Daily Market Newsletter

June 14, 2018

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June Expiration

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Market Commentary

One more day of chop and slop as markets hunt for direction. I believe that this is exactly what this market needs as we transition into a stronger economy and slightly higher rates. This weekend I will tally up the June options cycle and see what adjustments that we need to make going forward.

I will be traveling on Saturday and don’t know whether the newsletter will go out Saturday night or Sunday morning; see you then.

 

The scan for the “Cheap Stocks with Weeklys”  is available here.

The RSI(2) FE scan is available here.

The current MAIN “high liquidity” watchlist that I’m scanning against in thinkorswim is available here.

The latest crypto video (Top Ten That Will Be Top Ten) is available here

Please sign up for our free daily crypto report here.

If you need a video link with an embedded player you can use this link.

Offensive Actions

Offensive Actions for the next trading day:

  • Nothing for tomorrow.

Defensive Actions

Defensive actions for the next trading day:

  • Any vertical, butterfly, or diagonal debit spreads that we set up are risk-managed from day one, and no defense is really required.
  • Closing orders have been entered for all new spreads

Strategy Summary Graphs

Each graph below represents a summary of the current performance of a strategy category. For an explanation of what the graphs mean, watch this video.

Non-Directional Strategies

Semi-Directional Strategies

Directional Strategies

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Technical Analysis Section

Market Internals:  Volume was average today and breadth ended the day mixed with +92 advancers minus decliners

SPX Market Timer : The Intermediate flattened in the Upper Reversal Zone, still showing a bullish bias. The Near Term line fell out of the Upper Reversal Zone after showing a Strong Bearish Cluster for the seven days in a row; in sideways markets this can be a leading signal for a pause but not lately

DOW Theory: The SPX is in a long term uptrend, an intermediate uptrend, and a short-term uptrend. The RUT is in a long-term uptrend, an intermediate uptrend, and a short-term uptrend. The Dow is in an intermediate uptrend and short-term uptrend.

VIX: The VIX fell to 12.12 after peaking at 50.3 four months ago, inside the bollinger bands. The RVX fell to 12.93 and is inside the bollinger bands.

Fibonacci Retracements: The price has retraced 38.2% of the election rally; so far this has been a garden-variety correction.

Support/Resistance: For the SPX, support is at 2600 … with overhead resistance at 2878. The RUT has support at RUT 1530 with no overhead resistance. All three major index charts that we follow are now showing a Golden Cross with the 50 day moving average crossing above the 200 day average.

Fractal Energies: The major timeframe (Monthly) is above exhaustion, with a reading of 46, and recharging quickly. The Weekly chart is just below fully charged with an energy reading of 52. The Daily chart is showing a level of 35 which is at exhaustion and will be even further so in the next couple of days. Markets are doing PRECISELY what they must in order to restore energy that has been incredibly depleted. Extreme Range Expansion leads to extreme range contraction (big swings). 

Other Technicals: The SPX Stochastics indicator rose to 90, overbought. The RUT Stochastics indicator rose to 90, overbought. The SPX MACD histogram fell above the signal line, showing a loss of upside momentum. The SPX is back inside the Bollinger Bands with Bollinger Band support at 2686 and resistance at the upper band at 2801 and price is below the upper band after starting to squeeze again. The RUT is back inside the Bollinger Bands  with its boundaries at 1606 to 1694 and price is below the upper band. We recently saw the market reaching into a full “runaway” condition, where “fear of missing out” means abandoning any former patience and “wait for the dip” strategy. This usually occurs near the top of the intermediate move. Markets are about to release from the sideways/volatile correction. 

SPX chart

Position Management – NonDirectional Trades

I have the following positions in play:

  • SPX 10AUG 2650/2660*2910/2920 Iron Condor (6/13) entered for $1.85 credit. I will place a $.90 GTC debit limit order to close the trade down. We will consider closing the trade if the delta hits .45 on the short puts, and .35 on the short calls. We will also close this trade out no later than 30 days prior to expiration.

The SPX is in exhaustion and is a perfect time to hold a duration Iron Condor on this chart.

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I have the following position:

  • SPX 2745/2750*2810/2815 Iron Condor (6/14) entered for a $2.50 credit. I will place a $1.80 debit limit order GTC to secure a 25% return on risk entry. The max risk on this trade is the position size.

 

 

I have no remaining positions. Calendar spreads are good for markets with some volatility but they are long vega so we can’t enter them during IV spikes or periods of elevated volatility. The IV is starting to resolve lower so we might be back in business if the price resolves back into quiet/trending.

 

The calendar spread tracking sheet is available for your download here. Yes, if you follow the math in the sheet, all of the numbers account for commissions in and out of the trade. Please note: If you trade these positions please keep the size small, to the point where you “do not care” about the success or failure of this position.

