Meta-Trader - Upside Resolution

Welcome back, Meta-Traders.

This past week the rains finally blew out of town leaving a splash of beautiful fall colors along with blue skies and cool, crisp temperatures. Its autumn in the Northeast US and there's nothing quite like it.

Meanwhile the equity markets seemed to shake of their worst fears regarding financial meltdown in Europe. The Dow and the S&P 500 both resolved a nearly 4 month range to the upside on Friday. This was a mere 14 sessions from a fake-out move to the downside where stocks seem to resolve the range to the downside. Equities have been a binary affair lately - either straight up or straight down. There seems to be some optimism things will resolve themselves in Europe - and the world will not come to an end - at least this week.

As for equity trading, my short AMZN Oct 220 call expired and the stock will almost certainly be called away since it closed at 234. That sale will yield almost $1500 profit on sale of the stock plus $960 premium received on the short call makes $2400 times 2 accounts or about $4800 which is not bad. On the downside, my Intel Oct 21-20 put spread expired worthless, so I lost about $100 and change on that trade.

I'm considering a similar position with IBM which recently hit an all-time high at $190, but gapped down to $180 on an earnings disappointment. There's some fat premium on the upside calls to be collected in this one.

As for new equity positions, I added some more Mako Surgical (MAKO). The stock recently broke out to a new all time high at about $43 and dipped back below $40 where I picked some up. I'm expecting a run-up into earnings due out Nov 9 and I might let it run up then sell some premium. I also added a 1 lot of FDO - Family Dollar another one off the new all-time highs list.

For stock scanning, I'm using http://www.tc2000.com. Its a marvelous tool and you can scan all US stocks for any number of technical conditions in seconds. Plus you get real-time data and real-time intraday charting all for about $300 a year. I recently dumped my E-Signal subscription (saved $1400/year) in favor of this product. Check it out, its really, really good.

Forex was a sloppy affair this week fully of whippy moves and false breakouts. EUR/USD started the week at 1.3870 and ended the week at 1.3886, not far from where it started. EUR seems to be agitating for an upside breakout and a resolution of this debt issue will give it the spark it needs to light the fire. Also, we are starting to see equities signal a year-end rally which will drive USD downward and EUR upward.

Nearly every forex account was down for the week with the exception of Megadroid Live and Sunqu. Sunqu is starting to peak my interest, and shows a lot of potential as a pattern recognition engine to predict the next day's direction - either up or down - based on short-term candlestick formations.

As for development, I have to get my FXDD account funded before the end of next week to get the 5% deposit bonus. Need to get cracking on that.

That's it, enjoy your weekend, you earned it!