Bulls Charge But Dow Down -10% In One Month

This market can be labeled as a classic textbook "correction". In the recent market sell-off our technicals got us out of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) the same day before the company released earnings at the market's close. Unfortunately the stock rallied the following day (along with all the others in the stock universe!), but until we return to a confirmed rally, capital preservation now rules and prevails over capital appreciation ...

That said we are currently at 50%+ in cash, and our Dow Jones Trader Portfolio today is up +20% for the year. Considering the latest Wall Street stampede, this portfolio's performance provides additional motivation to stay the course as we are well into the second half of the calendar year.

Dow Jones Trader Portfolio (DJTP) Year To Date % Change as of 8/17/07:

Subsequent to Friday's rally, the Dow Jones Industrials are still off 1,000 points for the same month. It would be entirely in this market's character to follow Friday's euphoria with another fire sale next week or next month ... And as horrible as August has been, historically September is the worst time of the year on Wall Street for average monthly performance.

Got Bull?

"Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful."
- Warren Buffett

Wall Street Crumbles and Global Markets Tumble ...

... But the Dean Jones, Dow Jones Trader Portfolio is still in the green, and the essence of this blog is beginning to show it's true colors (no pun).

The blue-chip index's plunge occurred as credit concerns (surprise, surprise) came back to the forefront, and global financial stocks dragged the market lower on continued concerns about the health of the nation's mortgage market and the ability of mortgage lenders to continue to fund their operations and, ... (Someone forgot to mention there is still some good news out there - JC Penney stated 'back to school' sales are strong!)

Where's the market bottom? No one knows. This is a financial liquidity driven crisis and it must play itself out - pure and simple. (By the way, liquidity to individuals is one thing. Liquidity to companies of solid reputation is an entirely different thing. In this new environment the reputable corporations will get stronger and the weak entities will perish - hence the essence of this blog and trading the Dow 30 companies. Someday soon stocks of companies like Citigroup (C), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), etc, will be buys once again for future gains in our Dow Jones Trader Portfolio to profit from).

Probabilities or potential scenarios developing two or three weeks from now, and whether "the Fed" will cut rates or not, is irrelevant to this blog as well. Irregardless of all the drama and current noise of what is being said, the trend of any given stock is all we really care about, and there is no need to spend more time than necessary than to simply understand the current trend.

Here are the FACTS:

The S & P is now DOWN -10% since its high on July 19, 2007, the overall Market Trend is DOWN, and on that note this swift yet relentless market sell-off is now forcing us to further protect our gains. Of the total 12 stock holdings in our portfolio, we are selling our 2 losers, including taking additional profits in 4 of our remaining winning positions which have turned negative.

Dow Jones Trader Portfolio (DJTP) vs. S&P 500 Index
(3 Month % Change) :

Dow Jones Trader Portfolio (DJTP) Year To Date % Change as of 8/15/07:



Dow Jones Trader Portfolio (DJTP) Buy & Sell Log:

YTD % Change:

DJTP ........... +18.8%

S & P 500 ..... - 2.8%

NASDAQ ........ - 0.3%

Side Note: Ironically technology, and more specifically the semiconductors, continue to hold strong here in the recent market sell-off. We will be increasing our position in Intel Corporation (INTC) if the overall market trend will return positive soon.

Wall Street Bears And 13,000 Headless Rubber Chickens

... Suffering from the Summer heat or Wall Street paralysis by analysis?!

Either way, as we find ourselves in the "eye of the storm" in what many are referring to as the current Wall Street stock market meltdown, there is also an increasing amount of noise generated by the media, augmenting exponentially simply infusing nothing more than ... useless panic.

While it seems natural to be experiencing some of the Wall Street Stock Market Jitters, one can easily fall victim to the "worry trap" and spend countless hours, days, (if not weeks!) just reading and trying to make sense of the latest market financial "news"... only to further cloud one's vision by finding MORE useless layers of infinite doom-and-gloom media reports, digital financial dissertations, etc, all popping-up over the Internet like wild mushrooms in a dark and mildewy basement.

Drama is for Hollywood, not for Wall Street.

The reality and facts are as such;

No one financial "professional" can tell us where the markets will go from here. Therefore, it should be business as usual --- (1) continue to follow the large financial institutional trends (i.e. SELL if warranted), (2) protect your profits and gains, (once again, SELL if warranted), and (3) turn-off all media and ignore the noise (... and go to the beach and enjoy the last few weeks of summer - It will be a wiser and healthier decision).

Note: To enlarge graphics, please 'click' on any image below:

Dow Jones Trader Portfolio (DJTP) Year To Date % Change as of 8/13/07:


We currently have 12 holdings total;
11 winners with profits and gains
1 stock in the negative ...

Sold All The Large Financials Ahead of Time, We Ride The Bull

Wall Street Tempest or Opportunity?

Last week’s 2-day bounce was short lived as once again renewed fears of potential “subprime spillover” and surging oil prices overshadowed some solid earnings reports. Unfortunately, even though many earnings news are favorable (and should prevail) the change in the winds and trend reversal now leave the Dow Jones Trader Portfolio with one objective… to protect our gains.

Our call to sell all of our large Dow “financials” stocks back in June seemed to be perfectly timed. (See ‘sells’ for AIG, AXP, C and JPM on Friday June 15, 2007 below). Today General Electric (GE) seems to be the last standing pseudo-“financial” stock we are selling to protect any profits. Given the recent shift of overall market trend, we are now quicker to act on locking in on profits and cashing out. We can always easily repurchase the same stocks if necessary when time confirms Wall Street's bullish uptrend has returned.

This volatile market also presents an opportunity for the Dow Jones Trader to sell any weak stock showing trend deterioration, especially discarding any stock which demonstrated an overall anemic performance since the position was established … And note of interest: Thanks to several confirmed consecutive down sessions on Wall Street last week, The Dow Jones Trader Portfolio (DJTP) is finally off margin for the first time this year…

Simply put, “The Trend is Your Friend”. All we continue to do here is follow the same ol' boring rules, which remains the essence of The Dow Jones Trader Portfolio --- that of navigating the trend and piggy-backing on the large institutions ... of course only limiting ourselves to any of the DOW 30 stocks.

As many worry of the current Wall Street tempest to date, the ongoing strong performance of the Dow Jones Trader Portfolio still remains a winner and in the lead, and this fact is the silver lining.

YTD % Change:

DJTP ........... +20.7%
S & P 500 ..... + 1.4%
NASDAQ ....... + 3.9%

See below for the complete Dow Jones Trader Portfolio holdings:

Wall Street Tempest or Opportunity?

See below for the complete listing of the latest Dow Jones Trader Portfolio stock activity: