Weekend Reading – Reviewing the Reviews
by Phil - January 1st, 2011 8:28 am
I am still trying to get more bullish.
I was thinking about writing something cute like I resolve to get more bullish but that would be wrong. I try, in my own humble way, to "get" the market right. That means I am not bullish or bearish but Truthish (to further botch Stephen Colbert’s use of the word) and, as Buddah says: "There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting." Confucious reminds us that there are three methods by which we may learn wisdom: "First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."
In that spirit, we will spend the day in reflection so that we are better able to start on that long road to the truth so that we will be better able to imitate the things that will work in the year to come while trying to avoid making mistakes that will give us bitter experiences.
This post is not about me – We had a fantastic year and I’ve already given some outlook for 2011 back on the 19th in that weekend’s "It’s Never too Early to Predict the Future" and our current position is short-term bearish in the Jan-April time-frame, looking for a pullback to at least 1,200 on the S&P and possibly back to 1,150.
After that, we are expecting a return to steady gains but without the irrational exuberance we’re currently experiencing. So no, I am not bearish – I simply think we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Since we don’t know where the rally train will stop, we have our "Breakout Defense – 5,000% in 5 Trades or Less" from Dec 11th, which were a set of very bullish, highly levered plays where a little bet can pay off a lot if we simply hold our long-established breakout levels.
How much is "a lot"? Well my GE trade idea, for example, was to sell the 2013 $12.50 puts for $1.10 (net $1.15 in ordinary margin according to TOS) and to use that money to buy the 2012 $17.50/20 bull call spread for .95, which was a net .15 credit on a $2.50 spread that was on the money at the time. GE has gained about .75 since the 11th and…
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DiggDemand for FedEx Corp. Calls Jumps
by Option Review - November 29th, 2010 4:46 pm
Today’s tickers: FDX, XRT, FRX & HANS
FDX - FedEx Corp. – Shares of the delivery services firm increased as much as 3.4% in the first half of the trading session to secure an intraday high of $90.49 after it was upgraded to ‘outperform’ from ‘neutral’ with a target share price of $111.00 at Credit Suisse. The positive ratings change and subsequent rally in the price of the underlying shares spurred demand for near-term call options. Bullish players expecting FedEx to extend gains purchased at least 2,800 now in-the-money calls at the December $90 strike for an average premium of $2.13 a-pop. Call buyers are poised to profit should FedEx Corp.’s shares increase another 1.80% over today’s high of $90.49 to exceed the average breakeven price of $92.13 ahead of December expiration. More than 5,800 calls changed hands at the December $90 strike versus previously existing open interest of 4,243 lots at that strike. Options strategists also exchanged 1,400 calls at the higher December $95 strike by 1:15 pm in New York trading. The surge in demand for near-term call options on FDX lifted the stock’s overall reading of options implied volatility 5.9% to 29.91% this afternoon.
XRT - SPDR S&P Retail ETF – Put players flocked to the retail SPDR to initiate bearish positions on the fund right out of the gate this morning. Shares of the XRT, an exchange-traded fund designed to replicate the performance of the S&P Retail Select Industry Index, fell as much as 2.04% to touch down at an intraday low of $46.48. A sizeable ratio put spread drew our attention to the front month where one investor purchased 5,300 in-the-money puts at the December $47 strike for a premium of $1.45 each, and sold 10,600 puts at the lower December $45 strike at a premium…
Throw the Bums Out Thursday
by Phil - September 16th, 2010 8:11 am
There’s only one thing voters hate worse than Democrats:
That is, of course, Republicans. The latest NY Times/CBS News poll found that, while while voters rate the performance of Democrats negatively, they view Republicans as even worse with 63 percent disapproving of Democrats and 73 percent disapproving of Republicans. Still, the prevailing "they all suck" attitude is not good news for the Democrats as they have the most seats up for re-election and over 63% of the voters are pretty much determined to vote for "the other guy."
I would propose instead that we begin a national campaign to elect "None of the Above" as a write-in candidate. I don’t expect it to change much but it would force a lot of run-off elections and would send a real message to Washington that we are sick of the nonsense, that we are "as mad as Hell – and we’re not going to take it anymore." If you watch this video clip from 1976 (click picture) you’re realize how little progress we’ve made in 35 years of American politics. If only we’d taken Howard Beale’s Oscar-winning advice at the time and gotten off our sofas and actually said: "I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!" – maybe we could have done something about the Corporate Kleptocracy this nation has morphed into. Now, instead, we are once again asked to flip the switch for Republicans or Democrats and, if the candidates weren’t labeled, it would be very hard to tell most of them apart.
