Don’t shoot the messenger but we knew it was going to be ugly and after an hour and half into the trading session the Dow is down 275 points, to 7,502. So much for holding that 7,600 level. There is not much green going on at the present moment although Amazon (AMZN, $70.41, down $0.11) managed to trade higher in the early going.

There are levels that could come into play today and most technicians are watching 775 for the S&P 500. The market may have thrown us a General Motors (GM, $2.72, down $0.90) curveball but we at least we fouled the pitch instead of whiffing.

The Family Dollar (FDO, $33.36, down $0.27) April 32.50 calls (FDODZ, $2.20, down $0.15) have held up well but did hit the $2.00 stop. No sour grapes there as many of you bagged at least a 100% return.

Blackstone (BX, $6.91, down $0.84) took a hit and fell below $7 so we are out. We also checked out of the Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG, $65.15, down $3.35) and Mosaic (MOS, $42.36, down $4.69) trades but everything else looks good.

I bought some of the PowerShares QQQ (QQQQ, $29.74, down $1.08) April 29 puts (QAVPC, $0.83, up $0.34) this morning at 77 cents as insurance. It’s a play on the Nasdaq going lower. It’s a quick trade to make some cash but I’m not going to fall in love with it. Although I will if we kiss on the first date…

Rick Rouse
Rick@OptionsMentoring.com

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