Category: Daily Market Update

Daily Market Update – December 16, 2014 (8:30 AM)

While our stock market has been struggling at a time when logic would have it thriving, except for the energy sector, it has been going lower and lower, as energy prices continue to decline and take all stocks along for the ride.

Thus far, though, the overall decline is about 4%, although depending on an individual portfolio’s exposure to oil and commodities, it can be much more. The declines in the energy sector have been absolutely stunning and sudden and there’s no indication of when they end is at hand.

The longest period of declining energy prices in the last 30 years lasted for about 2 years and took oil prices down by 50%. Interestingly, energy stocks didn’t stay in their funk anywhere near that long, starting their recovery at the 4 month period.

Additionally, the most steep decline was just 6 years ago, going from $133 to $41 over a period of 6 months.

Yesterday, at least for a little while it appeared as if there would be some bounce from the past Friday’s 300+ point loss, but that disappeared, then came back and then disappeared again, ending just a hair shy of another triple digit loss.

That’s volatility and it appeared to be related to a reversal in oil, which had shown some stability early in the session and then went on to rack up even more losses.

But that volatility was just a prelude to that seen in this morning’s early futures trading, as oil was again lower. The difference is that it probably wasn’t what drove the market to change its course.

This morning the very early futures trading was indicating a moderate advance and then suddenly turned around.

It did so as the aftermath of the Bank of Russia’s move to raise its key interest rate by 650 bps overnight, bringing the rate up to 17%, reminiscent of the late 1970s in the US.

What happened afterward, and which spooked the market was another plunge inthe Ruble, adding onto yesterday’s large devaluation against the US Dollar. This morning, and it’s a rapidly changing picture, the Ruble is down to an exchange rate approaching 75 per USD, almost reaching 80 at one point, having stabilized yesterday at 60, despite massive Russian intervention.

For those that remember the late 1990s, before the dot com bubble was the Russian Ruble Crisis, which is eerily reminiscent of what may be unfolding right now. During what what also known as “The Russian Flu,” the S&P 500 dropped nearly 20% in less than 2 months, but was fully recovered about 3 months after those lows.

Probably not too coincid
entally, the price of oil had dropped by nearly 50% from 1996 to 1998 and the recovery from that “flu” only began as oil prices started climbing.

This morning’s news and events represent another hurdle, but as the morning progressed heading into the opening bell the selling was moderating and hopefully some sanity and even more importantly, buyers, will re-appear and snap up what they believe to be bargains.

I, for one, would be grateful if that turns out to be the case, but am certainly not looking to lighten up on energy stocks, which are the very definition of what being cyclical is all about.

Daily Market Update – December 15, 2014 (Close)

It’s hard to remember when a single story has been so influential for so long, to the point of almost knocking everything else out of everyone’s mind.

Crimea, Greece, government shutdown’s, sequestration and so much more, but they weren’t very lasting and over-powering kinds of stories that caused the market to succumb to those stories to the complete exclusion of everything else.

The price of oil continues to be the sole focus of attention during a season when the primary focus is on holiday retail sales. While we’ve seen price declines in the past, it seems as if the discussion is typically around price increases and we tend to shrug it off when those happen, as there is often a positive impact on the stock market when energy prices are increasing.

So far, we’ve been waiting for the logical outcome of sharply lower prices but haven’t seen any increase in stocks and aren’t yet hearing of any increases in consumer discretionary spending, which could single-handedly rescue the holiday shopping season and be the tonic that the market is looking for.

This week, as the pre-open futures was mid-way through its trading, appeared as if it was going to recover some of this past Friday’s large decline which saw last week ending up being the worst in more than 2 years, with the S&P 500 going 3.5% lower, as it was a lot more than the energy sector that felt the pain.

For a while after te opening bell it looked as if that would be the way the market would trade, but as oil reversed and headed lower, so too did the market. Another attempt to rally from there went nowhere and the market just finished lower again, unable to escape from the “good news” of lower energy prices.

With no assignments last week and a large number of positions set to expire this week, which also marks the end of the December 2014 cycle, I didn’t anticipate being very active in pursuing new positions. The past 6 weeks have seen an average of 3 new positions each week and although that represents a low threshold, I don’t know if even that will be met, as my focus will be very much centered on trying to steer this week’s expiring positions toward assignment or rollover. WIth only General Electric added today the week got off to a slow start, as even the oils, which looked appealing for a while, turned out to be anything but appealing, as they lost traction quickly.