In many election cycles, voters readily acknowledge that they are dissatisfied with government or Congress in general, but they tend to have a stronger connection toward their own representative. That is not the case this year, with 55 percent of voters saying it is time for new leadership and only 34 percent saying their lawmaker deserves re-election. It is a historic high for a question asked in each midterm election year since 1990. Of course, the MSM plays a huge roll in this as 8 out of 10 Americans rate "the economy" negatively but, when asked about their own family’s financial situation, 6 of 10 say it is the same or improving. So 40% of the people feel their own situation is negative but 80% think it’s negative for everyone else. Gee, I wonder where they get that impression?
Voters do not perceive Republicans as having better ideas and…
Wonderful Weekly Wrap-Up
by Phil - June 12th, 2010 8:28 am
I love it when a plan comes together!
Last week, I felt like I was going to have to call Animal Control to help me fight off the bears. As I mentioned in last week’s Wrap-Up, all 14 misses (out of 55 trade ideas for the week) we had were bullish plays that we were grabbing on the way down. On Friday we went bullish on USO, SSO, DIA, TBT (well, we’re always bullish on TBT), AET, ABX, Copper Futures and even poor BP. Those followed up on bullish plays we had taken on Thursday on TSRA, USO, MEE, FCX, EEM, ERX and XOM. We went into the weekend still bearish but we were excited about flipping back to bullish. My closing comment in the Wrap-Up was: " I’m hoping for a blow-off spike down on Monday with heavy volume, hopefully followed by a recovery over the next few days" and, gosh darn it, wouldn’t you know that’s EXACTLY what we got.
I don’t MAKE the markets do these things, I simply tell you what is going to happen and how you can make money on it… Needless to say, we had a LOT of fun this week at PSW! Last weekend, however, was such a bearish frenzy in the MSM that it was making our Members nervous and THAT I do not tolerate so I wrote : "The Worst-Case Scenario: Getting Real With Global GDP!" to illustrate why I felt our bottoms would hold and I began a Top 20 Buy List on Sunday and boy did we get some fabulous entries this week!
Monday Market Movement – Will We Survive?
As I said on Monday Morning: "I already stuck my neck out calling a bottom so now we’re just waiting patiently." We were disappointed to have not gotten a stronger statement from the G20 over the weekend but it was just the Finance Ministers, so we weren’t expecting too much until the big boys meet at the end of the month. While we were in a buying mood, I cautioned against getting too bullish until we took back our anticipated "weak bounce" levels, which were the orange lines on Monday’s Multi-Chart:
I pointed out (on another Multi-Chart) that Europe was already gathering strength so we were pretty confident things would go our way but, as I said in the 9:50 Alert to Members, SOX 340 and TRANQ 2,000 had be taken back before we could feel confident. My outlook for the day was:…
Toppy Tuesday – Can We Get More Bullish?
by Phil - March 23rd, 2010 7:38 am
Here’s a fun chart to consider:
This is the S&P 500 Bullish Percent Index, which is a measure of the percent of stocks in the index that are currently trading with Point and Figure buy signals. Bullish Percent Levels higher than 70% are considered overbought and below 30% is considered oversold. We hit a high of 88 in September of last year and haven’t been below 50 since last March’s crash. Notice a move down to just 64 cost the S&P close to 10% in February so, believe me - you don’t even want to think about what will happen if we hit 30!
Note these tops can last for a couple of weeks and that fits in fine with our reasoning for cashing out last week and moving to the sidelines to watch this nonsense unfold, as funds scramble to put up the best possible Q1 numbers between now and next Wednesday, in the hopes of getting investor capital off the sidelines and back where they can charge some fees.
A funny thing about funds that most people don’t consider is that, in a cyclical market, the WORST funds to put money into are often the ones that just posted the best performance because their strategy is often stretched. Logically, you should be looking at the worst performing funds and trying to find one that backed something (like natural gas last Q) that you feel may be recovering. Of course, that’s not human nature and funds will do ANYTHING to get themselves on the top of those lists to attract the investment bucks in Q2.
