Trade Ideas for 05/08/09

After opening at new highs, the market sold off for the rest of the day. The selling was relentless but at the same time tempered in that it wasn't a straight-down, waterfall type of decline. So, the bulls are down, but are they out? I think it's too early to say. The parabola hasn't been broken. If we gap down tomorrow and sell all day, then the uptrend is clearly over. But at this point new highs can't be ruled out, and this uptrend has proven that even in what appear to be dire circumstances, bullishness can take root.

We sold NUE for a loss today, and DIG for better than breakeven. SDS gapped down a great deal, and its low was slightly over 2% greater than the sell stop in yesterday's table. So a close call as to whether or not to elect once it exceeded the buy price. (A low greater than 2% below the sell stop invalidates the signal.) I'm going to include it in our current holdings anyway, in case anyone did elect it.

PS: I wasn't paying attention and didn't note that GOLD reported earnings today. I don't like to take on earnings risk so this was a mistake, but it worked out in our favor.

Current Holdings
Ticker	Basis	Closing Price	Perf.	Sell-Stop	Additional Exit Guideline	Chart
DGP	18.68	19.28	+3.2%	18.79	Consider selling on a negative close	Chart
GOLD	45.56	53.55	+17.5%	51.77	N/A	Chart
SDS	59.22	58.75	-0.8%	55.92	N/A	Chart
TMX	17.01	17.09	+0.5%	16.85	N/A	Chart

A couple of short ideas if this turns out to be the start of a downtrend, but also a long idea in case it doesn't.

New Trade Ideas

Ticker	Entry	Exit A	Exit C	Chart
SKF (Ultrashort Financials)	46.51	39.52	N/A	Chart
QID (Ultrashort QQQQ)	38.18	35.06	N/A	Chart
ATHN (athenahealth)	34.01	32.22	N/A	Chart

Please refer to "How To Trade The Ideas" (right-hand side) to read this table.