Daily Market Newsletter

October 13, 2016

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Market Commentary

Some nervousness about tomorrow’s bank earnings led markets lower initially before Crude Oil staged a comeback and drove the XLE higher. A lot of good news is priced into the earnings for JPM, PNC, WFC, and C tomorrow, and much of it might be based on rates starting to go higher, anticipating the December rate hike. This would give some “room” for banks to create margin.

I still find today’s environment a low-opportunity one with the risk outweighing the reward at these low levels of IV. This will change soon enough, and I hope by the end of this month.

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Offensive Actions

Offensive Actions for the next trading day:

No trades for tomorrow. We’ll look again this weekend.

Defensive Actions

Defensive actions for the next trading day:

Very little to “defend” or manage at this point. Any vertical debit spreads that we set up are risk-managed from day one.

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 somewhat higher today, about average. Breadth was somewhat weak by day’s end with -157 advancers minus decliners.

SPX Market Timer : The Intermediate line turned down below the Upper Reversal Zone, now showing a bearish bias. No leading signals at this time.

DOW Theory: The SPX is in a long term uptrend, an intermediate uptrend, and a short-term downtrend. The RUT is in a long-term downtrend, an intermediate uptrend, and a short-term downtrend. The Dow is in an intermediate uptrend and short-term downtrend.

VIX: The VIX rose 4.90% to 16.69, outside the bollinger bands. The RVX gained 3.26% to 21.20 and is outside the bollinger bands.

Fibonacci Retracements: No retracements in play at this time..

Support/Resistance: For the SPX, support is at 2100 … with overhead resistance near 2200. The RUT has support at RUT 1090 with overhead resistance at about 1300. 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 still highly-charged with a reading of 55. The Weekly chart is now fully-charged showing an energy reading of 68, due to the recent chop. The Daily chart is showing a level of 58 which is fully-recharged after the recent drop. We are showing the rare condition of Full Energy again!

Other Technicals: The SPX Stochastics indicator fell to 46, mid-scale. The RUT Stochastics indicator fell to 42, mid-scale. The SPX MACD histogram fell below the signal line, showing a loss of upside momentum. The SPX is inside the Bollinger Bands with Bollinger Band support at 2129 and resistance at the upper band at 2179 and is at the lower band. The RUT is outside the Bollinger Bands with its boundaries at 1217 to 1265 and price is below the lower band. The bands are starting to squeeze again.

If Central Banks go “all-in” to save each sovereign economy, this will not be sustainable in the long run. We will continue to monitor price action that will show us if the character of the market is moving towards a change in character to a Quiet/Trending Bull again. For now, we’re seeing necessary corrective action come in to “shock-start” markets and volatility again. Markets have become complacent to all of the central bank monetary policy and that’s not a good thing..

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: If this dip in price hits the 2050-2100 level on the S&P, we are game on for NOV put spreads.

I have no positions in play: We’ll look for the next range to take advantage of. I might have to look beyond the usual index candidates for these in today’s market, since I don’t see any index candidates right now, however the RUT is close.

I have no time spreads at the current time. My preference is to take these on DAILY exhaustion and not WEEKLY exhaustion signals, since the weekly exhaustion creates unwanted price volatility. Similar to the LP Condors above, I will likely have to expand my view to include equity candidates that are showing a likely short-term consolidation. This is never my first choice due to the additional variables that we encounter.

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, and will continue to write time against these shares on every rally. I wrote 21OCT 20.5 calls (9/7) against half of my position for a $.21 credit.
SSO – Waiting for the next pullback to sell puts against the SSO, preferably at the 50 level or lower. .

Nothing to do at this time with current positions.

Position Management – Directional Trades

Thoughts on current swing strategies:

8/21 EMA Crossover -I entered the 8/21 ema long setup (10/5) with an ATM SPY vertical spread, using the 26OCT 216/218 call spread, paying $1.12 debit. I will look for about a 50% return from this trade.
RSI(2) CounterTrend – Looking for the next signal.
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.

Looking for the next edge. Price has been so choppy that it’s been difficult to identify the next edge. .

I have the following positions in play:

QQQ 11NOV 118/120 debit put spread (10/10) – I entered this trade by buying the 120 put and simultaneously selling the 119 put, for a .79 debit, and closed this position (10/13) for a $1.22 credit. This trade gave me a net profit of $41/contract or a 51% return on capital.

If the price rallies again up to the highs we’ll set up another trade like this. I like the hold time!

I have no positions at this time. I scanned again today and there’s very little worth “chasing” at this point with many stocks up near all-time highs.

I see many stocks showing a nice pattern, like MRK and UPS, however no concrete signals just yet. Markets are coiling up into the next range and are about to show their next hand. I’ll look for more opportunities this weekend.

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.

To remove the current series of puts, I will look for a move down to and below the SPX 2100 level.

I never got the upside “burst” to allow me to sell call spreads above SPY 230 that I wanted; now I can concentrate on selling put spreads at some level below SPY 200.

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

SPY OCT 194 Long Puts – I entered this position (7/18) for a $1.52 debit.
SPY NOV 197 Long Puts – I entered this position (8/22) for a $1.56 debit.