Weekend Update – October 2, 2016

Jim Carrey made, what was by most accounts, a truly putrid move entitled “The Number 23.”

At its heart was the “23 enigma,” which is the belief that most of life’s events and incidents are somehow related to the number 23.

For example, you liked how that new sweater fit on you? The number 23.

Need more proof? The burning of Joan of Arc? The number 23.

While those may be disputable to non-believers, this was certainly the week validating the 17 enigma.

Interestingly, the great director Alfred Hitchcock made a movie entitled “The Number 17,” which is regarded among his worst and is rarely ever screened.

This past week, however, the number 17 may have been the key to five days of indecisive trading that saw triple digit moves each day, only to see the S&P 500 end the week with a 0.2% movement.

What the past week gave us were 17 separate occasions during the week when members of the Federal Reserve gave scheduled presentations.

17 is a prime number.

The prime rate is based on the federal funds rate, which is set by the FOMC and their actions or inactions have been ruling markets for months.

Do you really need any more proof than that?

If you do not, that turns out to be very fortunate, but there’s not too much doubt that it has become a free for all in terms of getting one’s interest rate opinion out in front of as many people as possible.  

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Weekend Update – September 11, 2016

Sometimes you just get blindsided and even hindsight is inadequate in explaining what just happened.

There’s very little reason to ever get hit in the face, as human instinct is to protect that vulnerable piece of anatomy.

Yet, sometimes there’s a complete absence of anticipation or lack of preparation for fast, unfolding events.

Sometimes you just get lulled into a sense of security and take your eye off events surrounding you.

Granted, sometimes your inattention helps you to avoid doing the logical thing and missing out on something wonderful, but more often than not, there is a price to be paid for inattention.

When I first started writing a blog. there was a 417 point decline in the DJIA on the third day of that blog.

That was in 2007 when 417 points actually stood for something.

This past Friday’s nearly 400 point decline was minimal, by comparison.

Back in 2007, the culprit for the decline was a nearly 9% drop in the Chinese stock market. It was easy to connect the dots and honestly, you had to see some collapse coming in that market, at that time, as most everyone was beginning to openly question the veracity, validity and credibility of economic and corporate reports coming from China.

I suppose that there was some kind of identifiable culprit this past Friday, as well, but after a very quiet and protracted period following the recovery from the “Brexit” sell-off, there was little reason to suspect that it would happen on Friday.

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Weekend Update – July 17, 2016

 

Stock market investing is all about risk and reward and sometimes you do have to stick your neck out.

There is no reward without risk.

It’s sort of like those who say that you will never understand happiness without having experienced sadness.

My preference, however, it to simply experience varying levels of happiness and to ignore anything that might detract anything from the lowest level of happiness.

I ignore lots of things, much to the consternation of those around me.

But I ignore that consternation.

The same thing isn’t really possible with investing as not only is happiness so often of a very temporary nature and fleeting, the only way to avoid risk right now is to look at bonds or your mattress and those carry lots of opportunity risk.

Also, there’s a big difference between the qualitative feel of personal happiness and the quantitative nature of investing.

In other words, instead of being a giraffe, you would have to be an ostrich, although the ostrich is actually doing something of value when their head is below ground.

So you do have to stick your neck out if your happiness is defined in the form of stock gains.

I wasn’t very happy in 2015, but am very happy with 2016, to date.

Much of that has to do with the fact that the very stocks that disappointed me in 2015 are the ones delighting in 2016, even as they still have lots to do to erase the stink of 2015.

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Weekend Update – July 10, 2016

 I still have a fascination with license plates and the bumper stickers put on their cars.

The license plate thing these days is more geared toward trying to decipher the message contained on someone’s vanity plates.

That often takes a combination of having a very open mind as to the intended grouping of letters and numbers and to the message.

Of course, the exercise isn’t complete until then driving past the car driver and either giving them a thumbs up or a shoulder shrug.

The bumper sticker thing is more just a question of reading and then trying to imagine what the person in the car will look like once going past them.

For example, in my experience, those with the “Choose Civility” bumper sticker tend to be very rude drivers, but they don’t look rude.

What both fascinations have in common is that as I get older, the distance that I need to get within range to be able to read the plates and the bumper stickers is increasingly getting smaller and smaller.

That brings some danger, but sometimes it’s really hard to resist.

When I say “sometimes,” I mean that I can never resist and it is the reason that my wife won’t let me drive when we’re together.

I need to be within range.

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Weekend Update – July 3, 2016

We often have an odd way of accepting someone’s decision to change their mind.

