my thoughts on todays trading activity. some advice on how to be aware of sectors while you are day trading

a brief overview of what moved in todays market and a name i will be watching tomorrow

Should you place these trades? No. Should you even think about it? No. If you’re in the New York metro area, should you spend today outside instead, enjoying the not unpleasant 55 degree weather? Most definitely.

Wall Street advanced Monday following reports of potential corporate deals -- including news that Washington Mutual might get a $5 billion investment from private equity firms.

The financial sector led a furious stock-market rally Thursday, with banks and brokerages snapping back from a deep selloff a day earlier, while commodities prices continued a rapid retreat from record levels.

XLF, the Financial sector ETF, maybe double-bottoming here in the short term. Or it may not. But implied volatility in the April options is at 49.81%, and we know for sure that implied volatility in the options is well above the historical volatility, so we want to sell a little bit of premium here.

We’re opening the following iron condor for April expiration...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced very quietly the failure of a bank in Missouri called Hume Bank.
As I have said before, this will be the first of many failures over the next year. The Hume Bank was founded in 1909, and survived the Great Depression, but apparently not the “Great Deleveraging.”

An analysis of the Bear Case against MBIA by William Ackman.

While I’ve been saying the global story is strong, I was looking out 5 years into the future. In the short term (6 months to a year) there is no way the rest of the world will avoid a recession alongside the U.S. despite all the talk about decoupling and the ECB still talking inflation. I’m sidestepping this market, running into the hills, and watching from above until the carnage stops.

Is it time to get back into financials? Let's look at 4 charts and see.