April Fool's Gains No Joke

So the start of the month started off fairly decently after looking bleak to begin with. The futures were down significantly coming into the open. However once we opened we essentially rallied even despite ADP numbers of nearly 750,000 job losses.

I had a single put position on WYNN coming into the day and I assumed with its relative weakness it should do a decent job of limiting a gap down loss even with just that position. Oddly though I noticed that it didn't gap down at all, in fact it was break even and going positive right on the open. This concerned me so I cut the position loose right away at break even. This was a good move because it went on to rally 8% on the day on apparent good news out of MGM or LVS. The bank index was strong fromt he beginning and europe had basically rallied higher from the open as well so I was tempted to buy MS when it gapped down but didn't want to take anymore risk.

Had I taken that risk it would have played out well and likely will again tomorrow but oh well. I was thinking it was possible we broke down yesterday but the market seems to be fairly bullish. Futures are up 1.5% and Asia is trading 4.5% higher before the G20 meeting. If we get positive news out of G20 and there is a revision to mark to market accounting it is entirely possible that we see 850 tomorrow on the S&P. I only have 1/4 my capital at work so I may look to day trade futures tomorrow to take advantage of any possible rally.

I like the start to the month of April so far, it appears it will continue tomorrow and as we get higher I will scale out of my bullish positions. It is possible we get to 900 in short order but my theory is we don't go there is a straight line and I will look to add on pullbacks until something changes. If we have fairly positive earnings I think 900 is pretty much guaranteed, although the fact that the market keeps shrugging negative news off maybe it will go there anyways. We have to be aware of being too bullish though because that is when unexpected things can cause severe reversals.

I am thinking it may be good to just keep a rolling tally of return along with my blogs from now on to make things easier. :-)

Return for 2009: 82%