Daily Market Update – February 12, 2015

  

 
Daily Market Update – February 12, 2015 (8:30 AM)
This morning, based on the pre-opening futures, looks to have a similar opening to that seen on Tuesday.
The futures are pointing nicely higher, approaching a triple digit gain on the DJIA, and those kind of larger moves tend to have more staying power. At least they tend to give a little more direction to trading once the market actually opens.
That would be a welcome move, particularly as the week is coming to its end and the fate of those positions set to expire this week are being determined during the final hours of trading for the week.
The news that seems to be responsible for the move actually started shortly after yesterday’s market closed and the S&P 500 futures went up about 12 points and the DJIA went nearly 100 points higher.
That news was that there was some kind of an agreement between the the ECB, EU and Greece over its debt.
That gain disappeared in the late afternoon and early evening but then returned and seems to be holding as this morning’s session is set to begin. It is, however, being weakened a little by another weaker than expected “Retail Sales” report, that will hopefully be undone as the major retailers begin reporting earnings over the next two weeks and start focusing on the future, rather than the past, to look at the potential impact of lower energy prices, more people at work and more people receiving higher salaries.
With 5 positions set to expire this week and 8 the following week, I would much prefer seeing assignments this week rather than rolling over those positions. However, if rollovers are called for, or if there may be some other reason for a rollover, such as to capture Microsoft’s dividend, I would likely want to look at an expiration date sometime after next week.
The slightly elevated volatility makes that a little more palatable.
As it is  next week offers only 4 days of premium, due to the Presidents Day holiday and there are more than enough expiring positions than to add too many more and increase risk of a sudden market drop just before that expiration.
If this morning’s pre-opening gain does have staying power, it will hopefully position those expiring contracts to be more likely to be assigned and may even offer a miracle of selling some new call contracts on existing positions.
Anyway, that’s my dream and I’m sticking to it.