I am targeting stocks using short puts/covered calls that offer a much lower absolute risk point, where in event of crash we can almost define our total risk by the price of the underlying. While this is not how I intend to manage risk in these positions, I view this as fundamentally more solid than trying to actively manage risk on assets that are going for $$$hundreds which have also gone parabolic. I have the following positions in play:

  • VXX Stock – I own 12 shares of this stock and will hold until Armageddon occurs.
  • SLV Stock – I have 1000 shares of the SLV that was assigned at the $15 level. I sold 15JUN SLV $17.5 strikes for an $.18 credit, and closed these down on 6/8 for $.03 debit. I rolled these out to the 17AUG $16.50 SLV calls (6/8) for $24 credit. .
  • NUGT stock – I was assigned on NUGT at the $31.5 price level.   I rolled to the NUGT 22JUN $31 calls for $.30 credit (5/18) and closed these (6/12) for $.05 debit. I rolled these to the 13JUL $30.5 calls for $.32 on 6/12. 
  • SSO – I sold the 15JUN $70 puts (4/4) for $.70 credit. We will let these puts expire worthless this week.

 

No other setups at this time; I want to look for the next “scary” drop in the markets to sell puts again.

Position Management – Directional Trades

Thoughts on current swing strategies:

  • 8/21 EMA Crossover –   I added an IWM 15JUN 160/162 debit put spread (5/23) entered for an $.82 debit. This position will likely expire worthless this week unless we get a big move down.
  • RSI(2) CounterTrend –   I entered the HAL 48.5/49.5 debit call spread (6/7) for a $.50 debit. I will look for a 30% return from this position. This needs to move quickly!
  • Daily S&P Advancers – if I see the number of daily S&P500 advancers drop into single digits near the close of any trading day, I will go long shares of the SSO.
  • Swing – I entered a GLD 20JUL 128/129 call spread for $.40 (4/12) and will hold this for the eventual breakout.

The crypto market has come under a lot of pressure lately and I attribute this to the market still being under the influence of a bear. Until a major “higher low” is printed these rallies will persist and be faded. This weekend was “bloody Sunday” as most major markets lost 10% alone….the faster that we sell down, the quicker the bandage gets ripped off.

Investors should currently be looking to find technical entries to warehouse BTC/ETH/LTC assets for eventual trades on Alt-coins. You should also be looking to devices like “trezor” or other cold-storage devices to keep your assets off of the network, or other secure wallet such as Navcoin. Relying on the security of your broker is no longer good enough; no one can log into your ETrade account and “steal” your stock assets, but the whole nature of Cryptocurrencies and their portability means that someone can grab your assets and transfer them elsewhere. I will continue to discuss the tradingview platform in daily videos as I think that it is currently the best way to chart the “big three.”

Viewing the SPY from the Friday closing price at 278.19, there is a +/- 3.894 EM into this Friday. This is slightly larger than last week’s 3.262 EM, and is likely to do with Wednesday’s FOMC release.

The EM targets for this Friday’s close is 282.08 to the upside, and 274.3 to the downside.

I said last weekend “I believe that we are on the brink of a big move” and we’re in the middle of it. We’ll see an exhaustion signal in the next couple of days, right around the time of the FOMC release on Wednesday.

I will fade either side of the EM this week if touched. 

I have the following positions:

  • SPY 268.5/269.5 Put Spreads (6/4) were entered for $.15 debit.
  • SPY 280/281 Call Spreads (6/4) were entered for a $.10 debit. This trade exit fired for 200% net return (6/11) or $.34. This means that we’ll achieve our profit targets on the overall trade.

Looks like the Long Condor worked out again, based on our entry signal of “huge potential energy on the Weekly and Daily charts.”.

I have no current positions. I will consider setting up another ratio fly as price approaches resistance:

Entry criteria are:

  • Using calls
  • 17 to 50 calendar days
  • center strike .25 to .40 delta
  • ratio is 1/3/2 quantity, from the bottom, calls are long/short/long

We will exit the spread at a 60-70% level of credit received. The max risk on the trade is defined on the graph if the price goes much higher. There are no early exits, only exiting the week of expiry to avoid assignment. Also avoid dividend periods. I am currently trialing some trades and will discuss them in the newsletter; after a few cycles, I will start adding these trades to circulation. TOS scan code: http://tos.mx/hvWmMl

I have the following positions:

  • INTC 29JUN 55/57 debit call spread (5/29) was entered for a $.97 debit; I will look for a 50% return from this position. I have a $1.50 exit credit set GTC.
  • ABT 6JUL 62/64 debit call spread (6/4) was entered for a $.93 debit. I will look for a 50% return from this position.
  • XLV 6JUL 84.5/85.5 debit call spread (6/6) was entered for a $.49 debit. I will look for a 50% return from this position

 

No other trades for tomorrow at this time.

The “Hindenburg Strategy” is meant to capture “value” from successive corrections that lead up to the final “death spiral” with a Bear Market. The basic principle is to buy 3-month out long puts on the SPY, and to finance those puts by the sale of credit spreads. Frankly, selling the “financing” trades has been a huge challenge in this low-vol environment. I will only sell put spreads on decent pullbacks that allow me to secure put spreads 10% OTM

  • I entered the 17AUG SPY 245 puts (5/14) for a $1.41 debit. I will hold these through the next test of the 200 dma.