Last week it turned out to have been fortunate to have rolled over a number of positions early in the week rather than waiting for the more common timing of Thursday or Friday. There may again be reason to consider early rollovers this week, as there is an end of the year FOMC Statement release and a follow up pres conference by Janet Yellen.

The former has been a non-event in the past two months, while the press conference usually offers some kind of relief rally.

The ques
tion at hand this week is whether the FOMC will finally drop the “considerable time” wording in the statement which would mean that interest rate hikes are coming sooner, rather than later.In the short term, news o such an increase, although expected, would likely lead to some selling, as higher rates aren’t the best thing for stocks. However, in the longer term any increase would be tiny and there’s no reason to expect incremental increases, as seen during the Greenspan era.

Recent data, however, don’t give any reason to believe that inflation is coming our way, although the drop in energy prices could be just the impetus to see a significant increase in GDP. However, the FOMC is supposed to be data driven rather than persuaded by theoretical events, so it should be a surprise to see a change in the phrasing, especially after last week’s PPI data was released.

As the market was momentarily looking to get the week off to a more optimistic start than which it ended last week, the aim early on was to find any opportunity to sell new calls or simply generate some income from positions that aren’t likely to be assigned. The optimism didn’t last very long and not too much was done, other than a sale of LuLuLemon calls, taking a longer term view.

Although the pre-open futures was heading higher and taking volatility lower before trading began, the increase in volatility over the past two weeks may continue to offer some opportunity to still look at expanded option expirations in an effort to keep the diversification in expiration dates going, without giving up too much in premium.in exchange for locking in more than a week of coverage.

The hope that oil prices would follow the morning’s recovery and find some stable level turned out to be a wasted one and any reason for the market itself to regain some stability and maybe even optimism will have to wait yet another day.

It would, however, take lots of that optimism to restore this December to the kind of December that most people have come to expect and the opportunities are getting less and less.

Daily Market Update – December 15, 2014 (8:30 AM)

It’s hard to remember when a single story has been so influential for so long, to the point of almost knocking everything else out of everyone’s mind.

Crimea, Greece, government shutdown’s, sequestration and so much more, but they weren’t very lasting and over-powering kinds of stories that caused the market to succumb to those stories to the complete exclusion of everything else.

The price of oil continues to be the sole focus of attention during a season when the primary focus is on holiday retail sales. While we’ve seen price declines in the past, it seems as if the discussion is typically around price increases and we tend to shrug it off when those happen, as there is often a positive impact on the stock market when energy prices are increasing.

So far, we’ve been waiting for the logical outcome of sharply lower prices but haven’t seen any increase in stocks and aren’t yet hearing of any increases in consumer discretionary spending, which could single-handedly rescue the holiday shopping season and be the tonic that the market is looking for.

This week, as the pre-open futures is mid-way through its trading, appears as if it is going to recover some of this past Friday’s large decline which saw last week ending up being the worst in more than 2 years, with the S&P 500 going 3.5% lower, as it was a lot more than the energy sector that felt the pain.

With no assignments last week and a large number of positions set to expire this week, which also marks the end of the December 2014 cycle, I don’t anticipate being very active in pursuing new positions. The past 6 weeks have seen an average of 3 new positions each week and although that represents a low threshold, I don’t know if even that will be met, as my focus will be very much centered on trying to steer this week’s expiring positions toward assignment or rollover.

Last week it turned out to have been fortunate to have rolled over a number of positions early in the week rather than waiting for the more common timing of Thursday or Friday. There may again be reason to consider early rollovers this week, as there is an end of the year FOMC Statement release and a follow up pres conference by Janet Yellen.

The former has been a non-event in the past two months, while the press conference usually offers some kind of relief rally.

The question at hand this week is whether the FOMC will finally drop the “considerable time” wording in the statement which would mean that interest rate hikes are coming sooner, rather than later.In the short term, news o such an increase, although expected, would likely lead to some selling, as higher rates aren’t the best thing for stocks. However, in the longer term any increase would be tiny and there’s no reason to expect incremental increases, as seen during the Greenspan era.

Recent data, however, don’t give any reason to believe that inflation is coming our way, although the drop in energy prices could be just the impetus to see a significant increase in GDP. However, the FOMC is supposed to be data driven rather than persuaded by theoretical events, so it should be a surprise to see a change in the phrasing, especially after last week’s PPI data was released.

As the market may get the week off to a more optimistic start than which it ended last week, the aim will be to find any opportunity to sell new calls or simply generate some income from positions that aren’t likely to be assigned.

