Daily Market Update – October 13, 2015 (9:00 AM)
Yesterday was a pretty boring day, or at least so I think it may have been. That’s because I had an internet and cable outage from about 11 AM to 6 PM and spent the day trying to get the usual amount of information through the tiny form factor of a cell phone. That’s not a very satisfying way of trying to get anything done, especially if you weren’t anticipating that to be the case. As far as I could tell markets weren’t moving much, but for me the flow of news that usually serves as a background for what’s going on, was absent. Toggling back and forth between tiny screens and not having a grasp on whatever intuitive design there may have been to the brokerage app made it a long day. I suppose I could have done something constructive around the house or otherwise with my time but the expectation was that the outage was only going to be momentary. The good news was that the work crews beat their 3 AM estimate by about 9 hours. I did have one other trade sitting hoping to get made, but tweaking the prices and checking the quotes on that little hand held is a lot harder than on a big screen and a full program, rather than a streamlined app. Today the market looks as if it will be getting off to a slightly negative start. Despite having had a couple of tiny losses in the S&P 500 over the past week and half, the DJIA has been on a streak that may be challenged today. With some money sitting in reserve, I have no qualms about putting some of it to work this week, although volatility has come down despite there still being considerable uncertainty about what’s coming next. What is next are the beginning of the big names reporting earnings. Financials start this afternoon after the final bell and will continue through to next week. Good numbers from the financial sector don’t necessarily say anything about how the rest of the market will react when they start reporting numbers, but good numbers from the financials wouldn’t hurt. With a handful of positions expiring this week and some chance for either assignment or rollover and a couple of ex-dividend positions this week, I still wouldn’t mind trying to find some new opportunities to generate some more income. The likelihood is that I would like to stick with a weekly option, but as the week draws on there’s more reason to look at expanded weekly time frames, especially if a dividend is involved. Tomorrow does bring a Retail Sales Report that could also serve to move markets. With credit card companies now suggesting that consumer discretionary spending is finally starting to move higher, perhaps representing the energy dividend that we’ve been waiting to receive for nearly a year, there may finally be reason to think that the data will become more compelling for the FOMC to take some action. The next FOMC meeting is later this month, although it seems that there would have to be a lot of good news and in a very short period of time to result in an interest rate increase, especially after the last Employment SItuation Report. So for now, we may simply be guided by fundamentals for the next few weeks, barring any international crises in the Middle East or financial meltdowns in China. A world guided by fundamentals and not distracted by explosive events and fears would be a good thing, even if only until the end of the year. |