Trading thoughts, ideas, tips, musings, and pontifications. . .not necessarily in that order.
There is going to be a lot of words thrown about this week. Besides the eco reports, PPI, CPI, Housing Starts and Philly Fed Survey, there’s a Fed governor speaking every day…sometimes twice a day. The markets will be listening with one ear towards the FOMC gobbledygook and the other ear aimed at Europe. And the markets will get squeezed in the middle!
Don’t forget, it’s OpEx week as well. What a recipe for volatility! 
I’ve learned, over time, through analyzing my notes, that I just don’t do so well in option expiration weeks. So this week I have stayed away from trading and am cleaning my garage instead. 
….not doing so well there either. My, I’ve accumulated a lot of junk!
Speaking of junk, central banks intervened this morning passing out dollars, while news on jobs was not so good.
Jobs and manufacturing were down while CPI was up. I guess passing out dollars was the winner, bringing indexes up.
Quadruple witching as options expire on Friday. Can’t wait for the markets to clean up their junk!
It was a day that accomodated the bulls as well as the bears….and a great day if you go both ways! Volume increased a bit from yesterday, about a half-million contracts in the ES.
While economic news in the US was good, Europe continues to be a world-wide downer. So if Europe could get its sh!t together, I think we could be doing a lot better.
It still is options expiration week….a week designed to take as much money from as many people as money managers can. Watch those puts and calls!
Remember, after Monday and Tuesday even the calendar says W T F . . .
Three days in the green…we haven’t seen that since June. Well if you were a put surfer, it looks like the markets are here to WipeOut all those puts that were bought over the past 2 weeks! …in options expiration week no less. Expect more up and down to clear out calls as well as puts 
The last three days have given us the biggest three day percentage gain for the Dow since March of 2009. Today was the lowest volume in 2 and a half weeks…what a change of pace. But if we can grind up slow but sure, well, I’ll take it!
“They say the price of gas could soon be under $3 a gallon. Do you know what that means? You can now afford to drive by the house you used to live in, go by the job you used to have, and go see the bank where you used to have money.” — Jay Leno
We had a follow-thru day on the lightest volume in 2 weeks. Been a long time since we’ve seen that. Doesn’t say much though. Retail sales were good, but U of M Consumer Sentiment took a dive…but no one cared. The Dow “only” had a 200-point range…how boring! Looks like the bulls and the bears are tired.
Now it’s OpEx week. Will It Go Round In Circles just like last week? And along with OpEx there’s a lot of economic reports all week long: Housing Starts, Industrial Production, PPI, CPI, Philly Fed Survey, Existing Home Sales. We just may go round in circles.
C’mon markets, Don’t Let Me Down!
One more day and June options expiration will be over. Won’t be too soon for me. A wild week.
The Housing numbers were unexpectedly good, but were soon followed by Philly Fed numbers that were unexpectedly bad. Another thing unexpected was the close….almost every close for the past 2 weeks has been down, but today, although not spectacular, was a bit more positive than the norm.
I expect Friday to by up…and down…and up and down, as some traders unload gobs of options before the close, and others go flat before the weekend.
And by the way, Happy Father’s Day!
We gave back much more today than we took yesterday. And boy was it volatile. But what can you expect from OpEx week and a market that reacts to any kind of news out there?
We also had the biggest volume day in 3 months! SPY volume was double its average and ES traded over three and a half million contracts. Advance/Decline volume was -12:1 to the downside. Banks/financials hurt bad and interest rates took a pounding also…just look at XLF and TBT.
And let’s not forget all that Greece and Euro news coming out every 5 minutes and changing every 10 minutes. Escalating protests, mix in some opex, jobless claims and housing starts, we should have a real party on Thursday! Be careful out there. Remember, sitting on your hands is a position 
By the end of Friday I had cashed out many of my holdings. I’m about 20% invested, 1:1 long vs short, and 80% cash. Just couldn’t tell what this market wanted or was going to do. Commodities were floating to the sky, budget finger-pointing and low volume made me uneasy. The Dow was up slightly while the other major indices were down slightly last week. And it looks like the Russell/TF is leading the way down…just like it led the way up.
Even though we have some sort of budget compromise, I’m not sure it’s any better. It only gets us all the way until next Thursday, averting this weekend’s shutdown. So on Friday, not only do options expire, but maybe the government as well! 
The big news this week will be earnings…with AA kicking off the festivities after the close on Monday. JPM comes out on Wednesday and GOOG on Thursday. Option Expiration Friday has BAC SCHW and MAT.
Now I’m going back to melting down all my silver disco chains and throwing in a few forks and knives. Good luck and happy trading
Did the markets move up with all the good news today? Let’s see…inflation in the U.S. with the PPI report today. Will it leak into the CPI? We’ll see on Thursday. Or how about all those Middle East protests? Or maybe Ivory Coast rush to withdraw bank cash? A good old-fashioned bank run….all good news to take markets higher! Yep, that’ll do it. 
So tomorrow the market will really run with the Steve Jobs health rumors….AAPL took a dump afterhours. Or maybe the CPI will show inflation? Don’t forget we get Jobless Claims also. And many of the Fed governors are speaking on Thursday.
I’m a little less short now since several of my SPY put options and SDS call options got stopped out. Still have some, but not as many.
And let’s not forget it’s Options Expiration Week! According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, February Expiration Day, Dow Down 7 of last 11. But this OpEx is also the Day before President’s Day Weekend, which finds the S&P down 16 of last 19. We live in interesting times!
My jaw is sitting on my chest as I just stare at the Dow bubble getting bigger and bigger. The bigger they are, the harder they fall! This is not going to end well, but I have no idea when or how it may happen….maybe it just keeps going up!
The rest of the world has problems…China with its inflation…Europe with all its banking issues. It sounded like the Irish government collapsed this morning, Irish parties jostle for power. Both gold and the U.S. dollar collapsing…and oil tagging along for the ride. So why is the U.S. stock market acting so happy? What is the basis for this ballon ride?
As I Twitted on Friday…. OpEx, my day to peep thru the window and watch everyone else get screwed…I’m sittin in $$ waiting for Monday And I’m still sitting there, as must be several traders, as volume was again a lowball Monday. Does everybody take a long weekend?
Truth, sound fundamentals, strong currency are passe – all that matters is rigging equities higher – the free market be damned!
| INDU | 0.00 | |||||||
| NASDAQ | 2778.79 | |||||||
| S&P 500 | 1295.22 | |||||||
| ^RUT | 747.21 | |||||||
| QID | 36.77 | |||||||
| QQQ | 60.81 | |||||||
| QLD | 47.97 | |||||||
| TZA | 23.3101 | |||||||
| SSO | 49.32 | |||||||
| SDS | 17.5687 | |||||||
| BGZ | 25.33 | |||||||
| BGU | 66.43 | |||||||
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