‘Puttin’ On The Foil Coach…’

• August 2, 2002
• Joe Corona

Kevin Haggerty is on vacation for two weeks. During this time, we’ve asked
Joe Corona, Senior Trader for Tony Saliba, to write the lead morning piece.
Kevin will return on August 12.

Buckle it
up; this might be a rough one. Yesterday’s
collapse has left us extremely vulnerable to a poor number this morning. Now I
am writing this before the number comes
out, but if it’s poor we might be in for a beating.

Personally, if this market opens very far from unchanged in either direction I
will be inclined to fade it, and although I am a bear, I am prepared to take
what they give me and play it from both directions. Volatility is jacked up
again (see the VIX
(
$VIX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) chart
below), and on a Friday, after the uncertainty of the payroll numbers is
removed, there is plenty room for volatility to come back down if we
stabilize. 

You option guys might want to use a steep sell off to establish some ratioed
call spreads in sectors that have displayed relative strength.

 Daily Chart of VIX

 

Looking at yesterday’s action, the techs in general and the semiconductors in
particular were amazingly soft, and it looks like a retest of the lows is the
cards for both the SOX
(
$SOX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and the
Nasdaq
(
$COMPQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating). Avoid these areas like the plague (or short
the hell out of them on any rally — with a stop of course).

For folks looking to “buy a dip and take a trip,” I would stick with index
shares and ETFs. Diamonds
(
DIA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
Spiders
(
SPY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), and possibly the
Biotech HOLDRs
(
BBH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating). I wouldn’t touch
anything on the long side unless the market is substantially lower and
stretched, and I wouldn’t stay too long at the party.

Daily Chart of SOX

 

Today should be a
daytrader’s delight. Be disciplined.

Joe