Hello All….., Stocks rose modestly in many markets, including the United States and major European stock exchanges and it looked like investors were ready to embrace riskier securities amid positive economic signs, including a healthy rise in November retail sales, solid gains in two regional manufacturing indexes, another decline in weekly jobless claims which fell by 3,000 in the week ending December 11, to a seasonally adjusted 420,000 and a large rise in the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators.

President Obama signed into law an $858 billion tax deal on Friday afternoon, details of which have been driving the direction of the market all week. The final package includes a two-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts and extends unemployment benefits for 13 months, cuts the payroll tax by 2 percent, and restores the estate tax at a lower level.

Data on the housing market was mixed with new home starts rising 3.9% in November, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of555,000 units, and October’s housing starts figure was revised upward, but permits for new construction fell 4%, to an annualized rate of 530,000 which is the lowest level since April 2009.

Investors were also troubled by continuing troubles in European debt markets as Ireland endured another downgrade to its credit rating and ratings agencies warned of credit problems in Spain and Belgium.

In the two markets that we hate, Crude oil futures rose for the week to $88.08 a barrel on Friday afternoon and Gold futures were lower this week, to around $1377.02.

For the week we took out 7.55 points Putting us at 6.9 for the month and back over 500 for the year at 504.25

Remember…. Each point = $1 in profits x the number of shares you would normally trade… So if you would have been trading with us in all our previous open positions and closed out along with us, with an average of 1000 shares per trade you would have made $7550 this week

REMINDER…. We shut down from Dec  24- Jan 7^th for vacation returning on Mon Jan  10^th. We will advise what to do with any open positions… We may not even send any new opening positions this week either. We will send a weekly report next week as usual.

Merry Christmas Everybody.

Open Positions

Note…. In many of these trades we may have already taken some profits which are included in the totals above, therefore these totals reflect current open positions only.

Hello All… .

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were higher for the week, hitting their highest levels since 2008 while the Dow was little changed

Congressional Democrats blasted President Obama’s proposed extension of the Bush tax cuts but the deal boosted stocks on Tuesday morning. As a result, most economists significantly boosted their estimates for growth in the coming year.

First time unemployment claims fell by more than expected today, down 17,000 to 421,000 in the week ending December 4.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer sentiment survey was up in December to its highest level since June and was at its third-highest since 2008 and jobless claims fell more than expected over the previous week, and a gauge of consumer sentiment rose more than anticipated.

In the 2 markets I hate, crude oil futures fell for the week trading  at $87.61 a barrel and the start ogold futures were lower this week, to $1385.55 an ounce on Friday afternoon.

We hope to see some better results starting this week now that some market uncertainty has been removed.

For the week we had another losing week,,,we gave back .65 points Putting us at 496.7  for the year.

Remember…. Each point = $1 in profits x the number of shares you would normally trade… So if you would have been trading with us in all our previous open positions and closed out along with us, with just an average of 1000 shares per trade you would have given back $650 this week

Open Positions

Note…. In many of these trades we may have already taken some profits which are included in the totals above, therefore these totals reflect current open positions only.