Greetings! How did the markets fare today? Lets start with the international markets.

The Asian markets produced a mixture of results. Although all three major indecies opened higher, but only one was able close with a gain. The Nikkei closed at 7,457.93 for a loss of -3.29 points, a -0.04% move. The Hang Seng closed at 12,894.94 for a loss of -110.14 points, a -0.85% move. And that leaves us with the Straits Times which closed at 1,617.44 for a fractional gain of +0.65 points, a +0.04% move.

In the European markets all three major indecies had bull days. The FTSE closed at 3,915.64 for a gain of +66.66 points, a +1.73% move. The DAX closed at 3,942.62 for a gain of +96.41, a +2.51% move. And the CAC closed at 2,744.84 for a gain of +47.92, a move of +1.78%.

The Dow closed at 7,182.08 for a loss of -88.81 points, a -1.22% move. The NASDAQ closed at 1,391.47 for a loss of -33.96 points, a -2.38% move. The S&P closed at 752.83 for a loss of -12.07 points, a -1.58% move.

Initially the three major U.S. indecies opened with a bullish warcry swallowing up the losses of the previous day in the first couple hours. This was on the rumors that the government aid deal with Citigroup may come out this week; also the news that the government continues to support private banking and not nationalization.

Shortly afterwards news that President Obama unveiled details about his 10-year budgeting plan surfaced. Following that news, it appears the bears went to market and cashed out, erasing all the progress that the market had made. Additional news that new home sales fell to a record low in January did not help the situation.

The media would have you believe what was heard in President Obama's speech caused the market to go down. But one could also argue that his speech made it go up, because during his speech the Dow rose back to an earlier intraday high. What did cause the market to go down was the realization that the budget cuts to all of those private health programs that were not working for the good of the citizens cause all investors to pull out of several of them. Chances are that as soon as understanding about which private health insurance companies were not waistful becomes apparent, those will start to go up while the rest will reform so that they will be viable to government subsidies.

I still find surprising that despite the assumptions about the bank stress test and the list of weak banks increasing didn't cause those sectors to decline. Four of the leading industries on Yahoo's Industry Center were banks. Sadly though the worries about the health care sector was over powering.

But there is some good knows. For the week, so far, the Dow is only down half of what it down at the end of last week and there is only one market day left. This investor thinks that profits taken today will start to funnel into other sectors, probably healthcare and education as those were the sectors talked about by President Obama.

My portfolio as it stands today:
AMD - My position on Advanced Micro Devices closed today down at 2.09.
F - My position on Ford Motors closed today down at 1.98.
FPL - Florida Power & Light continued to decline today breaking and holding below the support level that I was counting on for it to return to the up side. I will allow it to expire and not resubmit another one until I see evidence that a positive move is in the works. For that reason I shall be leaving it out of my posts until further notice.
HRP JZ - My 2.50Oct09 call on HRPT Property Trust (HRP) closed unchanged at 1.50
NLH JZ - My 2.50Oct09 call on Libery Media (LINTA) closed unchanged at 1.55

There are also two other positions that I had prior to opening this blog that I wish to include and will be commenting on.
AMD DG - I have a 3.00Apr09 call on AMD which closed down at 0.10
NG - I have a position on NovaGold which I added to today. Reasons? It's price has changed direction to the upside, and it has reached and bounced off of my indicators that it has been oversold and momentum has shifted. There is, however, a recent ceiling at about $4, so there may not be much room for it to go up, unless it breaks through. That is okay since the goal with this stock is to sell OTM calls against it so I am just increasing my stake for future use. NovaGold closed up at 2.93, but slightly under where I added to my position.

My day wasn't good but not that bad. I shall be looking for other opportunites and will be posting if I see something.

That is my opinion, you can take it or leave it.

Disclaimer: I am not a stock broker; I am not a financial advisor; I am not recommending to you what to buy or sell. I am just an opinionated investor. If you decide to follow in my footsteps you are taking risk. It is inevitable that I may be wrong. So if you are going to follow in my footsteps that is your own personal decision. I am not responsible for any loss that you may, and probably will, incur regardless of my opinion.