Although the pre-open futures is heading higher and taking volatility lower, the increase in volatility over the past two weeks may offer some opportunity to still look at expanded option expirations in an effort to keep the diversification in expiration dates going, without giving up too much in premium.in exchange for locking in more than a week of coverage.

Hopefully oil prices will follow the morning’s recovery and find some stable level. That could provide some reason for the market itself to regain some stability and maybe even optimism. It would, however, take lots of that optimism to restore this December to the kind of December that most people have come to expect.

Daily Market Update – December 12, 2014 (9:00 AM)

The Week in Review will be posted by 6 PM and the Weekend Uopdate will be posted by Noon on Sunday.

The following outcomes are possible today:

Assignments: none

Rollovers: AZN, MOS

Expirations: DOW, GME, LULU, LVS, TMUS

The following were ex-dividend this week: GM (12/8 $0.30).

The following will be ex-dividend next week: LVS (12/16 $0.50)

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

Daily Market Update – December 11, 2014 (Close)

Yesterday was just an awful day and unlike the previous day, there was no attempt to recover from the depth of the loss at any point.

It was another day that seemed to be directly related to oil, but this time it wasn’t just the quantity of the price, it was also the quality.

While oil fell sharply again that may not have been as important as the suggestion that the declines we’ve been seeing, which most everyone attributed to rising supply, may actually, in part, be due to falling demand from China and elsewhere around the globe.

That puts a new wrinkle on things.

Up until yesterday’s quip by the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister, the conventional thinking had been that the price declines were all the result of increasing supply. That would have meant that declining oil was the result of good things, as opposed to a decreased demand, which is a bad thing.

While there have been so many questions as to whether the decrease in oil pricing would be good for our economy and markets, it would be hard to predict the outcome if the drop had been due to increasing supply, since we have had so little experience with that phenomenon.

But we do have experience with what happens when price drops as a result of decreased demand.

Fortunately, it appears that it’s really not a US problem of increasing demand. It may be a world-wide problem that has bypassed us and will likely be of great benefit to our economy and absent the energy sector, should be a great boost to the bottom lines of businesses.

While it certainly makes Chinese related investments suddenly appear more risky, it may also mean even more focus and investment in US stocks and companies, as we may be the most vibrant and growing economy among the major economies in the world.

That, though, is still a more long term kind of outlook. For now we’re stuck in a whirlpool with oil prices and the energy sector sucking the life out of everything.

While me may gloat a little about some weakness in China the fact is that US businesses are so highly dependent on China and its continued growth. As a nation we are also dependent on their demand for our debt issuances.  A decrease in demand for Treasuries could easily start the upward climb in interest rates.

While it may not be a bad thing to see some moderate increase in rates you would much rather see those increases come from a heating up of the economy and upward pressure on wages and prices, rather than because of decreased demand for debt.

This morning the November Retail Sales report was released and expectations, ex-auto, were for a nice increase in sales. That was the case as the morning’s tiny advance in the pre-op
ening futures really could have used the type of boost that the Retail Sales report ended up providing, especially since there wasn’t much of a reflex bounce from yesterday’s 1.6% decline.

With a couple of rollovers yesterday, there was a little less pressure as the week comes to its close, but there is still some opportunity for some more rollovers and assignments as we head into next week’s close to the monthly cycle.

Just not today, though, but a repeat of today’s trading, even well off its highs for the day would be a nice way to end the week and even more.

I would certainly like to see 2015 get off to a good start and a good end to this week could start to offset the prevalent weakness that oil has spawned

Daily Market Update – December 11, 2014 (7:30 AM)

Yesterday was just an awful day and unlike the previous day, there was no attempt to recover from the depth of the loss at any point.

It was another day that seemed to be directly related to oil, but this time it wasn’t just the quantity of the price, it was also the quality.

While oil fell sharply again that may not have been as important as the suggestion that the declines we’ve been seeing, which most everyone attributed to rising supply, may actually, in part, be due to falling demand from China and elsewhere around the globe.

That puts a new wrinkle on things.

Up until yesterday’s quip by the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister, the conventional thinking had been that the price declines were all the result of increasing supply. That would have meant that declining oil was the result of good things, as opposed to a decreased demand, which is a bad thing.

While there have been so many questions as to whether the decrease in oil pricing would be good for our economy and markets, it would be hard to predict the outcome if the drop had been due to increasing supply, since we have had so little experience with that phenomenon.

But we do have experience with what happens when price drops as a result of decreased demand.

