BTDStocks.com Tuesday, May 3, 2011 End-of-Day Update

For the second session in a row stocks saw declines. The main difference between today's session and the prior session was market activity indicated investors were taking some of their profits off the table today. The Nasdaq Composite (QQQQ) saw the biggest declines out of the three major indexes as it fell 0.8%. The S&P 500 (SPY) fell less as some of its components managed to lessen the losses and the DJIA (DIA) was flat with help from Alcoa AA. Some rumors were swirling that Alcoa might receive a bid to be purchased by Rio Tinto. The Semiconductor index (SOX) saw heavier selling as it fell 1.3% and after recently re-taking its 50-day moving average it now looks like it may test it (and its 21-day moving average) once again. The sell-off in the major indexes was heavier going into the last hour of trading but stocks were able to recover some of the losses. When you look under the hood market internals were negative and the action in many individual stocks was much worse than the overall stock market direction. The market worked off some of its complacency but overall market volatility remains relatively low as measured through the Volatility Index (VIX). The best approach right is to refrain from opening/adding to stock positions if you are a prudent investor. Rather focus on protecting your profits and limiting your losses. If you need to own stocks, please see our watch list below. In our watch list today we removed the position in the ProShares Ultra Short Oil & Gas Fund DUG at the intra-day price of $27.81. We added this position on Friday, April 29, 2011 at the intra-day price of $25.77. The position in DUG returned 7.9% in 4 days while on the watch list. We have one remaining position in DUG on the watch list. Also, please see our prior post as we provided an update after the market close on the stocks we identified yesterday morning as possible short candidates. To read the full article, please visit: www.btdstocks.com/ No positions in securities mentioned