Will There Be A Christmas Rally?

The market had been consolidating for the last few weeks. Initially, the market ignored bad economics data (e.g. worse ever Non-Farm payroll (NFP)- negative 533k jobs lost). Lately, the bulls had been losing steam.

We could expect this week and the next to be low-volume weeks. It is partly because of the Christmas extended holidays as well as a Jewsih holiday. As such, any movement in the market would be skewed. (Anyway, we have a 3.5 days of trading this week) Typically, we could expect a bullish run before Christmas and an extended bullish run immediately after Christmas - giving us the Christmas Rally. This is partly due to a "feel good factor" by traders not wanting to dampen the holiday mood.

I am now looking for signs for a Christmas Rally. It did not seem to have. If any, it would have been an early Christmas Rally when the market rallied when the bad NFP data was released weeks ago.

President-Elect Obama is now on 2 weeks holiday. Unless the situation warrant it, I do not expect him to make a news conference. His appearance on TV has created a claming effect on the market. With him out of the picture, the market would have to fend for themselves. More bad news can be expected. Despite the Black Friday sales, it was reported that the retailers still have large inventories to clear by Christmas.

I have placed a January 2009 Bear Call Spread on RTH (retail holders) and a few others, taking advantage of the longer holidays during Christmas and the New Year.

Take note too - AAPL. It had been reported that Steve Jobs would not address the MacWorld in January 2009. MacWorld is an important event for AAPL and APPLE die-hards. As much as AAPL tried to downplay Jobs absence, I think the decision is more because of his health than anything else. It is likely that he himself is uncertain about his health in January (though he may look healthy now despite his loss of weight). AAPL would be obliged to inform SEC if Jobs' health is confirmed significantly detiorating. However, if his health is not "consistently healthy", I believe AAPL would side on the part of caution - Not informing the SEC and not participating in MacWorld (and come out with a "Good" excuse). Any confirmation of Jobs negative health status would tanked the stock to historic low. I also expect AAPL to have less than expected sales/revenue this quarter. I have placed an April 2009 PUT on AAPL.

PerianCat (Millionaire-in-progress)