the bulls and slammed them into the ground as the Bush tax cuts seemed to be stalling on the hill as well as tensions on the Korean peninsula heated up. i believe these two factors weighed on sentiment and small paper and bigger desks took advantage of a low volume market to make some cash on a late day sell off many did not expect.... You can argue all day what causes the market to move, but one thing

Global Insights Report 12/07 (SPY)

Pre-Market Global Insight Reports are posted midday on this website.
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Volume 1, Issue 7
December 07, 2010

Today’s Points of Interest

Volume: 9.7k SPZs and 1.32mil ESZs traded
S&P futures vs. fair value: +11.40. NASDAQ futures vs. fair value: +20.80
3.4k SPZ/H spds traded

MARKET ACTION REPLAY
“S&P Futures and MUTUAL FUND MONDAY”
Whether if it’s the slow economic recovery, continued macro political and economic tensions, or some of what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had to say on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night, the Asian and European traders didn’t like it. Talk of prolonged unemployment and inflation concerns had an already nervous China closing mixed while 8 out of 10 European markets closed lower.

 As the credit crisis continues to linger, the 16 nations that make up the Euro Zone have gathered in Brussels to discuss ways to stabilize their unified currency and avoid more expensive backstops and ultimate bailouts. “They” say, there is fighting in Brussels over what is being called the “European Stability Mechanism” which are the new rules concerning bailouts that could be used to force losses on private investors in some cases. This is going on at the same time the US FED has charged as many as 300 firms/individuals related to the crisis with various crimes (still developing).

The Fed Chairman made clear intentions of being prepared for backstopping US interests if/when needed (as well as others?). If you consider this a “floor” then you probably like one of the ole favorite trading rules ” Never short a quiet market” (especially when the Fed is doing QE!) The S&P futures made an overnight low on Globex at 1216.25 and topped out at 1226.75. On the RTH opening, SPZ opened down 1.5 handles at 1221.70 to 1220.20 area, making the RTH morning low of 1220.00 and trended higher throughout a quiet session double topping at 1225.40 (Friday’s RTH high 1225.50) just before the imbalance showed $394M

Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy Is Leaving Company (NFLX)

After hours today Netflix announced CFO Barry McCarthy will leave company, the company has appointed David Wells as its new CFO. Looks like the change is going to take place on December 10th.

As you remember Barry Dumped 100k shares of NFLX stock over 200 bucks a share a week ago or so... Not looking like everything is so rosy over at this