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Daily Market Update – June 13, 2016 (Close)

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Daily Market Update – June 13, 2016 (Close)


The week looked like it may get off to a weaker start as we awaited Wednesday’s FOMC Statement release.

There’s not likely to be any movement on interest rates coming out of that meeting, although lots of attention is also paid to any slight nuances that may come from changed wording.

More importantly, though, may be the tone taken by Chairman Yellen during her press conference later on Wednesday afternoon.

While we awaited those events, the Asian markets were down 3% overnight and oil was down again this morning, as it had difficulty with the $50 level, just as the DJIA and S&P 500 had difficulty with the 18000 and 2100 levels, respectively.

What became very clear today was that oil was in charge, as the market followed it lockstep throughout the day, resulting in a wide trading range.

WIth a few positions set to expire this week, I was just hoping to be able to put them to work if they’re not assigned.

I was surprised to make a rollover trade today, but I decided to keep the Goldminer ETF position set to expire this week, rather than taking a likely assignment. When thinking about it, the risk was that over the next 5 weeks it would have to fall about 16% to become out of the money. In return for that risk I could get an additional 2% premium.

There was a time that I would scoff at 2% for a 5 week period, but these days?

I’ll take it.

For some of those remaining positions assignment seems unlikely, so it may be back to looking at some longer term time frames in an effort to buy time and get paid for doing so.

In the event that Wednesday becomes a non-event, oil may again become prominent in our markets and if the association continues, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see oil take a break, even as summer demand may be increasing.

In the meantime, with each passing day over the next week or so, there can also be lots more attention being paid to Great Britain’s upcoming vote on its EU membership.

There’s lots of hyperbole on that topic and it’s anyone’s guess what that might due to international markets and our own.

With just a little bit of discretionary cash and some uncertainty this week, I wasn’t entirely convinced that I’d be opening any new positions this week, although I was prepared to add an oil position, despite being over-invested in that sector.

Funny thing.

I made that purchase, maybe because I didn’t want to go three consecutive weeks without a new position.

That’s a bad reason.

A better reason was, that even if wrong about the near term direction of its movement, the option premium is so large, and the option market generally so liquid, that there may not be too much difficulty riding out any short term storm.

Otherwise, this may be another week of being a passive bystander and maybe just hoping that asset value climbs as the market tries to figure out what is really important.

Posted on

Daily Market Update – June 13, 2016 (Close)

Close 

 

 

Daily Market Update – June 13, 2016 (Close)


The week looked like it may get off to a weaker start as we awaited Wednesday’s FOMC Statement release.

There’s not likely to be any movement on interest rates coming out of that meeting, although lots of attention is also paid to any slight nuances that may come from changed wording.

More importantly, though, may be the tone taken by Chairman Yellen during her press conference later on Wednesday afternoon.

While we awaited those events, the Asian markets were down 3% overnight and oil was down again this morning, as it had difficulty with the $50 level, just as the DJIA and S&P 500 had difficulty with the 18000 and 2100 levels, respectively.

What became very clear today was that oil was in charge, as the market followed it lockstep throughout the day, resulting in a wide trading range.

WIth a few positions set to expire this week, I was just hoping to be able to put them to work if they’re not assigned.

I was surprised to make a rollover trade today, but I decided to keep the Goldminer ETF position set to expire this week, rather than taking a likely assignment. When thinking about it, the risk was that over the next 5 weeks it would have to fall about 16% to become out of the money. In return for that risk I could get an additional 2% premium.

There was a time that I would scoff at 2% for a 5 week period, but these days?

I’ll take it.

For some of those remaining positions assignment seems unlikely, so it may be back to looking at some longer term time frames in an effort to buy time and get paid for doing so.

In the event that Wednesday becomes a non-event, oil may again become prominent in our markets and if the association continues, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see oil take a break, even as summer demand may be increasing.

In the meantime, with each passing day over the next week or so, there can also be lots more attention being paid to Great Britain’s upcoming vote on its EU membership.

There’s lots of hyperbole on that topic and it’s anyone’s guess what that might due to international markets and our own.

With just a little bit of discretionary cash and some uncertainty this week, I wasn’t entirely convinced that I’d be opening any new positions this week, although I was prepared to add an oil position, despite being over-invested in that sector.

Funny thing.

I made that purchase, maybe because I didn’t want to go three consecutive weeks without a new position.

That’s a bad reason.

A better reason was, that even if wrong about the near term direction of its movement, the option premium is so large, and the option market generally so liquid, that there may not be too much difficulty riding out any short term storm.

