Daily Market Newsletter

I have no positions at this time.

We’ll park this strategy until the next high-probability condition shows. We’ll want to see daily exhaustion on the SPX or RUT after a strong move, at the very least. This strategy works best with a quiet/trending market, and not with a sideways/volatile one.

I have no remaining positions. Calendar spreads are good for markets in quiet/trending character, so we’ll want to wait for that type of price action to show 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 a 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:

• SLV Stock – I have 1000 shares of the SLV that was assigned at the $15 level. I sold the 31DEC $15 SLV calls (10/3) for $.16.
• SSO – I sold SSO 21DEC $95 puts (11/14) for $1.02 credit. I will look to close this position for $.05 – $.10 on the next bounce up. 
• CSCO – I sold CSCO 21DEC $40 puts (10/22) for $.40 credit. Looking to close this for $.05
• INTC – I sold INTC 21DEC $37 puts (10/22) for $.37 credit, and closed them (11/19) for $.05 debit giving me a net $31/contract profit. 
• HPE – I sold 21DEC $14 puts (11/12) for $.23 credit
• BAC – I sold 18JAN $24 puts (11/19) for a $.25 credit. 

The recent trades were relatively small positions that would create a discount entry should I be assigned. I have entered $.05 GTC exit debits to close out CSCO early should we get the opportunity. 

The crypto market continues to get hit pretty hard recently as it finally broke below support. This could be part of the final capitulation that we’ve been waiting on.

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 273.73, there is a +/-4.762 EM into this coming Friday.  This is smaller than last week’s 5.078 EM and reflects how some of the tensions have come in slightly, and also because this is Thanksgiving week approaching with only 3.5 days of trading. The EM targets for this Friday’s close are 278.49 to the upside, and 268.97 to the downside. 

For this week, I will once again look to fade either EM level with a spread early in the week, and long options by Thursday and later. Today the price undercut the lower EM, just like last week, but closed right at it. If I see the price go negative early, and then start to trade above today’s closing level, I will take a 21NOV SPY ATM long call position and close it prior to the closing bell. I will shoot for a 100% return but will get what I can. 

We did get some recent experience with this style of trading and quite frankly it’s not as easy as it sounds. Strong bull trends do not give way easily. My conclusion is that this strategy is best reserved for stocks experiencing a snap-back rally in a primary bear trend. If the market starts to print a lower high on the weekly chart then I will become more serious about this strategy.

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 no positions at this time.

No other entries at this point. I would prefer to see the market stabilize first before looking long again. We will see big volatility over the next two+ months. If we are able to secure a “higher low” off of the S&P in the short run, this might be a good environment for a couple of weeks. 

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 no positions at this time. I cleared out the current puts on the drop to the 200ma. I will “reload” again on the next bounce up.

I passed on the recent entry;  I’m going to hold off for a little longer to see if a more complex top is created off of a higher high. Recent entries were expensive due to elevated vol.