A change of mind is frequently thought to be a sign of a poorly conceived conviction or a poorly conceived initial position.

Few politicians change their minds because they know that they will be assailed for weakness or for having caved in, as opposed to having given careful and objective thought to a complex topic.

Of course, then there’s also the issue of a politician changing their mind simply for political expediency or political advantage.

That kind of distasteful behavior, although perhaps pragmatic, just stokes our cynicism.

We sometimes get upset at a child’s frequent changes of mind and want to instill some consistency that ultimately stifles ongoing thought and assessment.

At the same time, as parents, we are often faced with alternating opinions as to whether we need to be consistent in application and formulation of the rules we set or whether there should be some ability to make the rules a living entity that is responsive to events and circumstances.

When I was a child, I attended a “Yeshiva,” which is a Jewish version of a parochial school. We were taught to abide by Biblical laws, include the law regarding Kosher foods.

One day, when I was about 10 years old, I found a package of ham in our refrigerator and confronted my mother about the blatant violation of a sacred rule.

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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.

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Weekend Update – May 8, 2016

Depending upon how concrete you are in interpreting the meaning of the concept of “the circle of life,” the beginning and the end of that circle must be identical events as their points in space are coincident.

Various religions and philosophies believe that through a certain life path, another life awaits, but the rigorous requirements of geometry may be put aside in the process.

It’s also not clear that there had been any data dependency in the formulation of the philosophical concept.

Life, death and re-birth almost reads like a stock chart, except that the stock chart is plotted over time.

While new life generally brings joy, a geometric centric definition of “the circle of life” would both begin and end with that kind of joy.

On the other hand, a more philosophical interpretation of the concept has some diametrically different events, death and life, coinciding as the circle is closed.

Philosophy aside, markets have their own circle of life.

Start where you like in defining that circle, but among the components are low interest rates; increasing business investment for growth; increasing productivity; increasing corporate profits; increasing employment; increasing consumer spending; higher prices; higher interest rates; decreasing business investment; decreasing productivity;  decreasing employment; decreasing consumer spending and on and on.

That’s more or less a traditional look at the way things usually go, but at the moment it’s hard to know where in that circle we are or if we even have a circle.

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Weekend Update – March 20, 2016

Best laid plans often have a way of working out other than expected.

On slow days I make it a point to go and sit in anyone’s waiting room, even without an appointment, just to read stale issues of business and news magazines.

Eventually I get up and leave and feel better about my track record.

Doing that tends to reinforce the belief that the “experts” called upon to predict what awaits in the future are invariably wrong, even as self tying sneakers depicted in “Back to the Future” may now become somewhat of a reality.

Sometimes it’s the timing that’s all wrong and sometimes it’s the concept.

Unless you put much stock in a prediction, such as converting all of your assets to gold in anticipation of yet another Doomsday, they tend to be forgotten unless a dusty magazine is picked up.

The plan to be awash in the one true and universal currency might have seemed like a good idea until coming to the realization that it’s hard to spread on a slice of bread, even if you actually had a slice of bread.

While you can’t be very certain about the accuracy of a “futurists” predictions, you can be very certain that no self-respecting expert on the future keeps a complete scorecard and most would probably be advocates of having physician’s offices regularly rotate their stock of reading materials.

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Weekend Update – March 8, 2015

It seems as if it has been a long time since we were at that stage where good economic news was interpreted negatively and bad news was celebrated.

Lately, on the economic front there really hasn’t been any bad news, although depending on your perspective perhaps the good news just hasn’t been good enough. That might include unrequited expectations for a consumer buying frenzy that hasn’t yet materialized as a result of energy savings.

On the other hand the good news has been steady. Not terribly spectacular, but a steady climb toward an improved economic landscape for more and more people. Again, to put a little cynical spin on things, for some the climb has been far too slow and the 5.5% unemployment rate a bit illusory as so many may have simply dropped out of the employment seeking pool.

After a week in which the market moved in alternating directions on no news at all during the first 3 days of trading, it finally reverted to a paradoxical form when the Employment Situation Report was released on Friday morning.

A much better than expected number and with no revisions to previous months was great if you were among those looking for and finding a new job. What it wasn’t great for were the prospects of interest rates staying low and the Federal Reserve continuing with its “patience.”

At least that’s how the impact of the data was perceived. The good news was cast in a very negative way and the immediate reaction was not much different from the panic that might beset a grocery store when in August the Farmer’s Almanac may call for unusually brutal winter and people clear the shelves of milk in anticipation.