Otherwise, this may be another week of being a passive bystander and maybe just hoping that asset value climbs as the market tries to figure out what is really important.

Posted on

Daily Market Update – June 13, 2016

Close 

 

 

Daily Market Update – June 13, 2016 (7:30 AM)


The week looks like it may get off to a weaker start as we await Wednesday’s FOMC Statement release.

There’s not likely to be any movement on interest rates coming out of that meeting, although lots of attention is also paid to any slight nuances that may come from changed wording.

More importantly, though, may be the tone taken by Chairman Yellen during her press conference later on Wednesday afternoon.

While we await those events, the Asian markets were down 3% overnight and oil is down again this morning, as it had difficulty with the $50 level, just as the DJIA and S&P 500 had difficulty with the 18000 and 2100 levels, respectively.

WIth a few positions set to expire this week, I just hope to be able to put them to work if they’re not assigned.

For some of those positions that seems unlikely, so it may be back to looking at some longer term time frames in an effort to buy time and get paid for doing so.

In the event that Wednesday becomes a non-event, oil may again become prominent in our markets and if the association continues, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see oil take a break, even as summer demand may be increasing.

In the meantime, with each passing day over the next week or so, there can also be lots more attention being paid to Great Britain’s upcoming vote on its EU membership.

There’s lots of hyperbole on that topic and it’s anyone’s guess what that might due to international markets and our own.

With just a little bit of discretionary cash and some uncertainty this week, I’m not entirely convinced that I’ll be opening any new positions this week, although I still might like to add an oil position, despite being over-invested in that sector.

That may be a place, that even if wrong about the near term direction of its movement, the option premium is so large, and the option market generally so liquid, that there may not be too much difficulty riding out any short term storm.

Otherwise, this may be another week of being a passive bystander and maybe just hoping that asset value climbs as the market tries to figure out what is really important.

Posted on

Dashboard – June 13 – 17, 2016

 

 

 

 

 

SELECTIONS

MONDAY:   The market looks to begin the week a bit lower amid big losses in ASian markets and more declines in oil. In the meantime, there is an FOMC Statement release on Monday, followed by Yellen’s press conference. Even with no interest rate change it could be a big week.

TUESDAY:   Oil ruled the day yesterday, up and down, but mostly down. This morning, oil is again weak, but stock futures aren’t faring a poorly.

WEDNESDAY:  Today is FOMC Statement release day and futures markets are tentative, but higher heading into that announcement. Six months ago, when the last increase came, was there anyone who thought that would have been the only one to come by now?

THURSDAY:  The moment yesterday’s press conference ended was the moment the selling started as traders probably realized that increased dovish tones meant the economy wasn’t really moving forward as everyone had come to expect. This morning’s futures continues that trend.

FRIDAY:.  Yesterday had a very nice and unexpected recovery. While it doesn’t appear as there’s any left this morning, there’s no reason that there can’t be additional surprises. There is little to move us down and little to move us up, so that’s perfect for such surprises.

 

 

 



 

                                                                                                                                           

Today's TradesCash-o-Meter

 

 

 





 “SNEAK PEEK AT NEXT WEEK” APPEARS ON FRIDAYS

Sneak PeekPie Chart Distribution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Summary

  

Posted on

Weekend Update – June 12, 2016

Sometimes you just have nowhere to go.

One thing that was fairly certain last week was that there wasn’t too much of a trend and there wasn’t any clear path to follow.

As markets began testing the 18000 level on the DJIA and 2100 on the S&P 500, the chorus was loud and clear.

There is no place to go but up.

The alternating chorus was that there was no place to go but down.

The market instead went sideways, but not very far as all roads seemed to be closed off.

After the previous week, which ended precisely unchanged, this past week managed to move 0.1%,

Granted, the first three days of the week did seem to benefit from Chairman Janet Yellen’s superb demonstration of how hedging your words works to allow people to hear whatever it is that they want to hear.

Following Monday afternoon’s talk, Dr. Yellen essentially said something to the effect of “It’s not good out there, but it’s all good. You know what I mean?”

Years ago I heard a fairly odd individual present a lecture on the pharmacological management of children requiring sedation. He referred to the well known age and weight based rules regarding dosages, but said they were inadequate. Not surprisingly, after listening to him for a brief while, it was only his eponymous rule that could determine the correct amount of sedative agents to administer to a child.

Continue reading on Seeking Alpha

Posted on

Week in Review – June 6 – 10, 2016

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

June 6 – 10, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED EX-DIVIDEND
0  /  0 0 1 0   /   0 0   /   0 0 5

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

June 6 – 10, 2016


Well, that was a bad end to a week that started out so promisingly for no real reason at all.

