Trade Ideas for February 24, 2010

After yesterday's resounding victory for the bears, today we got a market heading into the open that is slightly negative and could be looking to extend yesterday's decline. With consumer confidence hitting a 10-month low, there are a lot of people on edge as to whether we are truly out of the woods. In my humble opinion, I don't think that we are, and until I'm proven otherwise, I am going to continue shorting this market.

I'll also be taking my position in Gap (GPS) off the table today, and possibly replacing it with Amazon.com (AMZN) which still has the making of an excellent short setup. The reason for taking GPS off is due to their earnings release tomorrow. I can't stand holding positions through earnings, and I definitely am not making an exception to my rule. Yes, I could make a whopping amount of profits if they report a bad quarter, but I also stand to lose a bunch if they don't. And since I have no idea as to which way it could go, I am going to take my position off the table. Despite me being very passionate though about not holding stocks through earnings, I still manage to ponder whether I should or should not, mainly because I think about the potential to make something from a nasty earnings sell-off. But I'm not going to do it.

On the economoic front, you have the MBA Purchase Applications at 7am ET, followed by New Home Sales at 10am. But most importantly you have Ben Bernanke speaking at 10am as he speaks before the House Committee on Financial Services.

Here are Today's Trading Ideas.

Potential Swing Trade (Long): Lime Energy (LIME) - Nice inverted head & shoulders pattern in place from the latter part of last year, and has rallied since with a consolidation around the neckline of the H&S. Ideal stop-loss is 4.55.

Click here to See the Rest of My Trading Ideas.