While there are still far too many people in need of jobs and newly created jobs aren’t necessarily of the same caliber of pay as those lost since 2008, for some the burden of the good news was too much to bear and the selling accelerated to a level not seen in quite a while, although never really to the point of toilet paper frenzy.

At the very least for those who practice a paradoxical approach to the interpretation of news, they were able to contain some of their emotions even as their irrational selling ruled the day. It was like still finding a carton of milk after the hordes had beaten you to the store, indicating that not everyone believed that Armageddon was the next stop.

I think that if I could choose, I’d much rather be trading stocks when there is an identifiable and consistent reaction to events, even if it may be less than rational. The early part of the week, moving up and down daily in individual vacuums could do little to create any kind of confidence regarding market direction. In essence, it’s easier to plan survival tactics when maniacs are in charge than it is when no one is in charge.

Those that were in charge on Friday based their actions on fear and dragged the rest of us down with them.

They were fearful that putting more people to work would accelerate the timetable for raising interest rates. That in turn would lead to greater costs of doing business and would be coming at a time that the rest of the world is lowering rates.

That would probably lead to even greater strength in the US Dollar, perhaps even USD and Euro parity, which only serves to accentuate those currency headwinds that have already been highlighted as reducing corporate earnings and would only further create competitive threats.

Cycles. You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them.

The reaction by traders on Friday would have you believe that none of this was previously known or suspected to be in our future.

The reality is that we all know that rates are going to go higher. It’s just a question of whether we follow Janet Yellen’s perceived path or Stanley Fisher’s accelerated path.

Personally, my fear is how we could be trading in a market that in the space of a single week, when both Yellen and Fischer expressed their opinions, could go from the comforting assurances from Janet Yellen to completely tossing out those assurances. That leads to the question of whether we believe she is simply wrong or just lying.

Neither of those is very comforting.

It’s actually even worse than that, as last week the market, following a positive response to Yellen’s comments turned on her barely 2 days later upon Fischer’s suggestion that interest rate increases would be coming sooner, rather than later.

On the other hand a more rational consideration of Friday’s reaction would suggest that maybe the reaction itself was irrational and unwarranted because Janet Yellen is in a better position to know about the timing or rate increases than a nervous portfolio manager and is probably much less likely to lie or mis-represent her intentions.

There’s always that.

As usual, the week’s potential stock selections are classified as being in Traditional, Double Dip Dividend, Momentum or “PEE” categories.

Following Friday’s sell-off a number of positions appear to be more appropriately priced, however, the accelerating nature of the sell-off should leave some residual precaution as approaching the coming week, as even stock innocents were taken along for the plunge on Friday and could just as easily still be at risk.

Another large climb in 10 Year Treasury interest rates makes interest related investment strategies more appealing to some and the impending start of the European version of Quantitative Easing may also serve to siphon investment funds from US equity markets.

While I do have some room in my mind and heart for some more exciting kind of positions this week, my primary focus is likely to be on more mundane positions, especially if there’s a dividend at hand. This week’s selection is also more limited, than usual, as I expect my week to be ruled by some of that heightened caution, at least at the outset of trading.

Huntsman (NYSE:HUN), Coca Cola (NYSE:KO) and Merck (NYSE:MRK) seem to be appropriate choices for the coming week and all under-performed the S&P 500 during the past week, with the latter perhaps having more currency related considerations in their futures.

Trading right near its one year low is Huntsman Corp . It’s not a terribly exciting company, but at the moment, who really needs excitement?

Trading only monthly options I might consider the use of a longer term option sale, perhaps a May 2015, to further reduce the excitement, while bypassing earnings in late April and adding a decent sized premium to the potential return, in addition to the upcoming dividend and, hopefully, some capital gains from shares, as well.

There probably isn’t very much that can be said about Coca Cola that would offer any great new insights. With a number of potential support levels beneath its current price and a recently enhanced option premium, particularly in a week that it is ex-dividend, a position seems to offer a good balance of reward with risk.

While the company may still be floundering in its efforts to better diversify its portfolio of offerings and while it may continue to be under attack for its management, those may be of little concern for a very short term strategy seeking to capitalize on option premiums and the upcoming dividend. At its current price level, however, it is below its mid-point level range for the past 6 months and may offer some near term upside in the underlying shares in addition to the income related opportunities.

