With the Dow Industrials down 165 points yesterday, the Nasdaq index and the puts we held on it were in a bullish warp – so much so as to prevent our taking even a small a partial profit.  We usually advise doing so early on in each trade, so that even if we are stopped out there will be no loss, not even a small one, after commissions. In this instance, however, the QQQs held steady and were never down more than 18 cents during the day, even when the blue chip average was getting hammered. As a result, puts on the QQQs went nowhere.  As for the Dow’s weakness, Boeing shares were a big piece of it, reacting to news that the company’s 787 Dreamliner would be delayed by six months due to assembly line problems.  The aircraft manufacturer’s shares accounted for nearly 20 points of the Indoos’ 86-point loss. Factor in Alcoa and Chevron, which both took hits, and yesterday’s decline looked far too narrow to mean much.

Meanwhile, we didn’t exactly throw in the towel on our put options, not yet, but we came close. Here’s the update that went out to subscribers intraday:  “This short position is all but certain to get stopped out, since the QQQs are refusing to follow the DJIA lower this morning. The QQQs eventually will turn the broad averages higher, rather than the other way around. Google alone could do the job, assuming it is headed to the 662.99 target given today. We'll stick to the original stop-loss at 53.65, but I doubt there will be an opportunity to reduce the impending loss to zero by taking a partial profit on our put position.” 

And so it went. By day’s end, the QQQs had rallied to within 0.08 points of our 53.65 stop-loss, and there was a good chance it would trigger with just a little buoyancy Wednesday night.  However, because we had initiated the short near Tuesday’s highs, we’re not likely to clipped for much. A small comfort, for sure, but not without value; for, the most sensitive way to “feel” a market’s reluctance to go down is to be short it. And now, the S&P target we furnished a while back looks extremely likely to be reached, and precisely. Since it’s a pretty good leap from these levels, the opportunities over the near term will remain mainly on the long side.

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Blues Harp Junkies

In Tuesday’s Intraday Notes I provided a link to a Web site that features some blues and bluegrass greats, among them one of my all-time favorite blues harp players, Mark Ford (with brother Robben here). The guy is amazing, so if you’re a blues-harp junkie too, you should check him out. The complete catalogue of CD recordings by Mark Ford (and others) is available on the Bluerockit label.