Daily Market Newsletter

As I said on Thursday: “…. I’m looking at the combination of media “warnings” about a correction (bullish) as well as the persistence of the price action and I have no other conclusion to come to than markets going higher in the near term.” On Friday, the S&P 500, the Transports, and the Russell 2000 all made all-time highs. It can be frustrating to look in the rear-view mirror over the past 8+ years and wonder why we didn’t just go long shares of the SPY and hold them through thick and thin…it’s the classic investor’s paradox.

Now it’s to the point where if you warn others about the risks in this “musical chairs” market, that you’re just crying wolf yet again. I have had concerns about this market’s ability to sustain these gains since we saw exhaustion signals on the monthly chart, and that happened around the late winter. Yet I continue cautiously long, because there are two things that help temper my fears:

We won’t crash. Crashes do not come from “the top.”
There’s nowhere else for money to go. There is no other place for “yield” right now. Momentum rules, not fundamentals.

But there’s just no way that I can bring myself to buy expensive stocks at today’s highs. Once again, here’s my current approach to this market until the correction finally comes:

No big OTM credit spreads with today’s low vol.
Calendar Spreads on SPX daily exhaustion, even though this isn’t fool proof either
Selling puts/covered calls on inexpensive but good-potential stocks
Short-duration debit spreads on directional setups

The correction will come eventually. When it does, we’ll shift to a different approach and perhaps we’ll have premium to sell again. Always trade what’s in front of you, not what you want to see.

The current watchlist that I’m scanning against in thinkorswim is available here.

The latest crypto video (Wallets Part 4) is available here

If the above video does not play, try this version.

Offensive Actions

Offensive Actions for the next trading day:

Weekly EM levels have been set; see “weekly EM” section below.
I have Whale entries defined for IBB and SPY; see “whale” section below.
I have a short put entry on NUGT for this Friday’s expiration; 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 above average Friday. Breadth was modest with +160 advancers minus decliners.

SPX Market Timer : The Intermediate line flattened in the Upper Reversal Zone, still showing a bullish bias. This chart is showing another strong bearish cluster for the second day in a row which is a leading signal for a pause. .

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 fell to 9.51, back inside the bollinger bands. This is after a twenty-year low on the VIX. The RVX rose to 14.02 and is back inside the lower bollinger band.

Fibonacci Retracements: If we see an actual pullback then I’ll start to determine fib levels that might act as potential support.

Support/Resistance: For the SPX, support is at 2430 … with overhead resistance at 2512. The RUT has support at RUT 1350 with overhead resistance at about 1500. 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 33. The Weekly chart is now losing energy with an energy reading of 56, due to the recent trend. The Daily chart is showing a level of 53 which is recharged enough from recent chop and is supporting movement again. We are seeing the movement that we expected, however with an exhausted monthly chart, I don’t think any breakout will be able to reach its potential.

Other Technicals: The SPX Stochastics indicator flattened at 81, overbought. The RUT Stochastics indicator rose to 95, overbought. The SPX MACD histogram rose above the signal line, showing a return of upside momentum. The SPX is back inside the Bollinger Bands with Bollinger Band support at 2458 and resistance at the upper band at 2528 and is below the upper band. The RUT is back inside the Bollinger Bands with its boundaries at 1380 to 1493 and price is at the upper band.

We are seeing the market reacting to any fear catalyst right now, and we’ll be watching to see if the price is able to make new highs or not. The overall trend is still higher and short-term energy is building quickly on this non-linear chop.

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. We can finally sell positions for SEP below SPY 230 but my sense is that still isn’t worth the risk just yet. A 10% correction would put the price at SPY 224 and we’d want to be well below that level with short puts.

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. It makes no sense to pursue an order with this strategy until we see (at the very least) a daily exhaustion signal.

I have no remaining positions:

SPX 6OCT/3NOV 2500 Put Calendar (9/18) was entered for a $13.05 debit, and was closed (9/29) for a $13.55 credit. This gave me a net profit after commissions of $51, or a 3.9% net return on capital.

As evidenced by how well we “nailed” the consolidation on the entry of this trade, yet could only squeak out a 4% return by our fingernails. This is just a difficult market to sell non-directional premium in with implied vol levels of 6%; we are just playing with too little premium to make the sale of an option worth it unless we target much higher IV underlyings.

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 NOV $18 calls for $.22
F NOV17 $11 Puts (9/18) were entered for a $.19 credit.
CHK 20OCT $4 puts (9/20) were sold for a $.19 credit.

I would like one more shot at XLF at $22/share. If the price of SLV continues to drop, I will sell the 17NOV $15 SLV puts for a minimum of $.15 credit.

I would like to sell the NUGT 6OCT $30 put on Monday seeking at least $.30 credit. I would rather roll this position than be assigned.

Position Management – Directional Trades

Thoughts on current swing strategies:

8/21 EMA Crossover – Looking for the next 8/21 ema entry. The last entry was at the end of August.
RSI(2) CounterTrend – I will continue looking for additional setups as long as markets are trending higher. I am seeing JD show on my scan today, however this has moved into a primary downtrend and has not closed the gap.
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.

Most of the major coins saw a very strong breakout today that also prints a “higher low” with a change of polarity. This could be a very strong buy signal across the board and it seems that the China/Dimon scare is in the past.

Please refer to the left sidebar section if you’d like to get caught up on “FAQ” -style intro videos.

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.”

Here is the most recent video which is “Wallets Part 4.”

Viewing the SPY from the current Friday closing price at 251.23, there is a +/- 2.108 EM into this Friday. This has been a very “normal” EM lately of about 20 SPX points per week

The EM targets for this Friday’s close is 253.36 to the upside, and 249.14 to the downside.

We now have a breakout in place, and the upper target might be in the crosshairs this week. I will fade either target with the appropriate front-week debit spread if hit.

I am relabeling this section the Ratio Butterfly strategy. I have no candidates this weekend. My test trade LYB is still in play for another three weeks and has jumped above 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/ZsIjgu

I have the following positions:

LOW 20OCT 79.5/80.5 Vertical Call Spread (9/27) was entered for a $.49 debit. My goal is 50% return on this trade.

I like the IBB setup that I showed earlier this week and on Friday we saw the breakout. On Monday I will add the EM vertical IBB 27OCT 345/347.5 debit call spread, which is currently running at about $.50 debit.

The SPY has broken as well and we could consider a debit spread there, even though I think the prospects of a big upside move are poor. I will add the SPY 27OCT 255/256 debit spread, currently showing about a $.16 entry.

I also like the setup on WDC that could break soon.

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

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

SPY OCT17 222 long puts (7/24) – I entered this position for an $.85 debit. This position was up 50% at one point and the temptation to remove it for a profit was strong, however the point of these trades is to hedge the downside for existing longs, AND try for those home runs on corrections that come out of nowhere.