Category: Daily Market Update

Daily Market Update – August 2, 2016 (Close)

After 6 straight losing days we were still only about 8 points off the all time intra-day high on the S&P 500.

Now you can make that 7 straight losing days and 21 points from that all time intra-day high.

Up until this morning that would have been the kind of support that needed to be built to have a platform to move higher and to create a situation where there could be a stopping station if it decided again to go lower.

Futures were again pointing mildly lower this morning, but there was not too much reason to suspect that it would do anything other than continue to trade in a fairly narrow range.

At least until Friday when the Employment Situation report is released, or so it seemed.

With the most recent GDP data release it’s hard to understand how the employment situation could be improving, but there hasn’t been too much of a correlation between the two for quite some time.

Even as wages increase and the unemployment rate falls, the expectation that a consumer led increase in the GDP would occur just hasn’t been realized.

At some point that has to change, just as some point the strange relationship between energy prices and the stock market has to change.

That latter change may be happening now, as the decline in oil prices hasn’t taken the same toll on stocks that it would have just a month or two ago.

Or at least that what it seemed like this morning, but then the market today seemed to react negatively to a failed attempt to rally in the oil market and followed it lower.

So much for that theory.

Had this latest decline in oil happened in April, the market would have responded strongly lower, just as it responded strongly higher when oil prices went higher.

The muting of the relationship may herald the breaking of the relationship, but we may have to wait until tomorrow to get back on track.

With no trades even placed on the table yesterday and today, I don’t know if tomorrow will bring anything different.

All I would really like to do is sell some calls on uncovered positions, but it generally takes some sustained higher price moves to do that and none seem to be in the cards today.

With the real unknown coming on Friday there becomes less and less reason to want to get in front of that announcement as not only are the numbers in questions, but so would the response be hard to predict regardless of the numbers, direction or magnitude.

So this may be a very sleepy start to what is the least historic profitable month of the year.

Even as Japan announced a large economic stimulus package this morning, out own market appeared to not really care or maybe it just wanted to see details.

But if our futures couldn’t get very excited, I had a hard time doing so, as well and simply awaited some kind of a commitment in one direction or another.

That direction came, but not with enough gusto for my liking.

For now, as long as I don’t think that I’ll be doing too much trading this week, I’m actually alright with any outcome.

I wouldn’t mind some continued stability if it’s going to act
a
s a launch pad.

I also wouldn’t mind watching asset values move higher and getting a chance to sell some of those calls.

Finally, would it be that terrible to see some profit taking and the chance to perhaps find something more cheaply priced?

If only all of life had such equally acceptable possibilities.

.

.

Daily Market Update – August 2, 2016 (7:30 AM)

After 6 straight losing days we’re only about 8 points off the all time intra-day high on the S&P 500.

That’s the kind of support that needs to be built to have a platform to move higher and to create a situation where there could be a stopping station if it decides again to go lower.

Futures are again pointing mildly lower this morning, but there’s not too much reason to suspect that it will do anything other than continue to trade in a fairly narrow range.

At least until Friday when the Employment Situation report is released.

With the most recent GDP data release it’s hard to understand how the employment situation could be improving, but there hasn’t been too much of a correlation between the two for quite some time.

Even as wages increase and the unemployment rate falls, the expectation that a consumer led increase in the GDP would occur just hasn’t been realized.

At some point that has to change, just as some point the strange relationship between energy prices and the stock market has to change.

That latter change may be happening now, as the decline in oil prices hasn’t taken the same toll on stocks that it would have just a month or two ago.

Had this decline happened in April, the market would have responded strongly lower, just as it responded strongly higher when oil prices went higher.

The muting of the relationship may herald the breaking of the relationship.

With no trades even placed on the table yesterday, I don’t know if today will bring anything different.

All I would really like to do is sell some calls on uncovered positions, but it generally takes some sustained higher price moves to do that and none seem to be in the cards today.

