Monday Markets – Guiding in for a Crash Landing?

Guidance has gotten uglier, as evidenced by this FactSet chart.  Thise are those annoying Fundamentals I keep whining about while everyone else is trying to have a good time betting on the bull market lasting forever.  

Of course, we know how to make money off this news – just last Thursday I sent out an alert to our Members at 9:39 am, after we discussed "positive" retail sales data and I put it in context in Member Chat, saying:

Retail sales – That data is very misleading because they were slashing prices to clear inventory.  I wouldn't bet a penny based on Retail Sales numbers in Europe until we see the earnings reports.  I expect margins will be squeezed hard.  

Speaking of which, our buddies at XRT are back where we love to short them so let's add 5 May $84 puts at 0.85 in the $25KP and 10 in the STP. 

As you can see from the chart, we timed it just right and those puts are already $1.42 as of Friday's close, up 67% per contract in 48 hours.  That's $1,420 back off an $850 investment (10 contracts) in two days.  We can make plays like this because we have cash on the sidelines, since we took our money and ran at the top of the market.  Perhaps I was too cautious – as we haven't had much of a pullback yet – but who cares when we can make quick profits like these?