Trading stocks or options during earning season could be very tricky yet fun and possibly rewarding. At the beginning of this season you can be sure of ups and downs almost on daily basis. Hence your finger tips need to be inline with the market pulse else it could create havoc to your portfolio especially if you’re trading on short-term. For example today, Wednesday, the bull is showing its horn led by robust first-quarter earning results from Coca Cola Co. (NYSE: KO, stock) and Intel Corp (Nasdaq: INTC, stock), not to mention JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM, stock) which beat analysts’ expectation despite report of $2.6 billion writedown.

The above three stocks are enough to lift both Dow and Nasdaq into positive territory. On my screen I can see Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL, stock) and Baidu.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU, stock) performing very well while Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG, stock) is crawling (as of writing time) like a sick old-man *grin*. And did you notice how Intuitive Surgical Inc. (Nasdaq: ISRG, stock) stock is flexing its muscle *grin again*?

I’ve been thinking what to do today since tomorrow, Thursday, would be an interesting day. First of all, internet giant Google will be releasing it’s result and looking at the ComScore report, this arrogant Google could be heading for a bad day tomorrow since people are searching less and clicking on advertisements (Adsense) at a much slower rate. In March, Google’s Adsense clicks grew only at a pathetic 2.7 percent giving the first-quarter growth at 1.8 percent – a huge disappointment from 25 percent in the previous quarter.

Analysts are looking for adjusted earnings of $4.52 a share on sales of $3.61 billion in the first quarter 2008 from Google. So could the company deliver the much needed upside surprises? You have to understand that analysts are notorious for their huge appetite when come to Google’s earning. Google needs to beat the street estimates by a huge margin or else risk getting slaughtered when the market opens Friday. Now assuming Google will disappoints tomorrow, then this stock could potentially pull-down Nasdaq and the rest of the technology stocks.

When that happens, you can be sure that whatever gains Apple Inc. is enjoying today would be wiped out, never mind that the stock is on a free ride to the top. Like it or not, I don’t think Google could beat the estimate handsomely. Hence, I’m going to lock-in profit on my GOOG APR 530 Put Options which I opened during the same day with Baidu.com (you can read it here). However since my GOOG APR 520 Put Options have already made more than 100 percent profit (about 134 percent), I’ll leave one-contract for tomorrow to see if I could create another trophy for my ownself after the 486-percent profit. Why I decided to close the position since I think Google will probably crumble tomorrow? Hey, this week is the option expiration week and Friday would be a very volatile day especially for Google. Furthermore I still remember that “Bull and bear make money, Pig gets slaughtered”.

On the other hand, I’m closing my Apple AAPL MAY 140 Call Options even though the profit is not comparable to Google. It has met my target, can’t be too greedy since it was decent money for a less-than-a-month trade. There’s still abundance of opportunities to re-enter Apple again. Got to control my emotion! Also, I’m taking off some pocket money from the table on Baidu.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU, stock) after I opened and scalped BIDU MAY 300 Call Option hours ago today. By the way it appears Baidu.com has breached the $300 resistance level. I’m going to off my laptop and play some games now.

Other Articles That May Interest You …

• Stocks do not go linear – Scalp your way to make money
• Time to make money trading Apple stock, are you ready?
• Take Money & Run, Google crumbled nearing 1-year low
• My biggest Profit in Option Trading – 486 Percent

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April 16th, 2008 by financetwitter

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