Daily Market Newsletter
June 7, 2018Non-Directional Strategies
Semi-Directional Strategies
Directional Strategies
Bitcoin/Crypto
View Doc's New Book
June Expiration
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Market Commentary
Day two of rotation; once again, Large caps drove higher while small-caps and large-cap tech took a distribution day. It’s not surprising to see a day of rotation and/or profit-taking after huge runs by the latter two groups, while Industrials have been beat up due to trade war uncertainty. So while many are proclaiming that the “sky is falling” to me this is just another day in the midst of a quiet/trending summer grind. There is some positioning going on into next week’s FOMC meeting so we might continue to see very “spastic” price movements intraday until some certainty comes back into play.
In the meantime, we are green light for whale setups.
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 (Top Ten That Will Be Top Ten) 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 will roll my SLV calls tomorrow; 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.
- 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 average today and breadth ended the day mixed with +66 advancers minus decliners
SPX Market Timer : The Intermediate flattened in the Upper Reversal Zone, now showing a bullish bias. The Near Term line joined it to show a Strong Bearish Cluster for the fourth day in a row; in sideways markets this can be a leading signal for a pause but not lately
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 uptrend, and a short-term uptrend. The Dow is in an intermediate uptrend and short-term uptrend.
VIX: The VIX rose to 12.30 after peaking at 50.3 three months ago, outside the bollinger bands. The RVX rose to 14.75 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 now fully charged with an energy reading of 56. The Daily chart is showing a level of 44 which is starting to reflect the recent uptrend. 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 rose to 70, mid-scale. The RUT Stochastics indicator flattened at 82, overbought. The SPX MACD histogram rose above the signal line, showing a return of upside momentum. The SPX is outside the Bollinger Bands with Bollinger Band support at 2691 and resistance at the upper band at 2767 and price is above the upper band and starting to squeeze again. The RUT is back inside the Bollinger Bands with its boundaries at 1589 to 1675 and price is at 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.
Position Management – NonDirectional Trades
I have no positions in play.
The next extrapolation trade is a long, long way away from being filled. The price would have to drop more than 100 SPX points before we’d be in a position to even begin to look for a fill. Realized volatility continues to out-run the implied volatility; this is a dangerous time to be complacent, selling options. I will continue to look for long-gamma (directional) trades and wait until we see an appropriate fear-based move to sell spreads into.
I have no positions in play at this time.
We’ll look for the next setup but it won’t be for some time. The Daily chart will have to be fully-exhausted from a linear run.
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 sold 15JUN SLV $17.5 strikes for an $.18 credit. (4/19). I will look to roll these calls to at least the $16.5 strike for at least 1% return, to either the JUL or AUG cycles tomorrow.
- NUGT stock – I was assigned on NUGT at the $31.5 price level. I rolled to the 25MAY $31.5 calls for $.35 credit. (4/27) and I closed these (5/18) for a $.02 debit. I rolled these to the NUGT 22JUN $31 calls for $.30 credit (5/18). We will look to roll these calls by the end of next week.
- SSO – I sold the 15JUN $70 puts (4/4) for $.70 credit. We will let these puts expire worthless next week.
No other setups at this time; I want to look for the next “scary” drop in the markets to sell puts again.
Position Management – Directional Trades
Thoughts on current swing strategies:
- 8/21 EMA Crossover – I added the SPY 8JUN 277/278 Call Debit Spread (5/21) for $.30 debit, and I closed this position (6/5) for a $.40 credit as the price hit the weekly EM. I also added an IWM 15JUN 160/162 debit put spread (5/23) entered for an $.82 debit. This position will likely expire worthless next week unless we get a big move down.
- RSI(2) CounterTrend – Per yesterday’s newsletter I entered the HAL 48.5/49.5 debit call spread (6/7) for a $.50 debit. I will look for a 30% return from this position.
- 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.
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 273.60, there is a +/- 3.262 EM into this Friday. This is smaller than last week’s EM of 3.322.
The EM targets for this Friday’s close is 276.86 to the upside, and 270.34 to the downside.
I said this weekend “I believe that we are on the brink of a big move” and now we’re seeing it. We’re back to break-even on the full trade but the price will need to continue to drive higher for us to profit from these trades. The Weekly EM was smashed today.
I have the following positions:
- SPY 268.5/269.5 Put Spreads (6/4) were entered for $.15 debit.
- SPY 280/281 Call Spreads (6/4) were entered for a $.10 debit.
This is a full “long” Iron Condor but we’ll look to exit each trade for a 200% return.
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
No other trades for tomorrow at this time.
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.