Daily Market Newsletter
August 23, 2018Non-Directional Strategies
Semi-Directional Strategies
Directional Strategies
Bitcoin/Crypto
View Doc's New Book
September Expiration
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Market Commentary
More odd volatility today on thin trading volumes as a morning sell-off trimmed 15 handles from the S&P500 in fifty minutes. I’m sure that this was news-driven, however it’s almost not worth speculating on the source nor importance of the news because this is just the type of price action that we’ll see for the next week or so. And tomorrow could be quite interesting with Powell’s Jackson Hole speech on tap for Friday at 10am ET.
Powell’s tenure has very much been like Yellen’s before him, very linear and transparent. Few surprises. And certainly none of the obfuscation that marked the tenures of Greenspan and Bernanke. I give Bernanke a hard time because of the many games that he played with equity markets, all while feigning ignorance of the effects. (Like how he would wait until the Friday morning of monthly options expiration, pre-market, to announce something big) But not so with Powell; very business-like. For this reason I think that tomorrow’s Jackson Hole speech will have few fireworks other than an initial reaction. After that we’ll likely settle into boring Summer tape again.
We are approaching one of the worst periods of the year for aggregate volume and direction; this is a great time NOT to trade, and let the next direction settle itself out.
I am reviewing/refining my current trading plan and expect to have it finalized shortly; when I do, I’ll post it in the left-hand sidebar on this page. Much of it depends on where the focus will be into the fourth quarter.
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.
For an embedded video player version of today’s market video, please click here.
Offensive Actions
Offensive Actions for the next trading day:
- I like the lower EM marker for a fade entry this week (due to confluence). I doubt that I will see this tomorrow.
- I would like the market to show us the next trend direction, or at least a pullback, before I engage the offense. Late August is normally a horrible time to be entering anything directional and we have no signals to set up short condors.
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 below average today and breadth ended the day somewhat negative at -147 advancers minus decliners.
SPX Market Timer : The Intermediate line flattened in the Upper Reversal Zone, still showing a bullish bias. After three straight days of a Strong bearish cluster, we saw a second day of weakness today and this chart is closing in on a weak bullish cluster.
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 sideways trend. The Dow is in an intermediate uptrend and short-term uptrend.
VIX: The VIX rose to 12.41 after peaking at 50.3 seven months ago, inside the bollinger bands. The RVX rose to 14.58 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 2700 … with overhead resistance at 2878. The RUT has support at RUT 1630 with overhead resistance at 1708. 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 almost recharged again, with a reading of 52. The Weekly chart is above exhaustion with an energy reading of 43. The Daily chart is showing a level of 50 which is below fully recharged but still packing a lot of potential energy. We are on the cusp of a major break in price and we might be seeing it right now with the RUT.
Other Technicals: The SPX Stochastics indicator flattened at 68, mid-scale. The RUT Stochastics indicator rose to 76, below overbought. 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 2802 and resistance at the upper band at 2876 and price is below the upper band. The RUT is back inside the Bollinger Bands with its boundaries at 1651 to 1721 and price is at the upper band. Markets are squeezing like crazy now and will release very soon, as we’ve already seen the RUT do.
Position Management – NonDirectional Trades
I have the following positions in play:
- RUT 21SEP 1630/1635*1755/1760 Long Iron Condor (8/10) entered for $1.48 debit. Let’s assume an average cost of $.74 per side; we will look for a 200% return on either “side” to assure a 50% overall gross return. This means that I need to place $2.22 credit limit orders on each “side” of the trade. I find that these are easier to fill than placing a four-legged overall order, since the losing side is often zero-bid by that point.
We have switched our stance from “range” to “trend” so we closed the short condor and opened a long condor. We’ll need to see the the RUT either drop to the 1630 level, or rise to 1760 in the next five weeks. Considering the amount of energy showing in the chart and the still-low RVX, I believe that this trade has a good shot of hitting the target.
We will step back from the short condors until we see short-term exhaustion in a trend. If that short-term exhaustion is to the downside first, then we would start a condor by selling the put spreads first.
I have no positions at this time.
We will look for the next upside exhaustion signal to sell into.
I have no remaining positions. Calendar spreads are good for markets in quiet/trending character, so there is a good shot that we can start to play these again.
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 will look for the next bounce to sell calls into.
No entries at this time; I’d like to see a decent pullback before we go shopping again for new stock candidates.
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 – Looking for the next setup. A Larry Connors “PowerZones” long setup was showing on the SPY last Monday; we will continue to track these, and perhaps take the next signal.
The crypto market is continuing to get hammered the last few weeks and many bear flags have been broken; even BTC is disappointing. This is GOOD because we’re one step closer to the final capitulation. The bear market and strong weekly downtrends look to be having their effect.
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 285.06, there is a +/-3.532 EM into this coming Friday. This is somewhat smaller than last week’s 4.179 EM, which shows that the market is starting to discount some of the risk events.
The EM targets for this Friday’s close is 288.59 to the upside, and 281.53 to the downside.
With a lot of short-term energy available on the daily chart, I only want to look to fade the lower EM this week. That would involve using ATM call spreads Mon/Tues/Wed, and long front-week ITM options Thur/Fri.
This is a new section for this newsletter; I would like to start to carefully build some bearish positions that would be the virtual opposite of a covered call, yet I will use deep ITM long puts as the short stock substitute, and write short covered puts against those long puts.
I would like to add one additional consideration to the criteria, in that I’d like to see the price print a “lower high” first on the daily chart. Otherwise what is “high” can go “higher” as we’ve seen repeatedly over the years.
I will also publish the criteria for managing the short and long positions with this strategy. This is definitely counter-trend for now but might prove to be valuable down the road.
Right now I’m seeing MRK, PFE, and LLY show up on this scan; not yet ready for entry though. You can see how these stocks are going absolutely parabolic and will eventually have their day of reckoning. MRK is showing a pullback and I would add this position on a lower high on the daily chart.
The scan that I discussed in the 8/4/2018 video is available to download for thinkorswim here: http://tos.mx/OvdVnz
I will also be adding a second Larry Connors scan to this section as well; here is the Connors Crash scan: http://tos.mx/BhHuKL
I have the following positions:
- XLF 7SEP 28/29 call vertical (8/6) entered for $.46 debit; I will look for a 50% return from this trade.
This might be a risky time to be long any assets, with price jammed up against the all-time highs on the NQ and SPX and RUT.
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. We have no positions at the current time.
I have the following position:
- SPY 16NOV 257 Puts (8/23) entered for $1.50 debit. I would close these on a test of the 200 day moving average..