Fortunately, it appears that it’s really not a US problem of increasing demand. It may be a world-wide problem that has bypassed us and will likely be of great benefit to our economy and absent the energy sector, should be a great boost to the bottom lines of businesses.

While it certainly makes Chinese related investments suddenly appear more risky, it may also mean even more focus and investment in US stocks and companies, as we may be the most vibrant and growing economy among the major economies in the world.

That, though, is still a more long term kind of outlook. For now we’re stuck in a whirlpool with oil prices and the energy sector sucking the life out of everything.

While me may gloat a little about some weakness in China the fact is that US businesses are so highly dependent on China and its continued growth. As a nation we are also dependent on their demand for our debt issuances.  A decrease in demand for Treasuries could easily start the upward climb in interest rates.

While it may not be a bad thing to see some moderate increase in rates you would much rather see those increases come from a heating up of the economy and upward pressure on wages and prices, rather than because of decreased demand for debt.

This morning the November Retail Sales report is released and expectations, ex-auto, are for a nice increase in sales. Hopefully that will be the case as the morning’s tiny advance in the pre-ope
ning futures could really use a boost, as there is no reflex bounce from yesterday’s 1.6% decline in the works, otherwise.

With a couple of rollovers yesterday, there is a little less pressure as the week comes to its close, but there is still some opportunity for some more rollovers and assignments as we head into next week’s close to the monthly cycle.

I would certainly like to see 2015 get off to a good start and a robust Retail Sales report could help to offset the prevalent weakness that oil has spawned

Daily Market Update – December 10, 2014 (Close)

Yesterday was an impressive kind of day.

Today was not, although it followed the same early path.

The market deterioration yesterday started fairly suddenly in the pre-opening futures about an hour before the open of trading, but came to a relatively abrupt halt in the early afternoon as the market had fallen more than 200 points.

Today that halt was missing.

There wasn’t very much reason for the fall, as the news that had been blamed was already many hours old and pointed toward China. Neither was there much reason for the turnaround. Not even technicians could come up with a reason to explain the move, even if they squinted really, really hard at their charts.

The JOLT Survey, which everyone was now believing had newfound importance, was a non-event and so no fingers could be pointed at it for moving the market as it had done in the previous month.

Oil actually showed some stability yesterday and maybe that played some role in re-introducing some strength into the market, if you’re the kind of person that really needs an explanation for why things happened, even if that explanation isn’t necessarily correct or accurate.

Today, however, that theory of the role of oil was put to a test as the Petroleum Status Report was released.

For me, that mid-morning Wednesday report is usually a yawner, but it may take on some new significance as inventory builds or draws may have greater impact on the overall market as long as oil continues being an area of focus.

As it would turn out, it’s hard to say whether today’s inventory news sparked broad weakness, as by the time the figures were released there was already some weakness and it didn’t really accelerate until about 3 hours later.

It was just a bad day with energy being the worst among a lot of very bad sectors.

This morning, before the market’s open, everything other than oil was just treading water. Stocks, precious metals and interest rates all seemed to either be taking a breather from yesterday or waiting to see where oil prices may be heading after the Petroleum Status Report release.

With a surprise trade that added shares of Dow Chemical yesterday, when the morning was set to begin, I didn’t believe that I’d be adding any more this week. That was an under-statement. With today’s real drag on oil and the further drag on anything remotely oil related, Dow Chemical went along for the ride, as well. and what seemed like a bargain yesterday is now even more of a bargain, but with fewer takers.

For those that follow volatility, yesterday was a day that saw some nice bounces in it, reflecting what the market itself was doing. From an incredibly low level, volatility is up nearly 30%
in less than a week, but still far below where it had been just 2 months ago. In fact, it would have to climb another 100% to get to those levels which were also fairly low, but at least at acceptable levels for trading.

It did, however, climb more than 25% more today, so we’re getting there.

What would be a nice impact of maybe even marginally increasing volatility would be some return of volume to the option market. That sparse volume has made it very challenging to get trades done, especially since it has also created a greater schism between motivated buyers and sellers, creating bigger bid and ask spreads than I recall ever seeing.

With the volatility rising today it was somewhat easier to get some rollovers executed.

For today, I expected that like most Wednesdays it would be a quiet day, however, it was nice to get the opportunity to execute some rollovers early, especially as it would turn out that prices really deteriorated as the afternoon wore on and on.