Taking a look at our sector spider charts, we see the amazing run we’ve had since Feb 8th and, like our index charts, we want to be aware of those blue lines (20 dma) as a sign of short-term weakness, which means we’re very concerned with XLB (with builders reporting this week), XLE (oil must hold $80) and XLU (possibly hopeless due to consumers being unable to pay bills).
Think of the sectors as a bunch of little tug-boats, pulling the large S&P barge. One or two of them my not be pulling in the same direction as the group and that would have little effect on the broader index but, as more and more of the little indexes begin to line up and pull in the same direction – the index begins to turn and, once you have a majority pulling in one direction, the remaining stragglers…
Weekend Wipe-Out, the Second Wave!
by Phil - January 29th, 2010 5:57 pm
Another week another 100 points lower.
Yep, that’s all it was, we lost all of 100 points more than last week, when we fell from 10,725 to 10,172 (553 points) and this week we dropped from Friday’s Dow close of 10,172 all the way down to 10,067 yet you would think the world had come to an end to hear the media and the traders freaking out. I’m not going to try to explain it, I can’t. Maybe it’s because going into last week we were very bearish but, starting on the 22nd, we let ourselves finally get a little more bullish AND THE MARKET BETRAYED US!
How could the market not zoom right back up? It always zooms right back up, doesn’t it? As I said a week ago Friday: "Boy, when sentiment shifts – it REALLY shifts!" My closing comment on Friday the 22nd was "Back to cash but leaving disaster hedges, which are looking great now as this is shaping up to be some disaster" and our weekend "Global Chart Review" showed us to be at some very key inflection points, letting us go well prepared into this week:
Manic Monday Market Movement
My Jets lost on Sunday so I was not in the best of moods on Monday. My outlook that morning was: "We still have our disaster hedges in case things get worse but, on the whole, we’re expecting a 1% bounce in the very least off our 5% lines (anything less will be a bad sign)." We were pretty much at the 5% rule on Friday’s close so we focused on the bounce we wanted to achieve in order to get more bullish.
I noted that the levels we were looking for were not exactly 1% retraces (see post for reasons) and our target retraces were: Dow 10,300, S&P 1,105, Nasdaq 2,225, NYSE 7,100 and Russell 625. What were the highs for the week on those indexes? Dow 10,310 (+10), S&P 1,103 (-2), Nasdaq 2,227 (+2), NYSE 7,098 (-2) and Russell 621 (-4). So that’s a net of +4 points out of 21,355 points worth of predictions on the retrace, accuracy to within .019% - not a bad showing for our patented 5% rule.
Please, under NO circumstances subscribe to our daily newsletter, where you would have this kind of information every morning and DO NOT get an Alert Membership where we send out our amazingly accurate watch levels to you every day. Having this sort of advanced information…
Options Activity Denotes Mood Change for Moody’s Investor
by Phil - October 2nd, 2009 4:29 pm
Today’s tickers: MCO, MS, FDX, JCP & IYR
MCO - Credit ratings and research firm, Moody’s Corp., experienced a more than 3.5% decline in shares at times during the trading session. The stock recovered slightly by lunchtime with shares currently off by 2% to $19.92. It appears one investor exchanged approximately 55,000 put options on the ratings company. The first of two transactions looks like profit taking on an existing bearish position, while the second trade indicates the investor may have had a change of heart. The trader originally established a 10,000-lot put spread at the November 28/20 strike prices on June 1, 2009. The bearish spread resulted in an average net cost of 2.78 per contract. Today, the trader closed out the position by selling the November 28 strike puts for 8.50 each, and by simultaneously buying the lower strike puts for 2.55 apiece. Net profits on the transaction amount to about 3.17 per contract for a total of $3,170,000. The investor banked gains on the nearer-term pessimistic options play, but subsequent trading suggests he is now bullish on Moody’s through expiration in January. The investor populated the January contract with a credit put spread. It appears he sold 17,500 puts at the January 24 strike for 5.60 each and bought 17,500 puts at the lower January 16 strike for 1.45 a-pop. The transaction results in a net credit of 4.15 per contract for a grand total of $7,262,500. Maximum retention of the credit is possible if shares of MCO rally 20% from the current price to surpass the $24.00-level by expiration next year. We note that shares of the ratings agency last traded higher than $24.00 on September 17, 2009. – Moody’s Corp. –
MS - The financial services firm jumped onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner after a large-volume put spread was established in the January contract. Shares of the financial services firm are 2% lower today to $29.34. The transaction involved the purchase of 22,500 puts at the January 29 strike for 3.05 apiece, spread against the sale of 22,500 puts at the lower January 22.5 strike for 80 cents each. The net cost of the bearish play amounts to 2.25 per contract. The investor responsible for the trade is likely looking to protect the value of a long position in the underlying stock. Shares of Morgan Stanley must decline 9% from the current…
Wrong Way Weekly Wrap-Up
by Phil - September 19th, 2009 8:28 am
I am trying to get bullish, really I am.
