We are in the thick of earnings season now. It is time to perform. Here are some stocks that were stocks that were discussed in our AM Meeting. The format of the meeting is Big Picture (discuss indexes), stocks with fresh news catalysts and likely trading patterns and conclude with Second Day Plays (key levels identified from prior day’s trading) and technical plays (the plays that most other traders/firms focus on).

I was involved in all of the above names today as I mentioned on StockTwits. Here are a few of the charts marked up with some trades that I took.

Above outlines first two trades for the day. I made a few more trades on the short side once 124.90 showed clear resistance in the late morning. I covered 1/2 of my put position that I bought prior to earnings locking in a profit there as well.

The next stock is MSFT which I rarely trade outside of earnings because of the lack of volatility.

The MSFT long trade worked better than a television script. My bid got at hit at LOD and I started to scale out into 46. I was flat by 46.50 and then looked for a spot to get short. MSFT earnings guidance wasn’t good and my thought process was that after the soft gap fill it would reverse and at least trade back down to 46. Unfortunately after initially failing at 46.80 and dropping it went higher and I was stopped out. I wasn’t watching it that closely so didn’t re-establish the short position. I gave back about 1/4 of the profits from the initial long trade.

Facebook a different setup than the first two. It is one of the strongest stocks in the market right now but was extremely overbought as it had run up from 90 to 99 in the past week. I was looking for a pull back to $95.50-$96 to enter a swing position. We got that midday on a quick flush below 96. I called it out on Real Time as I was buying. As it bounced into $97 I took some off to cover risk and now will see if it can make a new all time high. If it runs up to $100 prior to earnings I may hold it through earnings and buy a put spread for some downside protection. The quarter GOOGL had bodes well for FB.

Steven Spencer is the co-founder of SMB Capital and SMB University which provides trading education in stocks, and options. He has traded professionally for 19 years. His email address is: [email protected].

Steven Spencer is currently long FB, HTZ, KING, OHRP, P, TWTR and short AAPL via options and long LOCK via options