Tomorrow will be interesting as no one can stop looking at oil and still debating what kind of an impact lower prices will have on the economy and the stock market. Sooner or later supply and demand dynamics will begin to stabilize prices and when that happens you can be reasonably assured that there will be an over-reaction on the buying side of the equation that has so far taken the energy sector down about 40%

Daily Market Update – December 10, 2014 (8:30 AM)

Yesterday was an impressive kind of day.

The market deterioration started fairly suddenly in the pre-opening futures about an hour before the open of trading, but came to a relatively abrupt halt in the early afternoon as the market had fallen more than 200 points.

There wasn’t very much reason for the fall, as the news that had been blamed was already many hours old and pointed toward China. Neither was there much reason for the turnaround. Not even technicians could come up with a reason to explain the move, even if they squinted really, really hard at their charts.

The JOLT Survey, which everyone was now believing had newfound importance, was a non-event and so no fingers could be pointed at it for moving the market as it had done in the previous month.

Oil actually showed some stability yesterday and maybe that played some role in re-introducing some strength into the market, if you’re the kind of person that really needs an explanation for why things happened, even if that explanation isn‘t necessarily correct or accurate.

Today, however, that theory of the role of oil may be put to a test as the Petroleum Status Report is released.

For me, that mid-morning Wednesday report is usually a yawner, but it may take on some new significance as inventory builds or draws may have greater impact on the overall market as long as oil continues being an area of focus.

This morning, before the market’s open, everything other than oil is just treading water. Stocks, precious metals and interest rates all seem to either be taking a breather from yesterday or waiting to see where oil prices may be heading after the Petroleum Status Report release.

With a surprise trade that added shares of Dow Chemical yesterday, now I really don’t believe that I’ll be adding any more this week, instead trying to direct efforts toward rollovers and assignments. However, just as the Dow Chemical purchase was a surprise, I suppose there could be more possible.

For those that follow volatility, yesterday was a day that saw some nice bounces in it, reflecting what the market itself was doing. From an incredibly low level, volatility is up nearly 30% in less than a week, but still far below where it had been just 2 months ago. In fact, it would have to climb another 100% to get to those levels which were also fairly low, but at least at acceptable levels for trading.

What would be a nice impact of maybe even marginally increasing volatility would be some return of volume to the option market. That sparse volume has made it very challenging to get trades done, especially since it has also created a greater schism between motivated buyers and sellers, creating bigger bid and ask spreads than I recall ever seeing.

For today, I expect that like most Wednesdays it will be a quiet week, however, I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to execute some rollovers early, if possible. I did try to do that with Joy Global yesterday, but it was one of those stocks that just had such a wide bid and ask range and non-existent volume. Maybe that will change as Friday draws to its close, but lately that has only been the case in the last 10 minutes or so of Friday’s trading, right before the options are set to expire and suddenly the spreads become a little more realistic, at least for the in the money strikes.

Otherwise, it may simply be a day of watching and wondering in what remains to be a very quiet news week once 10:30 AM has passed.

Daily Market Update – December 9, 2014 (Close)

Yesterday was not a terribly good way to begin the week as it looks as if continuing weakness in oil started to drag lots of things down in an indiscriminate way.

There’s some speculation that the weakness in oil has started creating margin calls and causing people to sell some of the year’s winners in order to meet those calls.

Who knows, but if so, that just demonstrates another risk associated with margin, especially as taxes may be related.

If I had to choose between selling a big winner, even if subject to short term capital gains, I would much rather try to do it in a little more than 3 weeks and get an additional year to have to pay taxes than to incur the liability now.

Today was likely to be another day of focusing on oil and retail sales. With the oil discussion being so paramount, retail has actually taken a back seat from its usual prominence heading into the final weeks of the year.

This morning, at least, there seemed to be a little respite to the decline in oil futures, but the US Futures were trading moderately lower, and then they plunged for no discernible reason just prior to 8 AM, continuing yesterday’s weakness.

The final close for the day was far better than was seen in the late morning when the DJIA was down over 200 points.

While yesterday so many focused on the weakness seen in Exxon, Chevron and McDonalds as explaining the decline in the DJIA, the decline was so much more broad than that, as there was so much more red than green on the screens.

This morning, before the official bell, it wasn’t looking anywhere near as onerous as yesterday’s colors indicated, with lots more green showing before trading started, even with the sudden early morning drop.  Even the oil stocks were showing some small gains, for now, which isn’t too bad considering that the overall market was and then continued pointing much lower.

With a couple of purchases yesterday I wasn’t certain if there would be any more to come for the week, although some of yesterday’s declines really seemed inappropriate.

