February 17, 2016
Non-Directional Strategies
Semi-Directional Strategies
Directional Strategies
View Doc's New Book
February Expiration
Day(s)
:
Hour(s)
:
Minute(s)
:
Second(s)
View Doc's Options Programs
Market Commentary
Every once in a while we get these one-way “freight train” moves higher in the market, and certainly a “bottoming” move will increase the size of that candle. Most rallies are “strong off the bottom,” then “choppy in the middle,”, and finally end with a parabolic tail as everyone chases after that. Right now we’re in the “strong off the bottom” phase at the very least.
So is this another “October” rally again? That dude was good for about 240 S&P points to the upside, and it came in the space of a month, a huge monthly candlestick. Remember, this is what Bear Markets do – they push lower than anyone expects to crush their hopes and create “capitulation” points….then they rally extremely hard to create a whole new round of “weak hand” bulls. Then the process repeats.
Our timing is just about perfect for the APR options cycle; I would like to secure a fill on a call spread well above resistance to begin with – we are a little early so we can afford to be very selective right now – and then wait for the first hard test down to secure a put spread that can account for a 15%+ move lower. It might be tougher than it sounds to do. Recall that I was not expecting the January sell-off, as I felt that it was “too soon” after the August move. Bear Markets run by their own timetables.
I did a case study on what Bernie Sanders’ “college for all” plan would do to the retail trader. I have also reviewed Hillary Clinton’s proposed “tax the traders” plan and it does not target the retail trader, only those institutions employing HFT. I am going to keep this posted here as a “sticky” for a while until everyone’s had a chance to review the plan and educate themselves on the impact. I’m not trying to tell anyone how to vote or for whom to vote for, I just want you to understand the impact of the proposed policies to active traders.
If the video above does not play or display, please use this link
Offensive Actions
Offensive Actions for the next trading day:
- The Market has shown its hand for 2016 and the path of least resistance is “down.” This will affect how we create edge going forward; we will look to focus on call spreads above the range, and then be patient enough to sell into the fear when it arrives.
- I have secured MAR SPY bull put spreads at the 157/159 and 153/155 strike prices, and then added SPY 206/208 call spreads to somewhat “complete” the Iron Condor for the MAR cycle. Please see the HP Iron Condors tab below for more discussion.
- I added short calls to “cover” my shares on the SLV; please see the “stock” section below for more discussion.
- Please see the “HP Condor” section below for my thoughts on our initial HP Iron Condor positions for APR.
Defensive Actions
Defensive actions for the next trading day:
- We have just seen the SPX and the DOW go through a second major correction separated by only three months. I will monitor the FEB DIA bull put spreads which are the only trades remaining with any realistic risk to them, but after this rally over the past few days, those put spreads are a mile OTM before Friday’s expiration.
- The MAR SPY spreads are a huge distance OTM, and my debit spreads are risk-managed from day one. The cash-secured put positions are doing exactly what I want them to do. We really don’t have much else at risk right now and that will change soon as we place positions at risk for the APR cycle..
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
%
%
%
Technical Analysis Section
Market Internals: Volume was below average today. Breadth was very strong with 437 S&P advancing issues vs.62 declining, confirming the bullish divergence that internals were showing on Thursday.
SPX Market Timer : The Intermediate line rose above the Lower Reversal Zone, now showing a Neutral Bias. No leading signals at this time but this chart is now close to showing a weak bearish cluster.
DOW Theory: The SPX is in a long term uptrend, an intermediate downtrend, and a short-term uptrend. The RUT is in a long-term downtrend, an intermediate downtrend, and a short-term uptrend. The Dow is in an intermediate downtrend and short-term uptrend.
VIX: The VIX fell 7.34% to 22.34, inside the bollinger bands. The VIX ratio is 1.23 and still above the mean. The RVX dropped 5.44% to 27.12 and is inside the bollinger bands.
Fibonacci Retracements: We are still tracking the Fib Retracements of the main swing lower from the 2080 level down to about 1812; the last overhead target is the 61.8% Fib retracement at about SPX 1979. The 38.2 fib is at 1915, and the 50% fib is at SPX 1947 which is where resistance came in on the last swing up.
Support/Resistance: For the SPX, support is at 1810 and 1800 … with overhead resistance at about 1950, 2000 and 2080. The RUT has support at RUT 872 and 958 with overhead resistance at 1100. The RUT, SPX, and DJI charts are now all showing a “Death Cross” with the 50ma below the 200ma.
Fractal Energies: The major timeframe (Monthly) is super-charged again with a reading of 64. The Weekly chart is reflecting the recent linear trending behavior by showing an energy reading of 47, and is starting to recharge due to recent chop. The Daily chart is showing a level of 51 now which was fully recharged from all of the non-linear price behavior and ready to trend again. The Intraday chart is just going to follow the higher-timeframe energies at this point, however it’s completely exhausted and unlikely to continue higher before pausing. The market has the potential for another large move right now.
Other Technicals: The SPX Stochastics indicator rose to 62, mid-scale. The RUT Stochastics indicator rose to 53, mid-scale. The SPX 5/34/5 MACD histograms rose above the signal line, showing a return of upside momentum. The SPX is inside the Bollinger Bands with Bollinger Band support at 1827 and resistance at the upper band at 1948 and is below the upper band. The RUT is inside the Bollinger Bands with its boundaries at 954 to 1038 and price is below the upper band.
