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November 17, 2008

Is Tuesday the best day of the week to trade?

Over on TheStreet.com, blogger Scott Rothbort, founder and president of LakeView Asset Management came up with following insight with respect to daily trading moves:

"...I was also asked for the daily trading moves for the SPX this year. With today in the books, here it goes:
Mondays: -11.46% 
Tuesdays: 12.86% 
Wednesdays: -35.58% 
Thursdays: 4.24% 
Fridays: -11.37%..."

Let's hope his data is right - should bode well for today's selloff.


Speaking of short-term market returns, I think tomorrow will be an up-day for us on the market.  My reasons:

1)  90% of stocks are under their 10 day moving average.  The selloff in the large cap space is way overdone at this point.  Too much negativity bringing down too many very good names.  Case in point:  Pfizer.  I will grant you that PFE is not the great company it used to be.  Expiring patents and a deteriorating pipeline lead a host of their problems.  But how can you disregard their consistent free cash flow numbers.  And how can anyone turn their back on a stock whose dividend yield sits north of 7 percent?  It's begging to be bought...

2)  Based on recent redemptions numbers, many so-called "smart money, long term investors" are throwing in the towel.  In fact, these deep selling spirals we are seeing are not "individual investors" but rather the "smart money" selling into further weakness.  October and November will be seen as the time that hedge funds sold massive positions to raise cash because they are either closing shop or managers/traders have become "gun shy."  These selloffs aren't due to the "Main Street E-Trade" investor hitting the sell button to trade out of their 100 shares of Apple.  It's coming from the hedge fund manager thats trying to avoid losing his yacht.

3)  VIX closed at 69.10, its highest level in 14 trading days.  The VIX has historically been a superb indicator of sentiment.  The higher it is, then the more likely people are "giving up" which means that its time to BUY!  

4)  We are getting awfully close to re-testing the 7900-8000 level on the DJIA before rallying towards the upper 8000s.  It would appear that in this market, traders are paying more attention to technicals than they are to fundamentals. Another case in point: last Thursday's price action. The market had an 800 point swing on no real news.  In this kind of market, irrational thinking trumps rational models.  I recommend investors either "buy" or "sit on their hands."  This is no time to throw in the towel!

5)   Almost every negative piece of news is in the market now.  No surprises await us.  At this point, we have just about seen it all.  Here's a quick list:

Lehman and Bear are out of business.  

The Russian markets are closed and have lost about 60% of their value. 

The Presidential election has come and gone.  

Hedge funds are blowing up left and right.  

Mayors of US Cities are asking for bailout funds.  

GM is on the brink.  

The commercial paper market was frozen (and is thawing right now).

Money markets almost broke the $1 threshold.  

Interest rates are closing in on zero.  

Warren Buffet is making his trademark "bold" bets.

AIG nearly went out of business.

Goldman Sachs called Citibank to see if Citi would buy them out.

And Citi said, "...thanks but no thanks..."


Is there anything else that will surprise us?  I submit to you: No.  

Thanks for reading, good luck trading, and stay invested because we all know that the bulls always win in the end.

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