<p>How far do you think the market will go down? Is this the beginning of the 10% correction?</p>
<p>let’s see what happens with ibm, goog and msft today after the close</p>
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<p>Chart?</p>
<p>The q’s have broken down. spy has tested 154 numerous times over the last 1.5 months - the bottom part of that box you referred to in the past</p>
<p>GOOG beat big on earnings 11.58 vs 10.69 consensus. Stock went up $23 or so when i last looked but now down $6. A drop like that is not reassuring. It should be up and staying up. </p>
<p>IBM disappointed with $3 instead of $3.06. Down $13 after hours. It should be dropping more. </p>
<p>MSFT beat with $0.72 vs 0.67. Up $0.62 cents.</p>
<p>What did they say for outlooks? I figure that the limits on GOOG up and down are the 50 and 200. IBM plays games with currency in their earnings and missing usually means that they couldn’t find the financial stuff to play with to look better.</p>
<p>MSFT? $0.72 is very nice for their price. Question: what’s their growth outlook?</p>
<p>Who hits $375 first? AAPL or CMG? It’s a battle b/w the barbacoa/steak/chicken burrito and iPad/iMac/iPhone.</p>
<p>aapl of course - in less than a week</p>
<p>strange day, no? Dow is down almost entirely due to IBM (with some help from MCD) but some other stuff is soaring, like KMB and MDLZ and of course… VZ. Little voice screaming “lighten up, you are retired! You are supposed to be in bonds!” LOL</p>
<p>My son is home (safe) in Boston. No work for him today (in Medford). He is hoping to make a 5pm bus to NY for the weekend… but sheesh this is dragging on, he might not make it.</p>
<p>Any good suggestions for starting some investments that will yield over time for current college students or those just about to graduate or who just have graduated?</p>
<p>Yeah this market is difficult for me. I’ve got lots of relatives living in that area of Boston including a close relative several blocks away in Watertown.</p>
<p>Like Palier, I am thinking about suggestions for two children starting Roth IRAs. My thoughts are SDY for core American stocks, PCEF for diversification and GYLD for still more diversification and foreign exposure. If tax considerations are important PCEF and GYLD would be less attractive.</p>
<p>Anyone else have any thoughts?</p>
<p>I am keeping my kid’s mostly in VTI, Vanguard Total Market Index. If your kid is younger than 24, the income over $1,900 will be taxed at parents’ marginal rate.</p>
<p>I may not post that much during the next few weeks. If I don’t, I hope everybody does well. </p>
<p>I will still read the posts even if I don’t contribute as much. Just a heads up so nobody has to wonder what happened to me. I am going to be a little busy.</p>
<p>The first day of May I think historically is the best day of the year for the market. Somebody can double check that. After that the market’s returns are flattish for the next 6 months. Doesn’t have to be that way in the future but something to keep in mind.</p>
<p>I covered puts in aapl for losses a couple of times this year, but fb apr 20 puts were the first puts I have sold that actually closed in the money at expiration. I have no idea what I am going to do with fb. Fb is acting a little weaker than I thought it would.</p>
<p>Most of my tsla puts closed worthless today. Tsla has the potential to be a big mover so that is a sigh of relief. I have nothing in aapl or goog. I probably won’t trade aapl for earnings this time. I am short nke puts below the gap. I think I will be ok there. </p>
<p>I didn’t watch the market much the last couple of days so I have little idea what is happening. I think spy is very close to where it was 2 weeks ago. Doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>The bull percentage went up? Bummer…I want to see a single digit number.</p>
<p>[Sentiment</a> Survey | AAII: The American Association of Individual Investors](<a href=“http://www.aaii.com/sentimentsurvey]Sentiment”>AAII Investor Sentiment Survey | AAII)</p>
<p>I watched the market a lot this week but screwed up a lot unfortunately. I messed up on a combination long call combined with a ratio put spread in spy. I also held onto the banks such as bac too long for a loss.</p>
<p>Well…the great thing about the market is you get other chances.</p>
<p>I was greedy. I had bought 4/20 145 spy calls when spy was around 156 and a 156 - 154, 153 put spread at around the same time which would have been an almost perfect hedge. Instead of executing them today at the same time, I sold the call earlier today and the 156 put late in the day figuring that spy would drop at the end of the day. It did the opposite of what I expected.</p>
<p>That sucks…</p>
<p>It was a horrible week. I sold off half of my aapl shares a couple of weeks ago. Still felt the drop. I decided not to look at my portfolio for a while. The weather was nice and I planted trees.</p>
<p>One of the guys that I played tennis with yesterday asked me about how my company was doing and I said great - we hired a ton of people last year and we seem to be hiring a lot this year - I’m going by the number of people that have left and the number of new faces taking their places. I think that there’s more than just replacement growth too. I was surprised that this guy lost his jobs as he’s a network specialist. I think that he has a security clearance and he’s worked on spy-type stuff. I’m not sure as to whether he has a CS-type background or a tech-type background (theory vs practice). We don’t do this sort of thing in my building so the background matters. Someone with a CS-type background can learn our stuff without too much difficulty.</p>
<p>I also noticed that Boeing plans to lay off 1,700 engineers:</p>
<p>[Boeing</a> Plans to Cut 1,700 Engineer Jobs Amid Gap in Work - Bloomberg](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>I really don’t know on the glass half-empty/half-full thing but I have looked at the charts for mid-spring for the last four years and it’s hard not to miss the declines.</p>