Daily Market Newsletter

June 19, 2018

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July Expiration

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Market Commentary

Trade War Part XIII hit the tape last night on the administration’s threat to escalate the fight with China. This is somewhat like the “here-it-comes-again” news cycle regarding Greece in 2011, or North Korean missiles in 2017. Eventually the news is absorbed and life goes on as the market digests the change. For now, however, it’s a daily dose of uncertainty.

But I am concerned about the multinational big-caps and how they will fare. The market so far is assuming the worst for their ability to compete in a trade war..

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 (Cryptocurrency Market Visualized) 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:

  • I like IBB for a whale entry; see today’s video and the “whale” section below.

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 above-average today and breadth ended the day somewhat soft with -146 advancers minus decliners

SPX Market Timer : The Intermediate flattened in the Upper Reversal Zone, still showing a bullish bias. No leading signals at this time.

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

VIX: The VIX rose to 13.35 after peaking at 50.3 four months ago, inside the bollinger bands. The RVX rose to 14.62 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 45, and recharging quickly. The Weekly chart is just below fully charged with an energy reading of 54. The Daily chart is showing a level of 41 which is above exhaustion and will start to recharge quickly over 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 fell to 88, overbought. The RUT Stochastics indicator rose to 93, overbought. The SPX MACD histogram fell below the signal line, showing a loss of upside momentum. The SPX is back inside the Bollinger Bands with Bollinger Band support at 2694 and resistance at the upper band at 2808 and price is below the upper band after starting to squeeze again. The RUT is back inside the Bollinger Bands  with its boundaries at 1611 to 1707 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 have placed 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.

 

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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 currently have 17AUG $16.50 SLV calls (6/8) for $24 credit. .
  • NUGT stock – I was assigned on NUGT at the $31.5 price level.I currently own the 13JUL $30.5 calls for $.32 on 6/12.
  • BAC – I sold the 17AUG $27 puts (6/18) for $.34 credit. I will look to close these for $.05.

 

No entries at this time.

Position Management – Directional Trades

Thoughts on current swing strategies:

  • 8/21 EMA Crossover –  No current positions.
  • RSI(2) CounterTrend –   Looking for the next setup.
  • 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 277.13, there is a +/- 3.149 EM into this Friday.  This is smaller than last week’s 3.894  EM, and is likely to do with getting past the recent FOMC release.

The EM targets for this Friday’s close is 280.28 to the upside, and 273.98 to the downside.

The Daily SPX chart is still in exhaustion, therefore I think that any test of an EM level is a good fade entry.

I added the 22JUN SPY 274/276 call spreads today for a $.98 debit. I will look for a 50% return from this trade.

 

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

 

I like the 20JUL IBB $1 or $2-wide call spread tomorrow; afterhours this would have been the IBB 20JUL 112/113 or 112/114 for about a 1:1 reward-to-risk entry.  .

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.