Some trades this morning.

We continue to like the opportunities in the market at this lower valuation point.  Still possible to see an additional sell off, especially if something like ebola, Ukraine, or ISIS takes center stage by doing something big like ISIS taking over Baghdad. Bull markets do not end this way, low interest rates, valuations moderately high but not stretched to ridiculous, and of course a Fed that now is looking to boost rates no earlier than later 2015.  

There just is no real reason to crash or move down sharply like 15% or such off highs.  Smart investors, old time hands, who understand investor sentiment and resulting action are saying buy selectively. Leon Cooperman was on CNBC today at noon saying just that and he has made a ton investing in stocks and bonds.  So if you are in the market continue to be there and if you are regularly investing in retirement funds continue to do so and boost that percentage a bit as well. 

We were in the market this morning doing some trades.  AT&T, symbol T.  Verizon, symbol VZ.  JP Morgan Bank, symbol JPM.  Stifel Nicolaus, symbol SF, and Goldman Sachs, symbol GS.   GS was a new entrant to our trading portfolio replacing IBM which reported bad earnings this morning.  We made some money in IBM but prefer to move on here as we see no comfort in owning their shares at this juncture.  GS is simply a play on the financial engineering we have been posting about for some time now and we believe there is decent upside potential in GS with little downside risk. 

Today Apple, symbol AAPL, will be reporting earnings after the bell and we will take a look at that and will consider another 1200 shares of AAPL Tuesday if the stock sells off.  Apple should be good here for some several quarters so a sell off presents an opportunity to add some more profits.  We already hold 2400 shares our largest holding. 

We remain down a bit in our insurance holdings AFL, MET, and PRU, but still consider them good until our options expire in December.  Also BP, having sold off due to oil price drop, is a screaming buy right now at almost 6% dividend.