After last  Friday’s Employment Situation Report and this past Monday’s comments from Janet Yellen, the market had no reason to think anything at all.

What we were left with this week was just more uncertainty about what comes next.

Anyway, this was another week that I was also too unsure about much of anything and once again made no new opening position trades.

This was also another week of market mediocrity, although the numbers were looking pretty good heading into the closing session for the week.

The S&P 500 ended the week finishing 0.1% lower on both an unadjusted and adjusted basis. That’s after having finished last week unchanged.

But still, just as in the previous week, there was a little good news as there was one rollover, although there were no assignments.

There were also 5 ex-dividend positions to make things a little bit easier to take.

The good news ended there, as opposed to last week when existing positions ended the week 1.8% higher than the S&P 500, this week they trailed by 0.2%

With no new assignments on the week closed positions in 2016 were 8.3% higher, while the comparable performance for the S&P 500 during the same holding periods has been 1.7% higher. That represents a 383.6% difference in return on closed positions. That would be much more impressive if there were many more closed positions in 2016, but that just hasn’t been the case.

Maybe next week as the June 2016 option cycle comes to its end.

The market ended up the week poorly as most focus will be on the FOMC next week.

The market deteriorated after it likely realized that whatever was interpreted as being good news from Janet Yellen, wasn’t really any news at all.

Fortunately, there were plenty of ex-dividend positions this week, just as in the previous week and a handful more next week.

With no one expecting any action from the FOMC there may still be reason for some large movements.

That may all depend on the wording of their statement when it is released on Wednesday afternoon.

I do have some money to spend, but once again, I’m not too anxious to do so.

With a few positions set to expire and a couple of ex-dividend positions, there may be enough to keep me happy, but I would still like to see some reason to spend some of the money sitting in the cash pile, as small as it is.

Once we get past the FOMC Statement release and now that earnings are essentially done, we may get back to oil ruling the markets, just as they did to end this week.

It has been a couple of weeks since oil took center stage, but there may not be too much competition for it doing so after Wednesday’s announcement.


.

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  none

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  HFC (6/24)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO: none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned:  none


Ca
lls Expired:  none

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:   BBY (6/10 $0.28), ,KSS (6/6 $0.50), NEM (6/7 $0.025), GM (6/8 $0.38), WY (6/8 $0.31)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week:  HPQ (6/6 $0.12), BBBY (6/15 $0.125)

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO,  CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



Posted on

Daily Market Update – June 10, 2016

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Daily Market Update – June 10, 2016 (7:30 AM)


The Week in Review will be posted by 10 PM and the Weekend Update will be posted by Noon on Sunday.

The following trade outcomes are possible today”

Assignments:  none

Rollovers:   none

Expirations:  HFC

The following were ex-dividend this week:   HPQ (6/6 $0.12),KSS (6/6 $0.50), NEM (6/7 $0.025), GM (6/8 $0.38), WY (6/8 $0.31), BBY (6/10 $0.28)

The following will be ex-dividend next week:  BBBY (6/15 $0.125)

Trades, if any, will be attempted to be made by 3:30 PM EDT

Posted on

Daily Market Update – June 9, 2016 (Close)

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Daily Market Update – June 9, 2016 (Close)


After 3 consecutive days higher, no doubt inspired by the lack of any clarity from Janet Yellen on Monday, the market was getting ready for a rest this morning and it stayed that way throughout the day, ending a 3 day winning streak.

As it did, the S&P 500 still sits only about 1% away from its all time closing high.

With the greatest likelihood that there will be no interest rate increase being announced next week and investors making it clear that they prefer that to be the case, even as they give some sign of accepting that increase, there isn’t much to hold the market back.

Except of course for that pesky thing that so many algorithms and traders use.

Charts.

Just as the 18000 level on the DJIA has been a barrier, so too is the 2137 level on the S&P 500.

People talk about triple tops and the bearish indicator that is, but after some failed attempts the DJIA did get beyond its 18000 level, although it has yet to do so convincingly. The same considerations lies ahead for the S&P 500.

With little economic news in the very near term, all we really have ahead is the FOMC meeting next week and then the usual events in the coming month of July.

At this point most everyone wants to see whether last week’s Employment Situation Report was simply an aberration and signifying nothing.

You can bet that if the next one, or even the GDP comes in big, there will be a big reaction.

It may still be a mystery, though, how traders would react.

With such bad news last week and the rumblings of that kind of a number being associated with a recession, some may find a strong higher number to be a major disappointment.

Who knows?

