It looks like the market forgot to take its Prozac. Investors are in a gloomy
mood that has translated into steep sell-off. The surrender of the congressional
supercommittee is the latest trigger for anxiety. The major indexes were all
down well over 2% in Monday trading. The year-end holidays are usually a good
time to own stocks because investors tend to be more hopeful during the season.
But this year might be different for all the obvious reasons: sovereign debt,
economic softness and a lack of policies that support growth. Its simply too
hard to say where we go from here. Its difficult to find any strategy that can
really work in this market. Trading on technical indicators might be the closest
thing to making a profit in this environment. Fundamentals and value don't
seem to matter. Growth stocks are a crapshoot with some flying high and some,
like Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ) and Green Mountain (NASDAQ: GMCR ), crashing back
to earth. One way to eliminate the uncertainty is to trade stocks that are about
to release earnings. In the immediate aftermath of an earnings reports stocks
are more likely to trade based on actual fundamentals instead of some unrelated
macro issue. Do your homework, and you can find trading opportunities that offer
the potential of sizable returns. One of my recent trades was a short of
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM ). After it reported results, its shares fell by more
than 10% making the trade a big winner. Forget about the gloominess of the
market. Here are three trades of companies reporting earnings this week: TiVo
The cable-TV digital recorder company reports earnings for the quarter ending
Oct. 31 on Tuesday. TiVo
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