With the real unknown coming on Friday there becomes less and less reason to want to get in front of that announcement as not only are the numbers in questions, but so would the response be hard to predict regardless of the numbers, direction or magnitude.

So this may be a very sleepy start to what is the least historic profitable month of the year.

Even as Japan announced a large economic stimulus package this morning, out own market appears to not really care or maybe it just wants to see details.

But if our futures can’t get very excited, i have a hard time doing so and will simply await some kind of a commitment in one direction or another.

For now, as long as I don’t think that I’ll be doing too much trading this week, I’m actually alright with any outcome.

I wouldn’t mind some continued stability if it’s going to act as a launch pad.

I also wouldn’t mind watching asset values move higher and getting a chance to sell some of those calls.

Finally, would it be that terrible to see some profit taking and the chance to perhaps find something more cheaply priced?

If only all of life had such equally acceptable possibilities.

.

.

Daily Market Update – August 1, 2016 (Close)

With August now getting ready to get underway, a quick look back shows that we’ve just come off 6 consecutive monthly moves higher.

That’s the case even as last week consisted of 5 consecutive losing days.

I didn’t mind that kind of a finish to July for a couple of reasons.

The first reason was that after the 9% run higher from the “Brexit” lows of barely a month ago, it was good to get some consolidation, even if it was minimal.

What is was, was orderly.

The other thing that really appealed to me is that the orderly decline came as oil had another bad week.

For stocks and oil to go their own ways hasn’t really been the story of 2016.

Sooner or later you had to believe that if oil prices were really being driven by supply excess in the face of reasonably healthy demand, that the market would move higher as oil moved lower.

Maybe that normal relationship can now begin and begin to take hold.

With still lots of earnings to come this week, but reasonably unimportant, we really are awaiting the retail reports that begin in a couple of weeks.

Those may tell us something different from what last week’s GDP said about the consumer led economy.

The other thing that may have an influence this week is Friday’s Employment Situation Report.

Lately, there has been a really good argument for not releasing that data on a monthly basis as the variances have been staggering.

There’s probably no telling where the numbers may be on Friday, just as there’s no telling what the reaction would be to any strong number.

My guess is that the market would finally start treating good news as good news and bad news for what it really is.

A strong employment number may be the signal to investors that the interest rate increase we’ve been waiting for all year is going to happen sooner rather than later, and perhaps with enough time to even squeeze an additional one in before year’s end.

This week I have no  expiring positions and only 2 ex-dividend positions, so I would like to supplement those with some income producing moves.

I would have loved to have had the opportunity to continue with last week’s ability to sell calls on uncovered positions that haven’t been doing me any good, even as they may have been collected dividends.

But that wasn’t going to be the case today as the market traded in a fairly tight range and with no conviction at all.

What it did do was to continue the losing streak and continue to distance itself from the direction of oil prices.

So I ended up doing nothing today.

While I’m not against spending down any of my limited cash reserve, i would much prefer to make use of whatever has been sitting around and still have some hopes of that being the case tomorrow.

With some of those positions, I’m also not opposed to continuing to sell longer term dated calls in an effort to collect some additional premium and maybe an extra dividend or two.

Even as volatility is so very low, some of those positions offer the chance to wait for their continued rebounds while enhancing their returns.

Ultimately, I would like to see them get assigned and contribute to the cash pile, but for now I do enjoy their climb, even if only valued in paper.

.

Daily Market Update – August 1, 2016 (7:30 AM)

With August now getting ready to get underway, a quick look back shows that we’ve just come off 6 consecutive monthly moves higher.

That’s the case even as last week consisted of 5 consecutive losing days.

I didn’t mind that kind of a finish to July for a couple of reasons.

The first reason was that after the 9% run higher from the “Brexit” lows of barely a month ago, it was good to get some consolidation, even if it was minimal.

What is was, was orderly.

The other thing that really appealed to me is that the orderly decline came as oil had another bad week.

For stocks and oil to go their own ways hasn’t really been the story of 2016.