One of those was Dow Chemical, which was just assigned last week. for example and is getting unduly punished, probably because of its relatively small position in a Kuwaiti oil venture.

The one thing that is certain is that while there is already talk of some of the major oils cutting their dividends to deal with the sudden decrease in cash flow, that’s not too likely to be the case with Dow Chemical and so it would be expected to hold share price better against any continuing onslaught.

Ultimately, it was just too difficult to resist the logic of getting back into Dow Chemical at a price lower
than shares were assigned just a  couple of days ago.

While the focus today was certain to continue on oil and retail, there may have been a little diversion at 10 AM, when the JOLT Survey was released.

That was a little regarded report until about a month or two ago when Janet Yellen said she paid attention to it, as it represented optimism among those already in the workforce, by virtue of those people willing to take the risk of leaving their jobs for better paying ones. That certainly hasn’t been the case for the previous 5 years, but now as employment is rising, so too may the quality of the jobs being offered.

While people still debate whether lower energy prices are good for the economy, there’s not too much doubt that more jobs and better paying jobs are good for the economy and ultimately good for retailers and consumer goods.

But instead, we reverted back to not caring about JOLTS today. Maybe the initial shock of seeing the market down so much was enough for one day.

If you’re heavily weighted in energy, as I am, you may not be following the logic, as your personal economy now would much rather see something of a return of energy prices to the kind of levels that would drag share prices higher. I think I can do more shopping and spending if oil prices were higher, although at the moment I’d be happy for some kind of a compromise.

Maybe today will be the start of that equilibrium between price at the pump and price at the NYSE, but it may take much more than a day to have any confidence that is going to be the case.

Daily Market Update – December 9, 2014 (8:00 AM)

Yesterday was not a terribly good way to begin the week as it looks as if continuing weakness in oil started to drag lots of things down.

There’s some speculation that the weakness in oil has started creating margin calls and causing people to sell some of the year’s winners in order to meet those calls.

Who knows, but if so, that just demonstrates another risk associated with margin, especially as taxes may be related.

If I had to choose between selling a big winner, even if subject to short term capital gains, I would much rather try to do it in a little more than 3 weeks and get an additional year to have to pay taxes than to incur the liability now.

Today is likely to be another day of focusing on oil and retail sales. With the oil discussion being so paramount, retail has actually taken a back seat from its usual prominence heading into the final weeks of the year.

This morning, at least, there may be a little respite to the decline in oil futures, but the US Futures were trading moderately lower, and then they plunged for no discernible reason just prior to 8 AM, continuing yesterday’s weakness.

While yesterday so many focused on the weakness seen in Exxon, Chevron and McDonalds as explaining the decline in the DJIA, the decline was so much more broad than that, as there was so much more red than green on the screens.

This morning, before the official bell, it’s not looking anywhere near as onerous as yesterday’s colors indicated, with lots more green showing, for now, even with the sudden early morning drop.  Even the oil stocks are showing some small gains, for now, which isn’t too bad considering that the overall market is pointing much lower.

With a couple of purchases yesterday I’m not certain if there will be any more to come for the week, although some of yesterday’s declines really seemed inappropriate.

One of those was Dow Chemical, which was just assigned last week. for example and is getting unduly punished, probably because of its relatively small position in a Kuwaiti oil venture.

The one thing that is certain is that while there is already talk of some of the major oils cutting their dividends to deal with the sudden decrease in cash flow, that’s not too likely to be the case with Dow Chemical and so it would be expected to hold share price better against any continuing onslaught.

While the focus today will continue on oil and retail, there may be a little diversion at 10 AM, when the JOLT Survey is released.

That was a little regarded report until about a month or two ago when Janet Yellen said she paid atten
tion to it, as it represented optimism among those already in the workforce, by virtue of those people willing to take the risk of leaving their jobs for better paying ones. That certainly hasn’t been the case for the previous 5 years, but now as employment is rising, so too may the quality of the jobs being offered.

While people still debate whether lower energy prices are good for the economy, there’s not too much doubt that more jobs and better paying jobs are good for the economy and ultimately good for retailers and consumer goods.

If you’re heavily weighted in energy, as I am, you may not be following the logic, as your personal economy now would much rather see something of a return of energy prices to the kind of levels that would drag share prices higher. I think I can do more shopping and spending if oil prices were higher, although at the moment I’d be happy for some kind of a compromise.

Maybe today will be the start of that equilibrium between price at the pump and price at the NYSE, but it may take much more than a day to have any confidence that is going to be the case.