Yep that's what today looked like. It took off a bit in the morning and then flatlined most of the day. The indicative volume shows we had a day of traders trading with traders. There was no casino management money in play today.

That does not mean we weren't busy at the opening and after lunch. Here is what we did today.

Thinking we might see a continued slight rally in gold we looked for a stock with a pretty chart. We found TGD Timmins Gold Corp., through its subsidiaries, engages in the mining, acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral resource properties in Mexico. It is teeny tiny cap at 300+ million and this is a pure speculation bet on a nice chart line up. We got in long (not options) at $2.39 a share and will

Be looking for a swift ride to about 3.00 over the next couple of weeks. (Remember we make these notes more for me than you. I can go back and look at the stupid reasons I got into these stocks.)

As we mentioned yesterday, we saw a reversal of fortune on our GWW PUTS (Remember a PUT is a bearish bet that the stock will go down). Well the stock has had a nice short term run despite a market in correction. We took down our long position on the stock and cleared a 6.8% profit. As the stock approaches 190.00 a share it is looking a bit overbought so we took our profit. If you are using the charting as we describe you might think we are getting out a bit early. Look real close at the Momentum and RSI graph. It looks like a correction coming. With the overall market up 8% this week a market correction (which is normal) will take this stock down fast. We will be looking for some new PUTs to make money on the down side.

The direction shifted on our long position on ICLR, so we got out and broke even on the trade. (I think we paid for the trade.)

On the 28th we told you about a pretty chart for JEF Jefferies Group, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a securities and investment banking company in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. It was pretty to the down side so we got into some January $10.00 PUTs for $2.15 each. The stock came down as we suggested and the PUTs went up. We took a quick nice profit 25.5%. This is fun.

We ran some stock screens today for stocks that are over bought and within 5% of their 52 week high so we could check the technical's. we found 448 stocks and checked the top 50 by current price. GOOG was number one, but we tasted some honey from that jar last week. Don't want to be greedy. After peeking at these 50 stocks we found couple of nice looking set ups.

PNRA Panera Bread Company, together with its subsidiaries, owns, operates, and franchises retail bakery-cafes in the United States and Canada. It is trading well outside of its upper end Bollinger Bands and its momentum indicators and RSI are indicating correction mode. The MACD is not a clear sell signal, but with the market in correction, we think fiscal gravity will kick in here. We got in a deep in the money PUT by buying a January $140.00 (Ok not that deep in the money) for $5.70 a contract. We ate looking for 7.00 PUT in a few days. The stock will only have to correct to about 137-138 to hit that mark. It is currently at 142. LESSON HERE. Think about what we just said. The stock goes down 2.9% our PUT goes up 25%. Aren't options fun.

Using the same screen from above we found a company we had never heard of before. VRUS Pharmasset, Inc., a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, engages in discovering, developing, and commercializing novel drugs to treat viral infections. Now VRUS was recently purchased by GILD and just formed a partnership with JNJ and MRK on a HEP C drug. All that noise exploded the stock. We are looking for a return to reality correction in the next few trading days. We bought January $120 PUTs for $7.00 a contract. These are slow trading options sso we are starting our in the whole because of the huge spread between the bid and the ask. This is a risky bet, but this stock is so far off the momentum charts and RSI that it has to correct. Let's hope so. We are looking for 10.00 by the end of next week.

Then we found one that got to hot too fast called Nobel Energy (Sorry, took a little break there. They were playing Hayden Sym. 101 in D Maj, one of my favorites on Music Choice) NBL. Noble Energy, Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, production, and marketing of crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids in the United States, West Africa, Eastern Mediterranean, the North Sea, and internationally. We bought some January $97.50 PUTs for 5.50 each. If we can see a return to its mid Nov 88 a share, these will be worth about 12 an option. We will be happy with a more reasonable $95 a share and taking a profit at $7.50 an option. If we do not see a correction next week and or a spike in oil, these 5.50 cent contracts will quickly be worth $2.50. "OPTIONS AIN'T FOR WEENIES."

We saw the direction change quickly on those preferred stocks on CHSCP so we got out at a break even point and we made more than enough to cover the trade costs.

And lastly, with 3 minutes left in the trading day, we saw the stars align on AAPL. All indications are that we have a strong buy signal at $390. Since we are already LONG on the stock and do not want to tie up anymore cash, we bought (right at the closing) January $385 CALLS for 20.95 a contract. In essence we control 40,000 worth of AAPL for $2,100 a contract and we bought several. We are thinking the stock will have momentum to about 411. That will make the CALLS worth 36-44 dollars.

Now we plan on reading Barron's to confirm our guess for a correction next week and look at and industry news for these trades that might make us change things before the opening on Monday. We will have a post for you sometime over the weekend.

Salve Lucrum