Daily Market Newsletter

July 15, 2017

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Market Commentary

This is what we saw in the markets this week:

A “dovish” Fed, again.
A great deal of short-term energy breaking to the upside and creating “higher highs” in some indices.
New all-time highs being bought for once?

I don’t know how long we can expect any “fed” effect to have pull over the market, after seeing an epic bull run over the past 8 years that was primarily driven by excess liquidity. The Fed is not going back into the game of “monetary easing” any time soon, but just the mention that rates might stay the same for a little while longer fueled more buying at the end of last week.

Right now we have a division amongst traders in this market; there are those that have ONLY traded the past few years, and wonder what all of the fuss is about. The other set lived through Bears in 2000 – 2002 and 2008-2009 and see similar signs to those events showing right now, and believe that we’re in for an enormous correction. You can see this effect if you log in to any financial news website; half of the (sponsored) stories are about hell about to be unleashed, and the other half are about “historic bull run coming.”

Here’s my take on this dilemma, broken down by bullet:

Fact: Markets are currently in a “Quiet/Trending” character and will continue to do so until a “transition” is seen.
This “transition” will occur with a burst of volatility to the downside and will create big-range price action. This will NOT be the “end of the world” but simply a transition to a “louder” market. This is very similar to what we saw the market transition to in 2015.
From this transition period, either markets will then transition to a down-trending and volatile market, or they will simply resume the “quiet/trending” action again.

This has been the historical pattern to how the markets have moved over the past several decades.

Until the market shows itself to be transitioning to “louder” volatility, then we continue playing the same quiet/trending market as always. I’ll talk more about this in this weekend’s video.

If the above video does not play, please use this link.

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, and I would like to enter an inexpensive directional call spread targeting the upper EM marker for this week; see “weekly EM” section below.
I will “roll” the JUL X $25 calls to AUG, see “stocks” 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.

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 on Friday. Breadth was good with +255 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 longer-term timeframes are almost showing a strong 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 3.94% to 9.51, barely inside the bollinger bands. The RVX flattened to 14.00 and is near the lower bollinger band.

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 49, due to the recent chop. The Daily chart is showing a level of 55 which is starting to drop energy after this latest breakout.

Other Technicals: The SPX Stochastics indicator rose to 53, mid-scale. The RUT Stochastics indicator rose to 60, mid-scale. The SPX MACD histogram rose above the signal line, showing a return of upside momentum. The SPX is back outside the Bollinger Bands with Bollinger Band support at 2410 and resistance at the upper band at 2457 and is outside the upper band. The RUT is back inside the Bollinger Bands with its boundaries at 1396 to 1432 and price is at the upper band, squeezing again. The SPX Bollingers are starting to squeeze again as well and appear to be breaking the squeeze.

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. With the recent breakout, this might occur soon.

I have no current positions; no current setups showing. This might change quickly with the recent breakout to the upside by the SPY.

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; these will expire this week and I’ll look for new calls above the $16.5 level to sell soon.
X – I was assigned at the $25 price level.. I sold 21JUL X $25 calls against this position for a $.40 credit. On Monday I want to close out the JUL calls and re-establish AUG17 $25 calls, currently showing at least a $1.05 credit.
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. I might have missed this one on the SPY with last week’s big breakout.
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 245.56, there is a +/- 1.966 EM into this Friday.

The EM targets for this Friday’s close is 247.53 to the upside, and 243.59 to the downside. The upside EM market was “tagged” last Friday and obliterated.

As I talked about on Wednesday/Thursday of last week, I was not enthusiastic about “fading” the upper SPY EM target on Friday. The upper target has been blown through at least three times that I can recall since we started following this strategy in May, yet the lower EM has been a rock-solid fade since that time. Looking at the overall trend, it’s not hard to see why. I will continue to look for lower level fades and upper EM targets in the near future.

To that point, since the price has broken out and there is upside energy yet, why not just buy a SPY 21JUL 247/248 call spread which is centered at Friday’s “expected move?” The spread will cost (measured afterhours) about $.17 or $17/contract, and will pay off handsomely if the price gets up near Friday’s target. This is utter speculation based on trend and energy and is a low-probability trade, so please size the position on the small side.

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. Even though we got the direction correct, we might run out of time before this one realizes its potential.
UPS 28JUL 111/112 debit call spread (7/3) was entered for a $.52 debit. I will look for a 50% return and currently have an $.80 credit limit defined GTC. We have until next week to close this one.

I will discuss some additional whale candidates in today’s report:

AIG – If the price breaks above $64.44 then I want to go long a 25AUG ATM call spread. Earnings early August.
BIDU – I would like to set up a longer-term 1SEP 200/202.5 call spread as I believe that this one is finally releasing. I have to wait until the July 27 earnings date.
TIF – if the price breaks above $95 then I want to be long a vertical spread but I cannot choose a spread pair now due to liquidity issues. Earnings late August.
UNP looks great but earnings are around the corner.
VLO looks very good as well but earnings next week.

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.