Financial Cosmonaut

The continuous turmoil in US/ China relations has made this day very red .  The political news with Trumps ongoing looming impeachment troubles might also have thrown a wrench into the day.  Of my observed market activity only Hershey, Apple and Facebook have eluded the grip of the Bearish mood on the market.  Facebook particularly has an extremely good outlook among key analysts despite their own looking legal antitrust issues. I will be looking for a reversal in trend in the 2 Chinese commerce stocks that I prefer BABA and JD in the after market. As a precaution today, I closed down the position in SBUX in the black. SALE: SBUX 800 x 85.05 = $68,040 SBUX 800 x 84.61= $67,688 Gain = $352 We are maintaining the position in Costco due to today being the ex-dividend date which will lock in tomorrow with a dividend per share at about 41 cents .

Apples stock movement is being used by investors as a barometer for tarriff and trade negotiations. So far this year the movement has been up and up since June.   With more movement up expected to coincide with the start of Apple TV. Apple will also report earnings later today. Investors seem to have mixed feelings on whether or not they will post a positive earnings report.  With indicators, that investors expecting a gain or loss split at around 50/50. SALE! (Buy to cover) As a precaution to today’s news , I have locked in yesterday’s gains. AAPL 400 x 243.90 = 97,560 AAPL 400*246.13= -98,452 Gain= $892 Pre-market ADDITIONS COST (Costco) 400 x 295.97= $118,388 SBUX (Starbucks) 800 x 84.61= $67,688 STI (Suntrust) 289 x 69.45= $20.071

Scouting shows that earnings at Apple might drop the most since 2001.  There’s a lot of volume with downward motion today... and it is my opinion that it will continue its decline. Short Position added: AAPL 400*246.13= -98,452 Mistake closed : XNET bought 1000 @ 5.86 = $5,860 XNET SOLD 1000 @ 4.85 = $4,850 Loss = $ 1,010 *lesson * don’t buy at the top, this was a possible pump and dump..at least we got out quick.

The blockchain technology is definitely the future of financial transactions in the future. The hardware requirements to make the calculations that make blockchain possible are extremely high. Therefore it might be wise to look at those companies that provide services in the cloud That to some degree lessen the extreme hardware requirements inherent in blockchain. The President of China heralded one such company that might make this type of thing possible,  Xunlei. On Friday when the company was mentioned , it’s shares jumped 100 percent.  I expect further growth and it’s a great time to roll the dice with blockchain, with this company that is working on algorithms that speed up the process of cloud based computing. Sale!!! BABA acquired at 600x170 = 102,000                                400x177.4= 70,960                         ...

Next week I'll begin to look at a few dividend assets to add to the portfolio as we ride BABA for a little bit more.

Last evening Amazon dropped around 8 percent on the news of their earnings expectation loss.  Today they recovered most of it back because of the why the market is intrinsically tied together.  All of the other news of earnings beats today rallied the S&P 500 to near record levels and AMZN jumped on the rocket back up! Locally I added position to JD as I discussed yesterday bringing my Portfolio to 800 shares at average acquisition price of  30.576.  I’m looking to dump these at slightly below resistance peak which I estimate is 31.5.  I’ve set a limit sale at 31.4. The other asset in the portfolio, BABA has also benefitted from the great news today and I am still gauging whether to hold on or drop it off at a relatively soft resistance point of 177. Update JD Sold! Purchase 800x30.57= 24,461 Sale 800x 31.15= 24,920 Rationale: Appeared as though there was strong resistance at 31.2, decided to exit before the “elevator” arrived. Profit= $459

Being that Caterpillar is linked up with China, their numbers are being used as an indicator of China/US business relations. Today Caterpillar slipped as earnings aren’t expected to meet expectations.  Chinese stocks(the ones we are monitoring), however, are having a positive day. The strategy today is to look for any major drop in JD.com and add position if it falls to about 30.33 or less. BABA will be maintained although a drop is expected.