1:10pm (EST)
The bulls are on track to finish the first quarter and the start of the year with their highest gains in nearly 15 years. Although economic news has come in lighter-than-expected today, the bulls are making another push at resistance as we head into the weekend. The bears made a nice recovery off the Bernanke Bounce on Monday but the indexes are on track to finish the week higher despite the bears 3-day win streak which could be ending today.
As far as economic news, Personal Spending jumped 0.8% in February versus expectations for an increase of 0.7% while Personal Income rose 0.2% versus a forecast for 0.4%. The Chicago ISM slipped 1.8 points to 62.2 in March after rising nearly 4 points to 64 in February. And finally, the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence report showed a reading of 76.2, beating the suit-and-ties forecast for a print of 74.5.
The Dow is up 51 points to 13,197 while the S&P 500 is higher by 5 points to 1,408. The Nasdaq has danced on both sides of the ledger but is currently positive by 2 points to 3,097. If current levels hold, we should rally into next week.
We were able to close 4 more winning trades this week but we also took 2 lumps on trying to short the market. We played some WEEKLY options that probably aren’t going to rebound as our aggressiveness didn’t quite pan out. Our overall 2012 Track Record is now 59-13 which is an 82% winning percentage but we still hate losing trades. We probably should have played the April or May options to give the trades more time but we didn’t and we blew it.
We have had an incredible quarter to say the least as we have been able to turn a $10,000 trading account into $40,000 in just 3 months. In other words, while some of the Wall Street pros might be lucky enough to show their clients a double-digit gain for the first quarter – we made our subscribers 300%! You can request our 2012 Track Record by emailing us if you are not a member to see all of our closed trades for the year.
We are expecting another exciting quarter which kicks-off next week as we have a number of trades that are starting to set up nicely for us. There is still a chance we play some more call options but we are also watching a number of short ideas. Our biggest trade of the quarter was this week’s call option win in American Express (AXP, $58.05, up $0.16) which we closed for a 475% gain. We are looking at some longer-term put options that could make just as much if the market pulls back in May and June which we expect it will.
We have some last minute thoughts on our current trades and we will be back Sunday night with the Weekly Wrap. Until then, have a great weekend everyone!