Sooner or later you had to believe that if oil prices were really being driven by supply excess in the face of reasonably healthy demand, that the market would move higher as oil moved lower.

Maybe that normal relationship can now begin and begin to take hold.

With still lots of earnings to come this week, but reasonably unimportant, we really are awaiting the retail reports that begin in a couple of weeks.

Those may tell us something different from what last week’s GDP said about the consumer led economy.

The other thing that may have an influence this week is Friday’s Employment Situation Report.

Lately, there has been a really good argument for not releasing that data on a monthly basis as the variances have been staggering.

There’s probably no telling where the numbers may be on Friday, just as there’s no telling what the reaction would be to any strong number.

My guess is that the market would finally start treating good news as good news and bad news for what it really is.

A strong employment number may be the signal to investors that the interest rate increase we’ve been waiting for all year is going to happen sooner rather than later, and perhaps with enough time to even squeeze an additional one in before year’s end.

This week I have no  expiring positions and only 2 ex-dividend positions, so I would like to supplement those with some income producing moves.

I would love to have the opportunity to continue with last week’s ability to sell calls on uncovered positions that haven’t been doing me any good, even as they may have been collected dividends.

While I’m not against spending down any of my limited cash reserve, i would much prefer to make use of whatever has been sitting around.

With some of those positions, I’m also not opposed to continuing to sell longer term dated calls in an effort to collect some additional premium and maybe an extra dividend or two.

Even as volatility is so very low, some of those positions offer the chance to wait for their continued rebounds while enhancing their returns.

Ultimately, I would like to see them get assigned and contribute to the cash pile, but for now I do enjoy their climb, even if only valued in paper.

.

Daily Market Update – July 29, 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: MRO (puts)

Rollovers: HPQ

Expirations:   MRO

The following were ex-dividend this week:   F (7/27 $0.15), MS (7/28 $0.20), KMI (7/29 $0.125)

The following are ex-dividend next week:   INTC (8/3 $0.26), BP (8/3 $0.595)

Trades, if any, will be attempted to be made prior to 3:30 PM ZEDT

.

Daily Market Update – July 28, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday the market did something differently.

It actually closed off from its highs of the day.

Those highs weren’t really any higher, but the market did rally after its knee jerk reaction to the FOMC’s non-action, but then in the final minutes of the day, the selling hit and the market ended the day just below the break-even line.

This morning there was nothing really on tap and the futures seemed to be reflecting that case. By the time today came to its end, the market was well off from its lows, but did retreat a little bit to finally close with a small loss signifying nothing.

With yesterday’s FOMC Statement release, the expectation is that there is less than an even chance of the FOMC finally finding a reason to raise rates in 2016.

This Friday there’s a GDP release and there could be a start to the kind of data that could move the FOMC into action.

What the FOMC did do a few months ago was to leave open the possibility that they could make a decision without having a regularly scheduled meeting required to do so.

That could mean August or at anytime between meeting as we now have 5 months left to go in 2016 and the expectations for multiple rate rises in 2016 have withered.

The expectation for the remainder of 2016 is that those expectations continue to be withered, although a single rate rise wouldn’t bring much back to life.

This morning markets continued to be flat as Facebook once again showed that it’s not ready to pick up the mantle once held by the likes of IBM, Microsoft and even Apple.

While Facebook was up strongly after last night’s earnings, it isn’t a stock to move markets, as the others once could.

For now, the earnings have been good enough, but it appears as oil is again taking center stage.

Since I have 2 oil positions expiring this week, I hope that the next  day does something to breathe a little bit of life back into oil.

Otherwise, it’s already time to start looking forward to the following week and hoping for even more opportunities to sell calls on some existing uncovered positions as was again the case offered yesterday.

More of that could make all of this worthwhile.

Being able to sell some more calls on another of the uncovered positions also made today a little more worthwhile, but I wasn’t able to get rollovers done for the two expiring oil positions.

Maybe tomorrow and if so, that will bring a good week to an even better end.

.