While I’m not trading, I am happy to see asset values climb, particularly as there is a rebound in oil and commodities.

Those led me down and now are leading me higher, but I wouldn’t mind getting out of some of those positions at this point and looking for a re-entry opportunity.

Otherwise, the week hinges on a sole position set to expire and hoping that it can still be rolled over and milking it for every last bit of premium until its own expiration.

With the Baker-Hughes Rig Count coming out at 1 PM tomorrow and with that single expiring position still being within range of both rollover and assignment, and maybe even expiration, I might be inclined to not wait to have the rig count take me out for the count.

Ultimately those premiums do add up, so I wouldn’t mind adding some more, but I would still much rather be actively exploring and opening new positions.

Still, money is money.

Posted on

Daily Market Update – June 9, 2016

Close 

 

 

Daily Market Update – June 9, 2016 (7:30 AM)


After 3 consecutive days higher, no doubt inspired by the lack of any clarity from Janet Yellen on Monday, the market may be getting ready for a rest this morning.

As it does, the S&P 500 sits only about 1% away from its all time closing high.

Actually, just a shade less than 1%.

With the greatest likelihood that there will be no interest rate increase being announced next week and investors making it clear that they prefer that to be the case, even as they give some sign of accepting that increase, there isn’t much to hold the market back.

Except of course for that pesky thing that so many algorithms and traders use.

Charts.

Just as the 18000 level on the DJIA has been a barrier, so too is the 2137 level on the S&P 500.

People talk about triple tops and the bearish indicator that is, but after some failed attempts the DJIA did get beyond its 18000 level, although it has yet to do so convincingly. The same considerations lies ahead for the S&P 500.

With little economic news in the very near term, all we really have ahead is the FOMC meeting next week and then the usual events in the coming month of July.

At this point most everyone wants to see whether last week’s Employment Situation Report was simply an aberration and signifying nothing.

You can bet that if the next one, or even the GDP comes in big, there will be a big reaction.

It may still be a mystery, though, how traders would react.

With such bad news last week and the rumblings of that kind of a number being associated with a recession, some may find a strong higher number to be a major disappointment.

Who knows?

While I’m not trading, I am happy to see asset values climb, particularly as there is a rebound in oil and commodities.

Those led me down and now are leading me higher, but I wouldn’t mind getting out of some of those positions at this point and looking for a re-entry opportunity.

Otherwise, the week hinges on a sole position set to expire and hoping that it can still be rolled over and milking it for every last bit of premium until its own expiration.

Ultimately, those do add up, but I would still much rather be actively exploring and opening new positions.

Still, money is money.

Posted on

Daily Market Update – June 8, 2016

Close 

 

 

Daily Market Update – June 8, 2016 (Close)


On Monday, Janet Yellen spoke and the market listened.

They tried listening a little bit more yesterday, but the words may have gotten too faint, especially by the final hour.

This morning, if looking to put a positive spin on things, the market wasn’t doing what if often has in the past few years.

It didn’t just reflexively go in the opposite direction. At least not yet.

This morning the futures were flat after having given up some decent gains yesterday, but when it’s all said and done, we were still within 1% of the all time high on the S&P 500.

By the closing bell today, we were even closer.

Granted, the level is still being sustained by a narrow foundation, but years from now all that anyone will know is what the level happens to be. Years after the fact, no one ever looks at the underlying causes of where the market stands unless there is some large move.

What can be said with some certainty is that not much is going on and maybe what we thought might be going on next week, now won’t happen.

Following last week’s Employment Situation Report there are now even those saying that a recession is possible.

The odds of that, according to JP Morgan economists of occurring in the next 12 months, is now considered larger than was the likelihood of an interest rate hike in June, just a week ago.

Maybe Yellen is right that we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on a single data point. After all, we could just as easily get big revisions next month or the month after, but that’s not how the universe of traders works. They focus on only the latest number and rarely look at the big picture. If one number takes you in one direction today and does so with conviction, no one should be surprised if the following data another conflicting number takes traders in a totally different direction.

Reverse the order of events and the outcomes are reversed as well, even as the net change may not be.

The individual investor is left hoping to be lucky, if deciding to capitalize on some economic news.

With the week now past the halfway point, it may simply end up as another week with little to nothing to show for it, in terms of active trading.

While no one expects any FOMC action next week, their words may still carry clout, so it may be difficult to commit in any meaningful way next week, either.

As far as that goes, if this week and next add to the previous week and just see asset values add to their levels while accumulating some dividends, I guess I can’t really complain.

But if I’m not trading, sooner or later someone is going to expect me to actually do something around the house and I can’t let that happen.