Daily Market Update – June 20, 2016 (Close)

Daily Market Update – June 20, 2016 (Close)

What a difference a poll makes.

Mid week of just a few days ago the numbers seemed to be increasing on the “exit” side of the vote. With the increasing certainty that a British withdrawal from the European Union was going to be the case, there was the usual disagreement about what that would mean and then how long it would take for anything to really happen.

As they were all debating those issues, London’s bookies were still leaning fairly strongly in the other direction.

As the week came to its close the sentiment was reportedly shifting, perhaps due to the tragic shooting of a member of Parliament in a country where shootings are exceedingly rare.

This morning, with just days to go the polls were catching up with the bookies and markets all over the world wee voting with their local currencies and buying stocks.

To me it seemed odd that so soon after being against Scotland’s withdrawal from Great Britain, there would even be discussion about withdrawal from the European Union. You would think that the reasons voiced against Scotland’s proposed move would hold fro Britain’s proposed move.

This morning all of the world’s market’s were much higher. Our own, as the futures were getting closer to the opening bell is actually the laggard, even as it was up by more than 1%.

Even as the market finished nearly 50% off from its intra-day highs, it was better than some of the alternatives.

I’m not one to buy stocks on a Monday when the market has such a climb, so my hope today was that the tide carries many along with it and perhaps offers some opportunities to sell calls on existing and uncovered positions.

Instead, I did get carried along, but while no opportunities to sell calls on uncovered positions came to be, there was one opportunity that seemed too good to pass up.

That was upon seeing the sharp decline in shares of Cypress Semiconductor after it announced the issuance of a convertible offering.

So often those initial reactions are so, so overdone. With its dividend coming up next week and earnings not until the August 2016 option cycle, I wouldn’t mind shares being assigned early, but can wait out the month, as well.

For one, I wouldn’t mind the first week of summer continuing the general pattern of 2016, even if that means no more days with the promise of broad big gains, such as today.

That hasn’t resulted in very much trading for me, but at least it has allowed some catch-up after the commodity and energy related losses in 2015.

With summer getting underway and perhaps both interest rates and “Brexit” being put to rest for a little while, I’d like to see some seasonal strength in energy prices drag the market higher, as they’ve been doing through most of 2016.