Daily Market Update – July 28, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Yesterday the market did something differently.

It actually closed off from its highs of the day.

Those highs were really any higher, but the market did rally after its knee jerk reaction to the FOMC’s non-action, but then in the final minutes of the day, the selling hit and the market ended the day just below the break-even line.

This morning there’s nothing really on tap and the futures seem to be reflecting that case.

With yesterday’s FOMC Statement release, the expectation is that there is less than an even chance of the FOMC finally finding a reason to raise rates in 2016.

This Friday there’s a GDP release and there could be a start to the kind of data that could move the FOMC into action.

What the FOMC did do a few months ago was to leave open the possibility that they could make a decision without having a regularly scheduled meeting required to do so.

That could mean August or at anytime between meeting as we now have 5 months left to go in 2016 and the expectations for multiple rate rises in 2016 have withered.

The expectation for the remainder of 2016 is that those expectations continue to be withered, although a single rate rise wouldn’t bring much back to life.

This morning markets continue to be flat as Facebook once again shows that it’s not ready to pick up the mantle once held by the likes of IBM, Microsoft and even Apple.

While Facebook is up strongly after last night’s earnings, it isn’t a stock to move markets, as the others once could.

For now, the earnings have been good enough, but it appears as oil is again taking center stage.

Since i have 2 oil positions expiring this week, i hope that the next 2 days do something to breathe a little bit of life back into oil.

Otherwise, it’s already time to start looking forward to the following week and hoping for even more opportunities to sell calls on some existing uncovered positions as was again the case offered yesterday.

More of that could make all of this worthwhile.

.

Daily Market Update – July 27, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday was one of those days that optimists could point at and say that as the market was hovering around its all time highs, and was able to again close well off from its intra-day lows, shows consolidation and strength.

That could be the case, as Monday was the same, despite ending up with a loss.

That was also the case as the market was reacting to the actual “Brexit” voting.

For me it was just another in a long series of 2016 days without any trading, but with those complaints tempered by a look at the bottom line which has a number of positions clawing back from their disappointing behavior in 2015.

As the record high level of the markets gets increasingly precarious, even as a base may slowly be forming, there is also increasing desire to either want to exit some positions, even if ROIs may not be anything to brag about, or at least secure some additional ROI by selling calls, collecting dividends and waiting out some actual profit on the underlying shares.

For too many positions that has been a frustratingly low proposition. The moves higher in individual positions that are still underwater are greeted by a mix of greed and hope on my part.

In those cases, even being able to close out some of those positions at a breakeven would secure a very good 2016, but still wouldn’t necessarily create an environment of more trading opportunities.

At these levels there may be more energy in positions that haven’t kept up the pace but may become attractive to others looking for the rare undiscovered gems among other positions thought to be too pricey.

Did I mention hope?

Additionally, with a portfolio still overweight energy positions, the recent decline in oil prices hasn’t taken a toll on the bottom line.

As analysts are calling for about another 10% decline in the price of oil after having already had a 10% drop in just a couple of weeks, I look at it as portending a move higher, sooner rather than later.

That’s pretty much how things work out.

Usually the siren calls come right before the inflection.

If that’s the case, I expect continued outperformance.

So I was happy to sit and await today’s FOMC Statement release and then Friday’s GDP.

The bad news is that the market, although recovering from a brief sell off after the announcement actually declined quite a bit in the final 30 minutes to end the day unchanged and people scratching their heads about where the theme resided today.

There was none, if you were also wondering.

The good news is that I did find an opportunity to sell calls on another uncovered position before it, like so many other stocks today reversed course and took opportunity along with it.

With only a handful of positions set to expire this week and 2 of them energy positions, I hope that some stability returns this week and along with it some more trading, too. 

But at this point, I’m pleased with having had some ex-dividend positions and a couple of new call sales and still some hopes of either rollovers or assignments within the next 2 days.

.

Daily Market Update – July 27, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Yesterday was one of those days that optimists could point at and say that as the market was hovering around its all time highs, and was able to again close well off from its intra-day lows, shows consolidation and strength.

