Phew!

Well, I have to say I was not feeling real good about my decision to stand pat on my positions in SKF and SRS this morning but ultimately I think I made the right choice. Stocks tumbled late in the day, more than giving back all of yesterday's gains and I gained almost all of what I lost yesterday.

From Bloomberg:

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks slid, sending the Standard & Poor's 500 Index into its first bear market since 2002, after rising borrowing costs spurred concern the biggest mortgage finance companies may not weather the housing slump.
Fannie Mae and rival Freddie Mac led financial shares to their biggest tumble in six years after Fannie sold $3 billion in notes at record yields over benchmark rates. Cisco Systems Inc. dropped to the lowest level since September 2006 and Intel Corp. slipped to a six-month low on analyst predictions that a slowing economy may hurt sales. Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. fell as Credit Suisse AG said 40 percent of the 50 biggest U.S. lenders may need to cut dividends or raise more capital.
The S&P 500 lost 29.01 points, or 2.3 percent, to 1,244.69. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 236.77, or 2.1 percent, to 11,147.44. The Nasdaq Composite Index plunged 59.55, or 2.6 percent, to 2,234.89. Almost four stocks declined for each that rose on the New York Stock Exchange.
``The trouble with the financials is that so much of it is a black box,'' Nick Sargen, who helps oversee $30 billion as chief investment officer of Fort Washington Investment Advisors in Cincinnati, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
``Everybody thought the worst of the writedowns were passed in April. And behold, here we are now and that wasn't the case.''

What a shock! The financials are a "black box"? Well, who could have possibly known that?

Oh, that's right, you, me and everyone else who reads this blog. Doesn't seem like a very big secret to me.

At any rate, it looks like the reasons behind the picks still seem sound, but my best guess is there is LOTS of volatility ahead, so keep updating those stop limits if you don't want to see another whipsaw like we saw the last two days in your account.

Here are the one month charts for SKF and SRS.

SKF (CLICK PIC TO ENLARGE)



SRS (CLICK PIC TO ENLARGE)



We shall see what happens tomorrow. Not much on the economic calendar so unless we have more good news from the Gulf should be a calm(er) day.