You really know that it’s no longer your “grandfather’s stock market” when big pharma is no longer the keystone in everyone’s portfolio and is no longer making front page new on a daily basis. Instead, increasingly big pharma is playing second fiddle to smaller pharmaceutical companies, at least in garnering attention, unless it is involved in a proposed buy-out or merger, as is increasingly the case.

On a steady price decline since the end of January 2015, when the market started its own party mode, Merck shares are also ex-dividend this week and offer a better premium proposition than is normally the case when doing so.

Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) has for the past few months been held hostage by energy prices and will likely continue so while the supply – demand situation for oil evolves for better or worse.

The only good news is that while it may be unduly castigated for its joint energy holdings the impact has been relatively muted. During the past few months as shares have become more volatile its option premiums have understandably been increasing and making it again worthy of some consideration.

Although it doesn’t go ex-dividend for another 3 weeks I would already place my sights on trying to capture that dividend and would consider a longer term option contract in order to attempt to lock in several weeks of premiums in addition to the dividend as oil is likely to go up and down man
y times during that time frame.

Sometimes, the best approach during periods of advanced volatility is to try and ride things out by placing some time distance between your short option positions and events.

I was considering adding more shares of Mosaic (NYSE:MOS) a few weeks ago, as it passed the $52.50 level, thinking that it might be ready for a breakout, perhaps bringing it back to levels last seen before the breakdown of the potash cartel. I can’t really recall why I ultimately decided to look elsewhere, but instead shares went into another break-down.

That breakdown last week will hopefully be much smaller, since I already own shares and will take nowhere near as long to recoup the losses.

The nearly 8% decline in shares last week for no discernible reason has now brought them back to the upper range of where I had most recently been comfortable adding shares. While the broader macro-economic picture may suggest less acreage being put to use to add to the supply of already low priced crops there isn’t such a clean association between commodity prices and fertilizer prices.

With its ex-dividend date having just passed and with the recent trend still pointing downward, Mosaic may be a good candidate to consider the sale of put options as a means of potential entry into a long position, but at an even lower price.

Finally, for the third consecutive week I would consider establishing a position in shares of United Continental (NYSE:UAL) as part of a paired trade with an energy holding, especially if you crave the kind of excitement that Huntsman may not be able to provide.

I’ve been using Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO) as the matching energy position and had my UAL shares assigned this past Friday, despite a large price drop for the second consecutive week just before expiration.

With the energy holding still in my portfolio I would consider another purchase of UAL, particularly if there is weakness in its shares to open the week. As has been the case previously, because of the volatility in shares the option premiums have been very generous. However, rather than directly taking advantage of those premiums, my preference has been to balance risk with reward and instead have opted for lower premiums by selecting deep in the money strike prices. Doing so allows shares to drop in price while still being able to deliver an acceptable ROI for the week.

Traditional Stocks: Dow Chemical

Momentum Stocks: Mosaic, United Continental

Double Dip Dividend: Huntsman (3/12), Coca Cola (3/12), Merck (3/12)

Premiums Enhanced by Earnings: none

Remember, these are just guidelines for the coming week. The above selections may become actionable, most often coupling a share purchase with call option sales or the sale of covered put contracts, in adjustment to and consideration of market movements. The overriding objective is to create a healthy income stream for the week with reduction of trading risk.

Weekend Update – March 1, 2015

It was interesting listening to the questioning of FOMC Chairman Janet Yellen this week during her mandated two day congressional appearance.

The market went nicely higher on the first day when she was hosted by the more genteel of the two legislative bodies. The apparent re-embrace of her more dovish side was well received by the stock market, even as bond traders had their readings of the tea leaves called into question.

While the good will imparted by suggesting that interest rate increases weren’t around the corner was undone by the Vice-Chair on Friday those bond traders didn’t get vindicated, but the stock market reacted negatively to end a week that reacted only to interest rate concerns.

His candor, or maybe it was his opinion or even interpretation of what really goes on behind the closed doors of the FOMC may be best kept under covers, especially when I’m awaiting the likelihood of assignment of my shares and the clock is ticking toward the end of the trading week in the hope that nothing will get in the way of their appointed rounds.

Candor got in the way.

But that’s just one of the problems with too much openness, particularly when markets aren’t always prepared to rationally deal with unexpected information or even informed opinion. Sometimes the information or the added data is just noise that clutters the pathways to clear thinking.

Yet some people want even more information.

On the second day of Yellen’s testimony she was subjected to the questioning of those who are perennially in re-election mode. Yellen was chided for not being more transparent or open in detailing her private meetings. It seemed odd that such non-subtle accusations or suggestions of undue influence being exerted upon her during such meetings would be hurled at an appointed official by a publicly elected one. That’s particularly true if you believe that an elected official has great responsibility for exercising transparency to their electorate.