As I said to Members on Thursday morning in chat, like Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction: "I’m trying hard to be the (bullish) shepherd" but the data makes it hard – so very hard! Anyway, I’m not here to complain about the market forces moving against us but to review the carnage of our picks going all the way back to Sept 10th, when we decided the prior day’s beige book was not going to be enough to break out over 9,600 on the Dow. Now, with the Dow at 9,820 after testing 9,900 it’s a good idea to look back and see what we missed in this last 2.5% leg up.
On Thursday the 10th, we talked about patterns. One pattern I recommended following right in the morning post was the famous "stick save" investment. Simply buying high-delta DIA calls at about 2:30 each afternoon and selling into the pumped-up close. That was a winning play on the 10th, 11th (Fri), 14th and 16th but not the last two days, when we turned a lot more bearish – but we’ll get to that further down this review. 4 out of 5 days is pretty good for a patten and seeing it broken 3 of the past 5 days is also significant. I did promise that Thursday that we will look for more bullish opportunities once we have a clear break over our last two levels (NYSE 6,959 and S&P 1,056) and we did make those this week. If we hold it through Tuesday, it will be time and we’re going to line up some trades this weekend. True to my word on that Thursday, we chose a variety of bullish and bearish plays in Member Chat. I’m posting the plays along with suggested adjustments if needed as it’s a nice way to review our various strategies in progress – especially under "adverse" conditions.
Trade ideas of the day for Members were:
- DIA $95 puts that ended up being rolled and doubled down for a net 20% gain (too much bother to detail).
- SUN at $23.36, now $28.45 (up $5.09), short Oct $25 calls at $2.20, now 3.70 (down $1.50) and short the Jan $22.50 puts at $1.15, now .70 (up .45).
- Another buy/write at net $23.01/22.76, already up 17.5% so can be closed early here.
- FDO short Apr $25 puts at $2.10, now
…
Thirty-Three Percent Thursday – Big Chart Review
by Phil - September 17th, 2009 8:25 am
Whee – we finally made it!
In an UNBELIEVABLE move off the bottom over the past 6 months and one week, we have gained 58% on the S&P and have finally crossed into our 33% levels (from the highs) that we first set as upside targets back in our July Big Chart Review. At the time I said "I just don’t see that happening without a pullback" yet here we are, with barely a wiggle down since I wrote that on July 27th and up 20% from our July 13th S&P base at 880.
Have we been too bearish? Is it now natural for the market to rise 20% in 2 months without a pullback? Are we really 20% better off than we were 2 months ago? History tells us not to mess with the 5% rule so we SHOULD encounter powerful resistance here as we approach the zone of a roughly 60% move off the March lows as well as 30% off our highs – it’s going to be a rough 2.5% from here. As you can see from the above chart, we have already exceeded all previous recoveries by almost 100% at this point in the cycle. And why not, our government spent $9 TRILLION dollars to do it so we damn sure better have a pretty chart as a souvenir! The other rally that had a spectacular recovery was the the great crash of 1929 (the grey line).
In the 1929 crash, the stock market fell first, not the banks, which didn’t begin failing until 1932 as lack of electronic data and next-day mail meant it took a lot longer for the late payment and foreclosure cycle to start impacting bank balance sheets. Also, of course, they were nowhere near as maniacally levered as today’s institutions. In 1929 the banks did not play the market, they simply lent money to people who invested in stocks, businesses and properties that went bust so there were two distinct waves to the market crash in the Great Depression: First the people went broke, then the banks.
Unemployment in the US in 1930, a year after the crash, was only 8.7% - less than it is now. No one at that time thought it was important to help the average American get back on their feet after many of them lost their life savings and went deeply into debt as their homes dropped in…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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