Monday was another day where profit taking and negative news from Government really pulled the stocks down. Again, the two sectors to fall were autos and banks. Both were falling on negative news with (GM) falling on the fact that the CEO was ousted by the government and have been given an ultimatum to fix the company direction immediately or fail.

Here is the summary for Monday: There is some good commentary on this video today.

In terms of my plays. Today was not that active. I was watching Nortel and that stock really fell for a little while from an open above 30 cents all the way down to 18cents before jumping back up. This was too volatile for me so I just sat on the sidelines.

As I have mentioned before, whenever the the bank stocks tank, my winner is (SKF). Show me a day when bank stocks go down and this stock does not move up! Today was a good play, although it was already trading with a gap up, the pattern and negative news throughout the day made this stock rise steadily. For me, I was only able to get in with 50 shares (I normally trade 100 at a time) and got in at $106 flat and sold out at 109.27. This was not a big profit, but was still happily attained.

Total profit on (SKF): $213.50

Apart from this trade, I could not really get into any other stocks. I am in (VVTV) since Friday and with the general market drop, did see this stock fall down and came within a penny of touching my stop loss. I had a feeling the swing would pull this stock back and was happy to have been just below this exit price otherwise I would have lost on the bounce bank. Right now the stock is back the price at which I bought into. Hopefully the remainder of the week will pull a small push to the positive side so I can see some results on this stock.

Here is some news to look at for Tuesday:
U.S. soft-drink sales slid for the fourth year in a row last year as Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and some other beverage companies failed to rev up consumer interest in their biggest soda brands in the midst of a worsening economy. Link.

Fifth Third Bancorp, which was hit particularly hard by the housing downturn and losses from real-estate loans, said Monday that it is selling part of its business to raise some much-needed capital. Link. Again, not to rant, but I do recall people on other sites talking about how smaller banks were immune to the problems of the big banks, here is proof once again that no company is safe. With this “asset” sale, the bank did see a rise in shares, not sure how long that will hold as you can only sell so much of your business before you have nothing left.

Lilly’s Schizophrenia Drug Fails To Impress. Pharmacautical giant suffers following ”inconclusive” mid-stage study results. Pharmaceutical companies are constantly struggling to replace the revenue from blockbuster drugs that are nearing the end of their patent protection. One health care giant announced a major setback in that battle this weekend. The stock did fall about 3% on Monday and probably has further to fall on this news. Link.

For Tuesday, my watch will be on (SKF) as currently the futures and Asian markets show a negative trading session once again. Gold, (AUY) has been up again and once again is close to touching its $10 price point which I mentioned a few times before. I wish I did take a stake in at that time. Also, it looks like (GM) might be a good stock to short, the new CEO was on TV just now saying how bankruptcy would be the best option. Sad to hear a leader quickly claim defeat, but I guess why avoid the obvious? If this news impacts the markets, which I am sure it will, the overall day should be ugly. Also, I can now predict Ken Lewis of (BAC) or Pandit of (C) being pushed around by the government next.

Happy Investing!

Aman, MBA

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