The Kirk Report

Another Leg Lower Posted: 20 Nov 2008 04:05 PM CST While the market attempted to bounce and hold above yesterday's close, sellers again swamped the tape in the afternoon forcing a close at the lows. In fact, today the S&P 500 plunged to its lowest level in 11 years! I loathe trading around options expiration days and today offers a perfect example. We had a relative good setup today for a sizable snapper and other than that feeble bounce early on, we simply couldn't hold the line. With the lows not holding, people want out and now there's no stopping them. Very few investors have the stomach (or frankly the risk management) to withstand the amount of pain this market is providing now on a daily basis. In fact, you know things are bad when the best looking chart I can find today is of the 20-Year Treasury: That speaks volumes! Needless to say, I lost a bit of money out there today but sticking to my strategy of taking losses early and often when I'm both long and wrong has saved me once again. Overall, I'm hanging in there, still positive for the year, and staying optimistic which is all you can do when the pressure is on. No doubt, we'll all look back at this time with amazement and carry a badge of honor that we survived one of the worst times the market has ever known. As they say, tomorrow is another day and we'll see if they can finally hit levels that the sellers are no longer well-motivated to run for the exits and abandon stocks forever. We shouldn't be too far away from that point right here, but like usual we have to let the market prove it to us first.

More Volatility Ahead Posted: 20 Nov 2008 08:30 AM CST Good morning. The sellers remain in charge following weakness in overseas markets and initial jobless claims that came in higher than expected. Other than chatter of investments in General Electric by sovereign wealth funds and increase stake by Saudi Prince Alwaleed into Citigroup, the newswires are fairly quiet as the auto makers rescue drive stalls out. Premarket gainers: ABK, RBS, GTI, SANM, C, STEM, CIT, AMTD, COIN, APWR, PETM, BCS, INFI, QGEN, CHTR, MBI, LYG, TCK, M, AU, CPB, CDE, & JNY. Premarket losers: STP, PAY, GM, PWRD, GGP, GENT, TSL, ADCT, LEA, LDK, KALU, MDR, WFE, SMTC, BHP, EGLE, DRYS, FSLR, AKAM, BIDU, & FMCN. At 10:AM we have both the Philadelphia Fed Survey and Leading Indicators and other than a couple of more speeches by members of the Fed, there's nothing else on the calendar except options expiration tomorrow. Although difficult to believe, we should see volatility increase over the next few days. We should also be on full alert both today and tomorrow for another sizable snapback reversal like we've seen other times that we've pushed this far into oversold territory at least for a short-term trade. Have a terrific Thursday!

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