4/12 Morningline: Holdings

My troubled child PALM continued to climb for fourth straight trading day. It is now 60.5% above the low point hit on March 22. That's what I call volatility.

	trend	adx	psar	pps	macd	macd trend	sto	sto trend
AOD $9.24
BBY $45.07
JNK $39.71
MCO $28.89
NLY $17.24
PALM $5.87

At 10:17 a.m. Eastern

The PALM shares I own are a remnant of a covered call gone sour, and a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks covered calls are risk-free. They aren't. The trader can be left holding the bag, or at least the smart phone.

Bloomberg reported today that PALM is actively seeking a buyout.



Among my dividend plays, AOD and JNK continue to trade up, and NLY, if not gaining in any noticeable way, is at least no longer losing. I shall count my blessings.

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Buy--DON'T Hold: Investing with ETFs Using Relative Strength to Increase Returns with Less Risk
Financial consultant Leslie Masonson describes a strategy for actively trading exchange-traded funds.

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My May bull call options spread on BBY continues to rise. In my April covered call, MCO is trading a bit below the $29 strike price. If it stays down there, I'll keep the stock at expiration and the shares will live to be part of another covered call.

Abbreviations:
psar - Parabolic Stop and Reverse
adx - Average Directional Index
pps - Person's Proprietary Signal
ma20 - 20-day moving average
macd - Moving Average Convergence-Divergence
mfi - Money Flow Index
sto - Fast Stochastic

About the glance: The colors indicate the state of each signal.

• trend: Determined by the 5-day moving average, green for up, red for down, yellow for sideways
• adx: orange for above 30-up, blue for 20-down, purple for in the middle. Red is most prone to whipsaws
• psar, pps, macd: green for bull mode, red for bear
• sto: green for overbought, red for oversold, yellow for the neutral zone.

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