That could be the case, as Monday was the same, despite ending up with a loss.

That was also the case as the market was reacting to the actual “Brexit” voting.

For me it was just another in a long series of 2016 days without any trading, but with those complaints tempered by a look at the bottom line which has a number of positions clawing back from their disappointing behavior in 2015.

As the record high level of the markets gets increasingly precarious, even as a base may slowly be forming, there is also increasing desire to either want to exit some positions, even if ROIs may not be anything to brag about, or at least secure some additional ROI by selling calls, collecting dividends and waiting out some actual profit on the underlying shares.

For too many positions that has been a frustratingly low proposition. The moves higher in individual positions that are still underwater are greeted by a mix of greed and hope on my part.

In those cases, even being able to close out some of those positions at a breakeven would secure a very good 2016, but still wouldn’t necessarily create an environment of more trading opportunities.

At these levels there may be more energy in positions that haven’t kept up the pace but may become attractive to others looking for the rare undiscovered gems among other positions thought to be too pricey.

Did I mention hope?

Additionally, with a portfolio still overweight energy positions, the recent decline in oil prices hasn’t taken a toll on the bottom line.

As analysts are calling for about another 10% decline in the price of oil after having already had a 10% drop in just a couple of weeks, I look at it as portending a move higher, sooner rather than later.

That’s pretty much how things work out.

Usually the siren calls come right before the inflection.

If that’s the case, I expect continued outperformance.

So I’m happy to sit and await today’s FOMC Statement release and Friday’s GDP.

With only a handful of positions set to expire this week and 2 of them energy positions, I hope that some stability returns this week and along with it some trading, too.

.

Daily Market Update – July 26, 2016 (Close)

Since the day or two after the Brexit vote, there have been very few attempts at a triple digit loss, much less an actual triple digit loss.

Yesterday was an attempt at one, but the market, just as it did during those Brexit lows, finished the day well off from its lows.

For optimists, that’s always a good sign and it definitely worked out that way more than a month ago, the last time there were any cumulative declines. Every day in the string of declines ended up well off from the intra-day lows.

This morning, there didn’t seem to be any follow through brewing, but then again, not much of anything was brewing as markets were flat.

The impetus may again be coming from oil, which was weak yesterday and was weak again today as oil was now well below its near term high and comfortably below the $50 level.

As it would turn out, and maybe it was coincidence, much like the near daily coincidences we saw for about the first 6 months of the year, but as oil turned around today and headed higher, the market did, as well.

And so, today, just like yesterday, the close well well off from its lows.

Again, a good sign, especially with some earnings news that hit after the closing bell that could have some carry through tomorrow.

As we await tomorrow’s FOMC Statement release and Friday’s GDP, even as earnings are now pouring in, oil may be returning as the principal story leading the market higher or lower.

I didn’t part with any cash yesterday and was willing to do so today if there were some further price declines, but they weren’t really there or large enough.

I’d have been happy for a repeat of Monday and would have taken any opportunity to sell some calls on uncovered positions, even if tying them up for a few months would be welcome.

After having some of those positions sitting and wallowing for months without generating any premiums, what’s another few months?

Slowly, the number of uncovered positions is being whittled down, but there are still far too many.

It will likely take some continued market moves higher and sustained ones. at that, to see the majority of those positions become performing ones, but I always remain as optimistic as those who look at the day’s trading action at the market’s close.

So my expectation was for another quiet day on the personal level as it looked as there was little reason for the market to be anything but busy today and there just wasn’t much reason for trading swings to pick up as the week progresses, unless the FOMC pulls a surprise or the GDP stuns.

Even Apple’s nice jump in the after hours may be nice, but not really the sort of thing to pull the market higher.

At this point, I think an FOMC surprise would send markets lower and a GDP surprise to the upside would send markets higher.

But, that would mean that there’s some role for logic and logic tells us that’s rarely the case.