Good luck, however, getting one to detail meetings, much less conversations, with lobbyists, PAC representatives and donors. You can bet that every opacifier possible is used to make the obvious less obvious.

But on second thought, do we really need even more information?

I still have a certain fondness for the old days when only an elite few had timely information and you had to go to the library to seek out an updated copy of Value Line in the hopes that someone else hadn’t already torn out the pages you were seeking.

Back then the closest thing to transparency was the thinness of those library copy pages, but back then markets weren’t gyrating wildly on news that was quickly forgotten and supplanted the next day. That kind of news just didn’t exist.

You didn’t have to worry about taking the dog out for a walk and returning to a market that had morphed into something unrecognizable simply because a Federal Reserve Governor had offered an opinion in a speech to businessmen in Fort Worth.

Too much information and too easy access and the rapid flow of information may be a culprit in all of the shifting sands that seem to form at the base of markets and creating instability.

I liked the opaqueness of Greenspan during his tenure at the Federal Reserve. During that time we morphed from investors largely in the dark to investors with unbelievable access to information and rapidly diminishing attention spans. Although to be fair, that opaqueness created its own uncertainty as investors wouldn’t panic over what was said but did panic over what was meant.

If I had ever had a daughter I would probably apply parental logic and suggest that it might be best to “leave something to the imagination.” I may be getting old fashioned, but whether it’s visually transparent or otherwise, I want some things to be hidden so that I need to do some work to uncover what others may not.

As usual, the week’s potential stock selections are classified as being in Traditional, Double Dip Dividend, Momentum or “PEE” categories.

It’s difficult to find much reason to consider a purchase of shares of Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK), but exactly the same could have been said about many companies in the energy sector over the past few months. There’s no doubt that a mixture of good timing, luck and bravery has worked out for some willing to take the considerable risk.

What distinguishes Chesapeake Energy from so many others, however, is that it has long been enveloped in some kind of dysfunction and melodrama, even after severing ties with its founder. Like a ghost coming back to haunt his old house the legacy of Aubrey McClendon continues with accusations that he stole confidential data and used it for the benefit of his new company.

Add that to weak earnings, pessimistic guidance, decreasing capital expenditures and a couple of downgrades and it wasn’t a good week to be Chesapeake Energy or a shareholder.

While it’s hard to say that Chesapeake Energy has now hit rock bottom, it’s certainly closer than it was at the beginning of this past week. As a shareholder of much more expensive shares I often like to add additional lower cost lots with the intent of trying to sell calls on those new shares and quickly close out the position to help underwrite paper losses in the older shares. However, I’ve waited a long time before considering doing so with Chesapeake.

Now feels like the right time.

Its elevated option premiums indicate continuing uncertainty over the direction its shares will take, but I believe the risk-reward relationship has now begun to become more favorable as so much bad news has been digested at once.

It also wasn’t a very good week to be Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) as it well under-performed other large money center banks in the wake of concerns regarding its capital models and ability to withstand upcoming stress tests. It’s also never a good sign when your CEO takes a substantial pay cut.

If course, if you were a shareholder, as I am, you didn’t have a very good week, either, but at least you had the company of all of those analysts that had recently upgraded Bank of America, including adding it to the renowned “conviction buy” list.

While I wouldn’t chase Bank of America for its dividend, it does go ex-dividend this week and is offering an atypically high option premium, befitting the perceived risk that continues until the conclusion of periodic stress testing, which will hopefully see the bank perform its calculations more carefully than it did in the previous year’s submission to the Federal Reserve.

After recently testing its 2 year lows Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) has bounced back a bit, no doubt removing a little of the grin that may have appeared for those having spent the past 20 months with a substantial short position and only recently seeing the thesis play out, although from a price far higher than when the thesis was originally presented.

While it’s difficult to find any aspect of Caterpillar’s business that looks encouraging as mining and energy face ongoing challenges, the ability to come face to face with those lows and withstand them offers some encouragement if looking to enter into a new position. Although I rarely enter into a position with an idea of an uninterrupted long term relationship, Caterpillar’s dividend and option premiums can make it an attractive candidate for longer term holding, as well.

Baxter International (NYSE:BAX) is a fairly unexciting stock that I’ve been excited about re-purchasing for more than a year. I generally like to consider adding shares as it’s about to go ex-dividend, as it is this week, however, I had been also waiting for its share price to become a bit more reasonable.

