Daily Market Newsletter

July 12, 2017

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Market Commentary

As soon as Yellen’s prepared remarks were released this morning, markets took a decidedly bullish stance and caused a pretty strong gap up, breaking out of the descending pattern that I pointed out last night. Now the moment of truth comes; will this breakout lead to a “lower high” as I suspect, or will the bulls finally start buying the “highs?” For the past few months, the only way that we’ve gotten higher prices was to cause a quick shock to the downside to stoke up the “negativity” boiler, then squeeze those weak shorts to the upside. Today’s pop higher was caused by bulls sensing that Yellen was done raising rates for the year and the “cheap money party” will continue for a while longer. Notice also how the price has been rising in a “stair-stepping” fashion which signals the usual quiet/trending market character.

On Monday I talked about a potential bullish play on FB that was showing a good setup, however I spoke about how I did not want to take it due to vacation, price at the highs, etc. I hope some of you ignored my advice as it’s executed a perfect breakout to the upside just like it has for the past few years.

I will be traveling over the next week, so the newsletter might be coming out a little later in the evenings, and I will likely be doing very light trading during this time.

Sorry, videos cut this week will not be embedded with an html player.

Offensive Actions

Offensive Actions for the next trading day:

No neutral spread selling now….price is about to move.
Weekly EM levels have been set, see “weekly EM” section below. Also check my comments in today’s video
I am on vacation this week and access to the market will be limited, so there will be few trades initiated this week, if any.
In today’s video I discussed several “whale” setups.

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.

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 average today. Breadth was strong with +322 advancers minus decliners.

SPX Market Timer : The Intermediate line turned up below the Upper Reversal Zone, now showing a neutral bias. No leading signals at this time, however the two shorter-term timeframes are almost showing a weak bearish cluster in the Upper Reversal Zone..

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 sideways trend, and a short-term uptrend. The Dow is in an intermediate uptrend and short-term uptrend.

VIX: The VIX fell 5.51% to 10.29, back inside the bollinger bands. The RVX flattened to 14.82 and is back inside the bollinger bands.

Fibonacci Retracements: Fibs are out of play again.

Support/Resistance: For the SPX, support is at 2355 … with overhead resistance at 2454. The RUT has support at RUT 1335 with overhead resistance at about 1434. 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 now down into exhaustion again with a reading of 32. The Weekly chart is now recharging quickly with an energy reading of 51, due to the recent chop. The Daily chart is showing a level of 64 which is massively charged up and we do not see markets pause for long in this state..

Other Technicals: The SPX Stochastics indicator rose to 43, mid-scale. The RUT Stochastics indicator flattened at 57, mid-scale. The SPX MACD histogram rose below the signal line, showing a return of upside momentum. The SPX is back inside the Bollinger Bands with Bollinger Band support at 2413 and resistance at the upper band at 2451 and is below the upper band. The RUT is back inside the Bollinger Bands with its boundaries at 1397 to 1429 and price is near the middle of the bands, squeezing again. The SPX Bollingers are starting to squeeze again as well.

We are seeing the market pricing in a shift in character out of the recent lifeless Fed-driven economy, and into an unrestrained one. Markets are still showing perfect “Quiet & Trending” behavior regardless of what we “think” that they should do.

Position Management – NonDirectional Trades

I have no positions in play; I will wait on the first significant pullback to allow me to secure put spreads below support.

Offense: I still do not want to set up OTM credit spreads in this low-vol environment until we see real movement to the downside. If and when we get this movement we’ll need to identify levels that we want our credit spreads to be “below.” This is the same type of price action that was so perilous to HP condors back in 2013, so let’s not fight it.

If I see price drop to the SPX 2300 level, this might be our first opportunity to sell premium against that level.

I have no positions in play.

I will look for the next daily/weekly consolidation signal on the SPX to sell LP Condors again.

I have no current positions; no current setups showing.

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 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.
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 the 21JUL $17.5 calls (6/6) for $.19 credit.
X – I was assigned at the $25 price level.. I sold 21JUL X $25 calls against this position for a $.40 credit. I will bail out of this position if the price closes below $16/share. Ultimately I would like to bail on this position as there has been so much technical damage that it might be difficult to get this stock bid up again.In the short term, we have weekly exhaustion and a high level of energy on the daily chart, so this might encourage a quick bounce to at least set up a “lower high” which we could use.
HPE – I sold the 18AUG $16 puts (6/12) for $.30 credit.

I will look for a deeper pullback in stocks before selling more puts.

Position Management – Directional Trades

Thoughts on current swing strategies:

8/21 EMA Crossover – Looking for the next 8/21 ema entry. If the SPX crosses to the upside again, we will consider a limited-risk trade.
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.

Earnings for 2Q2017 will start on the 19th of July with AA.

This is a new section that I’m going to start laying out trades for weekly “expected moves.” The S&P500 has done a nice job of moving pretty much to one end of the overall expected move every week. We can either speculate on that direction ahead of time using OTM spreads, or we can “fade” the price when it hits one of the EM levels.

Viewing the SPY from the current Friday closing price at 242.11, there is a +/- 2.3.09 EM into this Friday.

The EM targets for this Friday’s close is 244.42 to the upside, and 239.80 to the downside.I will watch for either of those levels to be tagged, and will fade that level with an ATM debit spread. I do not know if I will be “available” to take the upside fade if this hits over the next two days, and if anything, this might be one that I would pass on anyway due to the amount of short-term energy BELOW the recent highs that is unlikely to provide resistance at the EM. I’ll discuss in tonight’s video.

I have the following positions:

SPY 21JUL 229/230 Debit Put Spread (5/15) was entered for a $.14 debit.

Nothing else to enter at this time.

I have the following positions:

SPY 21JUL248/249 debit call spread (6/26) was entered for $.16. This is an inexpensive, high reward-to-risk trade that’s looking for the SPY to head up to the expected move by the JUL expiry.
UPS 28JUL 111/112 debit call spread (7/3) was entered for a $.52 debit. I will look for a 50% return.

I will discuss some additional whale candidates in tonight’s report.

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.

Quite honestly, 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 will likely clear all put options if the price drops 5% from the recent highs at SPX 2400. Not sure that I can expect much more than that given the current climate.

We currently have the following positions in play with this strategy:

SPY AUG17 214 long puts (5/2) – I entered this position for a $1.22 debit.