The Casinos business has been under pressure for some time now with the US in a recession type environment and travel expenses escalating. Names such as Las Vegas Sands (LVS), MGM Mirage (MGM) and Wynn Resorts (WYNN) are grouped together as an industry having difficulty. MGM Mirage the weakest of the three with both declining revenue and earnings estimates.

    The stock of The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) rallied slightly today off of it’s all time lows as the overall market rebounded strongly when presented with decent earnings, a drop in the price of oil, and a better than anticipated GDP number around the corner on Thursday. But Friday and thereafter could continue the downtrend the DOW Industrials has been following the last week.

The short Market Vectors Coal (KOL) trade is not working and could easily run against us this coming week with additional coal companies reporting earnings.

A technology trade that will be somewhat market neutral is the combination of shorting VMWare (VMW) and being long International Business Machines (IBM). If the market stays in a trading pattern you will be able to profit on both the long and the short side of this trade.

A number of coal stocks have fallen out of favor as the price of coal has dramatically fallen over the past three weeks. There was an initial spike down in coal at the beginning of July with a small rally. Now the chart for coal has broken below resistance and is due for a further decline.

Amgen Inc (AMGN) is looking very attractive heading into earnings with the additional good news of Nplate being approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday or Thursday.

This was a difficult week for bears of financials as financials shot up 11% on Wednesday for next to no real reason minus a less than terrible earnings report from Wells Fargo and the federal government threatening short sellers.

Starbucks (SBUX) is too expensive and not just the coffee but the stock itself. The stock reached a new 52 week low today as the market sold off during the morning and has rebounded some. But the price to earnings of the stock is still too expensive for the limited revenue growth and the declining earnings the company is now experiencing.

After reaching a new 52 week low on Monday, SunTrust jumped 10% along with all financials on Tuesday but returned to its selling pattern on Wednesday falling 5%.

I was watching the housing stocks back in August and September of 2007 when they were falling to new lows everyday but switched out of the industry in favor of banks, autos and financials. But after seeing an old name reaching a new low after-hours, I started to re-examine the old names.