The markets were range-bound last week, as stocks consolidated. After Labor Day Monday, Markets opened with a rally on Tuesday. But, as discussed in my Market Forecast last weekend, stocks hit resistance between 1970-1980. After a quick overshoot on Wednesday, buyers locked in profits. Thursday and Friday were tightly ranged.
We have been keeping mostly cash, but, still found some nice trades. AVGO calls gave us profits as high as +72%. On the stock side, we locked in profits on SEDG for a gain of +7.9%. Here are the closed trades for the week.
For the week, the Dow was up +330.71 points; SPX added +39.83 points; Nasdaq gained +138.42 points. Gold fell to below $1110/ounce. Oil (WTI) slipped below $45/barrel. Over the weekend, China reported a slow-down in its factory output. At the time of this writing, it seemed enough to place pressure on Asian stocks, which were mostly lower. Still China is aiming for a 7% GDP growth for 2015, although it seems that economists outside of China does not believe in that number.
Whether online or on TV, everyday you hear people arguing over Fed's up-coming decision on interest rates. Then, they worry about China's economy and whether or not China's GDP numbers are real. Finally, they try to rationalize what happens on the stock market each day, coming up with a "reason" for which ever way the market goes. I think these are just "noises", either people trying to make themselves useful by coming up with mental explanations for what is happening to feed the media, or people trying to "mislead" others by creating a false picture to make ...