DOWN below 1200

Bull or bear is the debate. It gets weary supporting the bull. But we are not too worried about who rules as long as we are on the right side of the trade.

IBM saves the day, INTC ruins it... earnings season is painful.
Rule of thumb, if you be a trader dont hold stock ahead of the earnings unless its been beaten down too much before and you miss out the bounce on earnings.

In the market no one wants to play bottom or call the bottom.

Financials other than Citi seem to be recovering. JPM and Wells Fargo had earnings out that were not that bad- Citi's $18 billion write down this quarter make the $1- 2 billion writedowns look lovely. Thats why JPM is up 2 bucks and WFC is treading higher. C is at a 52 week low- am tired of saying it does not go lower. It traded under 26- the bounce back will be nice and lucrative so I shall say its worth holding onto- The bottoming process is always painful. Lets give Pandit some respect- he is making bold moves- slashing the dividend was a great idea- makes no sense to dole out cash to investors when they know there are financial issues so grime.

I have one pick among the technology beaten downs - NVDA is down to 24 from almost 30 couple of days ago. It was downgraded and INTC earnings being lackluster did not help. The real growth story is being ignored and at less than 14 times earnings -its time to bottom pick this one.

Markets will be volatile until the fed cuts and if we have to wait till the official meeting on JAN 30, many more will throw in the towel and bring the markets to bear market territory if we are not already there. If you have holding power buy and hold through the crisis - after such horrible downturns markets do emerge higher as action is taken to combat the crises- be they housing, sub prime or recessionary.

ONE intersting stock I was watching looks attractive- DRYS a bulk shipper of dry commodities like steel, coal etc. Its down from $130 to $50 today. Panic has set in as it broke all technical levels. And the news apart from the Baltic index having dropped consistently recently, is that the company purchased a stake in OCEAN RIG, an offshore driller -not taken well by the market. To my mind these are blips in an other wise robust global demand. This is a good buy. Would buy some now at 50 and wait for it to settle down or start recovering and then add more. Good for a trade and good for long term as well.

Thats all from me on this gloomy day on wall street. Look for stocks rallying on bad news -that signals a bottom.

Shorting oil stocks was a good idea. SLB and XOM are down big time this week. Selling my puts on them.