Those criteria are in place this week while also offering an attractive option premium. Having worked in hospitals for years Baxter International products are ubiquitous and as long as human health can remain precarious the market will continue to exist for it to dominate.

Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) has certainly seen its share of ups and downs over the past few months with very much of the downside being predicated on weakness in Macao. While those stories have developed the company saw fit to increase its dividend by 30%. Given the nature of the business that Las Vegas Sands is engaged in, you would think that Sheldon Adelson saw such an action, even if in the face of revenue pressures, as being a low risk proposition.

Since the house always wins, I like that vote of confidence.

Following a very quick retreat from a recent price recovery I think that there is more upside potential in the near term although if the past few months will be any indication that path will be rocky.

This week’s potential earnings related trades were at various times poster children for “down and out” companies whose stocks reflected the company’s failing fortunes in a competitive world. The difference, however is that while Abercrombie and Fitch (NYSE:ANF) still seems to be mired in a downward spiral even after the departure of its CEO, Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) under its own new CEO seems to have broken the chains that were weighing it down and taking it toward retail oblivion.

As with most earnings related trades I consider the sale of puts at a strike price that is below the lower range dictated by the implied move determined by option premiums. Additionally, my preference would be to sell those puts at a time that shares are already heading noticeably lower. However, if that latter condition isn’t met, I may still consider the sale of puts after earnings in the event that shares do go down significantly.

While the options market is implying a 12.6% move in Abercrombie and Fitch’s share price next week a 1% ROI may be achieved even if selling a put option at a strike 21% below Friday’s close. That sounds like a large drop, but Abercrombie has, over the years, shown that it is capable of such drops.

Best Buy on the other hand isn’t perceived as quite the same earnings risk as Abercrombie and Fitch, although it too has had some significant earnings moves in the recent past.

The options market is implying a 7% move in shares and a 1% ROI could potentially be achieved at a strike 8.1% below Friday’s close. While that’s an acceptable risk-reward proposition, given the share’s recent climb, I would prefer to wait until after earnings before considering a trade.

In this case, if Best Buy shares fall significantly after earnings, approaching the boundary defined by the implied move, I would consider selling puts, rolling over, if necessary to the following week. However, with an upcoming dividend, I would then consider taking assignment prior to the ex-dividend date, if assignment appeared likely.

Finally, I end how I ended the previous week, with the suggestion of the same paired trade that sought to take advantage of the continuing uncertainty and volatility in energy prices.

I put into play the paired trade of United Continental Holdings (NYSE:UAL) and Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO) last week in the belief that what was good news for one company would be bad news for the other. But more importantly was the additional belief that the news would be frequently shifting due to the premise of continuing volatility and lack of direction in energy prices.

The opening trade of the pair was initiated by first adding shares of Marathon Oil as it opened sharply lower on Monday morning and selling at the money calls.

As expected, UAL itself went sharply higher as it and other airlines have essentially moved opposite
ly to the movements in energy prices over the past few months. However, later that same day, UAL gave up most of its gains, while Marathon Oil moved higher. A UAL share price dropped I bought shares and sold deep in the money calls.

In my ideal scenario the week would have ended with one or both being assigned, which was how it appeared to be going by Thursday’s close, despite United Continental’s price drop unrelated to the price of oil, but rather related to some safety concerns.

Instead, the week ended with both positions being rolled over at premiums in excess of what I usually expect when doing so.

Subsequently, in the final hour of trading, shares of UAL took a precipitous decline and may offer a good entry point for any new positions, again considering the sale of deep in the money calls and then waiting for a decline in Marathon Oil shares before making that purchase and selling near the money calls.

While the Federal Reserve may be data driven it’s hard to say what exactly is driving oil prices back and forth on such a frequent and regular basis. However, as long as those unpredictable ups and downs do occur there is opportunity to exploit the uncertainty and leave the data collection and interpretation to others.

I’m fine with being left in the dark.

 

Traditional Stocks: Caterpillar, Marathon Oil

Momentum Stocks: Chesapeake Energy, Las Vegas Sands, United Continental Holdings

Double Dip Dividend: Bank of America (3/4), Baxter International (3/9)

Premiums Enhanced by Earnings: Abercrombie and Fitch (3/4 AM), Best Buy (3/4 AM)

Remember, these are just guidelines for the coming week. The above selections may become actionable, most often coupling a share purchase with call option sales or the sale of covered put contracts, in adjustment to and consideration of market movements. The overriding objective is to create a healthy income stream for the week with reduction of trading risk.