At this point index charts are one-by-one falling into a Bear Market, so it’s now much less of a mystery as to what we’ll see occur in 2016. Even if the SPX and DJI avoid becoming a true “bear,” we will still see very volatile, difficult price action for likely the remainder of 2016. The price has now re-tested the January lows on the SPX, and now looks to be playing out as expected into a rising wedge pattern, although this has not been confirmed yet. The energy is there for this to happen. We also have to consider the possibility of a very strong rally to the upside.
Position Management – NonDirectional Trades
Here are the current positions in play with 2 trading days in the FEB cycle, and 22 trading days remaining in the MAR cycle:
- SPY FEB 177/179 Bull Put Spread (12/21) entered for a $.16 credit; per my recent advisories I rolled out to MAR SPY 153/155, and was able to close this trade on a quick pullback for a $.58 debit.
- SPY FEB 218/220 Bear Call Spread (12/24) was entered for a $.19 credit; negotiated exit debit is $.01.
- DIA FEB 143/145 Bull Put Spread (1/11) was entered for a $.16 credit with a 2x-sized position; negotiated exit debit is currently $.01.
- SPY MAR 157/159 Bull Put Spread (1/15) was entered for a $.16 credit; negotiated exit debit is currently $.03.
- SPY MAR 153/155 Bull Put Spread (1/20) was entered as a rollout entry from the FEB SPY trade for a $.16 credit with a 2x sized position. This position is currently showing a negotiated exit of $.02.
- SPY MAR 206/208 Bear Call Spread (2/2) was entered for a $.15 credit with a half-sized position. The current negotiated debit exit is $10.
Defense: I will play the current positions by Static Risk Management. The SPY MAR series has a tremendous amount of room to work with, an effective 470 point wide iron condor. .
I should be able to let the remaining FEB HP Iron Condor positions expire this Friday.
Offense: We are finished with our FEB and MAR cycle offense. There are now 42 trading days to APR expiry and we are few days away from truly being “green light” for that cycle, however if we see the opportunity to sell an APR SPY 210/212 bear call spread for a minimum $.15 credit, I will enter that position even if it’s early. I will also start to look for a quick, scary “higher low” which might be the last shake-out to the downside before the expected later-winter rally.
No LP Iron Condors currently in play in this cycle. The current market character is “volatile/sideways” or “volatile/trending” which creates difficult conditions when the realized vol outraces the implied vol. I think that these are more appropriate conditions for the HP Iron Condor, however we might get a shot here soon if the price approaches the SPY 200 level; I think we would see at least a short-term consolidation under that level.
Waiting until the market character rotates back to “quiet/trending” before playing this strategy again. This is a “long vega” strategy which works best in quiet, low-IV markets. (not what we currently have) I am also working on a Diagonal Spread strategy that we can play in a Bearish market, and I hope to have that released to this newsletter shortly. My goal is to see if we can play off of the SPY 200 level with zero downside risk.
I have the following positions in play:
- SDS Stock – I still own 100 shares of this stock from 2011 and will continue to write calls against this position with every correction/pullback. I sold the FEB $26 call option for $.30 on 1/6/2016.
- VXX Stock – I own 25 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, and will continue to write time against these shares on every rally. I sold the SLV MAR 15.5 calls for $.23 on 2/8. I do not want to let this position be assigned, so I would roll those calls to APR if necessary.
- SSO – I added the FEB SSO 50 puts (12/22) for a $.70 credit; exit debit is currently $.02. I added the MAR 45 SSO puts for $1.35 credit, and the exit debit is currently $.35. I will not “defend” either of these positions since I am OK with assignment. Please understand that this “exit debit” is just the current debit-to-exit the position, and NOT a “defensive” exit metric.
Nothing planned for right now; please see my comments above on the SLV position.
Position Management – Directional Trades
Thoughts on current swing strategies:
- 8/21 EMA Crossover – Nothing in play at this time.
- RSI(2) CounterTrend – This setup is best played on stocks above their 200dma. This signal was showing last week but I will not attempt to use it.
- Squeeze/60 Minute – awaiting the next signal.
- 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.
At this point we need to find our next “edge” to trade against; this will likely not happen until we have the next “higher low” and next “higher high” set up so that we can start to identify the trading range to position again.
No setups currently in play.
I have no positions at the current time. We are looking for the price to bounce to higher levels so that we can become more aggressive with bearish spread strategies, similar to the Bear Put Spread that we closed recently:
I would like to play a potential rally up to the SPY 200 level by MAR expiration; the SPY option chain shows about an 11 point move to MAR expiration, so tomorrow I would like to add a MAR SPY 200/201 debit call spread (buying the MAR 200 call, selling the MAR 201 call) and we should be able to enter this position for somewhere between $15 to $18/contract. I usually keep the risk on these positions to be very small in relation to my account size, perhaps .1% account risk. .
I have the following positions in play:
- MAR UUP 26/27 long call spread (2/1) entered for $.17 debit, will hold seeking 100% return on capital.
- SPY MAR 200/201 long call spread (2/17) entered for $.20 debit, seeking 100% return at $.46 credit.
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.
On 1/19 I added MAR-cycle financing trades. I will look to enter the next cycle of long puts once we see a little more upside and we see the VIX drop into the sweet spot. I would be looking at MAY 2016 puts at this point and factoring in a 10% drop. Right now we are still looking at about a $3 put option with the MAY SPY 173 puts, which is pretty expensive. We will create more value if we’re just a little more patient and let the VIX come down closer to the “mean” at the 200dma. .
We currently have the following positions in play with this strategy:
- MAR SPY 158/160 Bull Put Spread financing trade – I entered this position (1/19) for a $.15 credit with a 12 contract position to help finance a future long put position.