Sticking with it

I decided to let my C position roll overnight, rather than locking in the next 50$ profit. 50 isn't very much and given my transactions costs it would be a huge disincentive to get back in.

Anyway, it seems that I was also rolling the dice on the earnings announcements of MSFT and CAT. MSFT came in ahead of estimates despite the fact that Vista is well-regarded as a piece of crap. Maybe I should look at the conference call transcript directly to see where their earnings are coming from, if not Vista. It is Microsoft, of course, who has more essential business products than any other tech firm.

CAT I know nothing about except that it would reflect the strength of the argricultural economy. They have large international dealings, so may not be so strongly affected by US recession. Right now I'm trying to figure out how essential knowledge of companies like this one is to trading. Certainly as regards Citigroup it may not have a big impact, but clearly the whole market moves in tandem and this is a Dow Industrial.

In other announcements E*TRADE, the worst performing stock of the S&P 500, reported a loss of $1.7 Billion, par for financials exposed to subprime. One can only wonder how well ETFC would be faring today if they'd stuck to being a brokerage. Probably similar to AMTD: only suffering a large loss in the swoon of Jan 08.