Wait a little

If you too busy with buying gifts for your loved ones, stay busy there. No need to engage in panic buying or selling. Recent market moves are not telling us anything. Lets stay out of the trading tab for a while. It can never hurt.
If you have to buy something, go for Boeing(BA). It is down 20% from top for not much reason.
I remember the old days when market almost always used to go up during January. Now those money managers are very smart. They wait during January nowadays. So should we.
What about those beaten down financial stocks? Let wait until end of January. By then most of the financial earnings should be out. Lehman was not so bad. Let us wait to hear what Merril and City says and we can go from there.
Happy holidays!!!

DOW ready to bolt

The recent market drop in Nov came as a surprise to many. But the more recent upturn has surprised few. Generally speaking the next 12 months should keep the buuls in charge. 2008 being an eletion year, the statistics really on our side.
In dividual stock? Depends on which way you are leaning. If you think fed will keep cutting rates, go with utilities. DUK, SO are good.
Don't underestimate the Tech. Growing world needs technology. RIMM, CISCO are great. Even AAPL at this lofty price should be unless, if we hit recession that will be a different story.
On Oil I believe the price has topped for now. So putting some money in FedEx get can you 10-15 percent profip in next three months or so.
Happy trading.

Get ready for DOW going up 500 points

Get ready for a 500 shoot in DOW in next 1 month. Our recent lows have been way above the lows seen in August. In Sept we hit 14300, beating the previous highs. Now we had a higher low we should also hit a higer high. Meaning a 14500 on DOW and 1600 on S&P.
So if you buy 100 shares of DIA (at $138 now), you can surely expect to make $700 in next one month.
Five % increase is not bad at all in one month. Or you could spread your money between APPL, CAT, LMT, MER etc.
What about the oil now. $100 is given now. If you buy XLE or XOM you can most probably make 3-4% on these in next 1 months. But the risks are higher. Buying DIA or SPY is much surer.
What about the Indian or Chinese market. ICICI Bank of India is making a difference. Their ticker is IBN. Check it out.

Bull or Bear market

Today the market opened with DOW Jones down about 100 points and then ended up about 40. After the carnage on last friday this is a good start.
Remember in bear market after a sharp fall market often open up a little and then looses steam and ends being down at the end of the day. During bull market exactly the opposite happens. That is what we saw today. Rest assured that we are still in bull market. If Oct low for DOW turns out to be 13500 (like today morning) then this is certainly much higher than the August low of 12900 or so. So we see a higher low, another sign of a bull market.
Coming to individual stocks point of view, I think FedEx (FDX) is at a pretty good level around 103, 20% off its high. If UPS can deal with a $90 oil (its stock is only down about 7-8% off its high) so can FDX. I think there is some money to to be made on FDX.

Celebration or what

Last Friday was the mini repeat of 87 crash. The absolute drop was similar to the drop exactly 20 years back. But this drop is almost inconsequential. Market is not even off five % from the top. Still 1000 points away from the August low. It will be like a bad dream if we go below that in this month or near future. With 4th quarter earnings expected to baloon 10% and election year around the corner, I don't think that will happen.
The earnings from Caterpillar was a surprise. Nobody expected them to be off the estimate. But CAT often does that. Few orders here and there make a big splash on the earnings card. What about 3M, they didn't even miss the estimate and their stock went down 8 % or so. I think market is telling us that we need to look at tech stocks more. It is remarkable the way Google, Apple and RIMM held up pretty well.
From a trading point of view the defense stocks are good defence. LMT is at a good level. If you buy now you can make a good 5 % profit in a month.

Buy Boeing and Barclays

Last few days market has been going side ways. DOW Jones went below 50 day average for a while and today closed above 50 day MA. I think for rest of the month market will go sideways. After fed's meeting at the end of month and after most of the earnings are out market will resume its upward move. By then people will concentrate on next quarter's earnings which is going to be spectacular.
At this point Barclays (BCS) looks attactive. With this stock you are also playing the currency market since it is based in UK. Don't forget the five plus % devidend it pays.

Another sector to look at are the defense stocks. Boeing has had a bad patch lately due to some delay. AirBus also had similar delays, so that is not a big deal. BA is right now sitting at 50 day moving aveage. Certainly a good buy. Keep an eye on LMT and GD. They are good stocks for trading purpose as well. Right now they are not at a good position for trading, so wait for a while.

Buy Goldman

Today market corrected a little bit. DOW was down 160 at one point before paring losses to about 110 points. This was expected after big run in last couple of weeks. Main reason cited was that Citi had a sharp decline in their profits. Even though they beat their already lowered estimates. They are trying to reorganize a bit. Wall street smells something fishy at that. I personally think this company will be just fine. This is a company that has made many people rich including Warren Bufett and Alwaleed Bin Talal. This stock also has a good yield (it is the amount of dividend you get for investing 100 dollars in the stock) as well - more than 4.5%. But don't buy the stock yet. You may be able to pick it up around 41-42 in next one month. If the market goes down 2-3% more (frankly I don't think market will not go down anymore, all the corrections has already taken place in August) just go and buy Goldman. This company is made of smart peopple. Subprime did not hurt them because they were intelligent enough to hedge their bets.
Want more picks? How about Caterpillar. It is slightly below its 13 day EMA. 50 day maving agerage is about 77. If you can get it there, its a deal.