Tag Archive for 'VIX'

My oh my!

Published on March 22, 2012, 8:19 am in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

The volume continues to decline and so does the VIX as we mentioned before. . . .as do many others in the blogosphere. Here’s a thought: What the Heck is Happeneing with the VIV and VXX?

Yesterday, the S&P, or actually the ES futures contract) hung just above and below breakeven, having low volume spurts in either direction. And again, I’m just scalping for lunch money, with no committment to either direction. Here’s some stories you may enjoy. . . and learn.

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Hungover Market

Published on March 20, 2012, 1:58 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Are traders still hungover from green beer? Volume is low and volatility (VIX) is even lower.

The end of the 1st quarter is in sight, just 8 days away, and fund managers are finagling their quarter-end reports…but not too many of them yet. All the action so far this week has been AAPL and BAC, but that’s just because of news and rumors.

So the market keeps dragging its knuckles up hill with a few resting points and small retreats… exactly what it’s been doing since December. I’m trading for nickles and dimes here…making a few dimes and losing a few nickles. 8)

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Mixed day

Published on October 13, 2011, 10:44 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Up and down a lot on decent volume…then closing mixed with most indexes red and the Nasdaq green.

Chinese CPI and PPI reported this evening looked a bit better than expected, giving futures a pop. Retail Sales and Consumer Sentiment reports may rule the day on Friday.

No! It’s all about the Eurozone. No one cares how good it may be in the good ole USA. GOOG blew away their estimates! VIX continues its move down. Time for a drink…plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is! :mrgreen:

Hurricane Rally

Published on August 29, 2011, 11:17 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Well, Irene was not as bad as the TV networks thought last week, and so, markets rallied today. There was some decent economic news and the VIX continued to give up ground. Overall, a win for the bulls…but on low volume.

It is a week leading up to a long holiday weekend. But there is also quite a bit of news this week…with a biggie on Friday!

Last year at this time…ala post Jackson Hole…we began a pretty big run up in the markets. Of course, there is no notice of QE coming on, so I’m not sure we can re-create the euphoria. But at least we can get happy and hope things will get better. Friday will be the big clue!

Welcome back…

Published on August 9, 2011, 10:25 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

So is QE3 coming or not? Maybe not, but the “Bernanke put” is back! A song comes to mind… Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends. We regained two-thirds of what we lost yesterday, so that’s nice….but why? Stealth QE3 Is Upon Us, how Ben did it and what it means.

It was definitely a rollercoaster day as indexes moved in both directions all day long. It took about an hour to go from the low of the session to the high, closing near the highs…and the futures continued to go up after the cash close. Boy was that last half hour ever exciting!!

Volume was the highest in the last 3 days and the VIX returned about half what it gained yesterday. Some wild and crazy action for the last 2+ weeks…it’s getting frustrating. :!:

This should be interesting…

Published on August 7, 2011, 8:32 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

After a 400 point range in the Dow, it ended up only 60 points. All the other indexes closed in the red. WTF?

Friday looked like massive margin calls and forced liquidations after the big run down on Thursday. Rumors began to circulate during the day that S&P was going to do what it finally did after hours…downgrade US debt. If the S&P knocked down the US debt, don’t they also knock down the holders of that debt?

Here’s the remaining countries with a triple A rating: Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. How far can they go with having “superior” debt? Buffett Says Cutting U.S. Rating Was Mistake, Sees No Recession.

The first reaction I had (as if anyone cared) is pass off all the US “peace-keeping” duties to these countries and let them take care of “us.” And quit “loaning” money to other countries. And quit giving money to people that haven’t put any money into the pot (read as welfare) …freeloaders! Sorry, I digress.

Here’s the S&P Ratings Report http://stk.ly/nzkwsU. Interesting reading.

Ok, back to trading. I’m definitely going to tread lightly. Futures this evening gapped down big…ES down 35 points, Dow down 325 pts. They have recovered about a third since the 6PM open. I’ve put bonds and the VIX on my short list via TBT calls and VIX puts. The metals may be a good short also via DZZ and ZSL, but I’ll put them in second place because I’ve been burned by them before.

Although only the Globex is open, Asia markets should open soon…and so far, it’s a pretty tame open for the past 2 hours. Maybe this was all baked in the previous two weeks?

Good luck on Monday and thanks for reading.

P.S. Just remember, if the Dow falls more than 30 percent (3600 pts), the market will close! Don’t think we get there, but keep it in mind?

Historic Bullsh!t

Published on August 4, 2011, 9:03 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Yes it was the worse day for the markets since December 2008! Just look at some of those numbers for just the 4 days of this week: Energy and Transportation down 10%; Russell down 9%; Banks down 8%; Semis down 7%…just ugly! Get a perspective here at A look at the Dow’s worst drops since 1900.

The VIX finally perked up with a 35% pop today and ES volume was enormous, relatively speaking with over 5 million ES contracts traded. Haven’t seen that since…well I don’t know when…but it’s been a long time!

And did you see the NYSE Advance/Decline volume? …-84:1 WOW! I guess traders aren’t going on vacation…they’re lurking!!

It’s the economy stupid!

Published on August 2, 2011, 6:56 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

We had the biggest down day this year, although the volume was not that big. I would have rather seen a big woosh down and have buyers come in instead of this slow, grinding death…on every little pop, a barrage of bears come in and sell, sell, sell! It was one of the ugliest days I’ve seen…add in 7 down days in a row…8 for the Dow…the markets are very, very oversold.

For as crazy as the market has been the past week, the VIX has been fairly tame.You would think the VIX would have shown some additional upside movement. S&P is now negative for the year. I don’t expect it to stay there, but still a significant accomplishment…for the bears.

The Arms Index, also known as TRIN says: A TRIN close over 2.0 results in a bounce the next day 9 times out of 10. No bounce? Market is in trouble! The TRIN closed at 4.64 on Tuesday!

Wow…staggering…S&P down almost 100 points…the Dow down 900 points…all in a few days! Screw the debt-ceiling, it’s the economy stupid!

Closed at the highs!

Published on June 28, 2011, 7:16 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Markets closed near their highs as traders anticipate good news from Greece by Wednesday morning. And we did have some good news on home prices, although consumer confidence was down a bit. The VIX closed at its lows. Both Monday’s and Tuesday’s rallies were on fairly low volume, both days about the same. Can’t complain though, unless you were short.

I didn’t like the way the news reported all the riots going on in Greece without mentioning that the Greek markets were up along with the Euro as well as other European markets. I finally turned off CNBC and concentrated more on the charts. I think I’ll look back to this week as the moment I turned off financial news while trading! Should be a good habit.

Remember Thursday is the End of the Month, End of the Quarter and End of the First Half 2011. Lots of window dressing going on, and could be the reason for the buying. Money managers want to get stocks into their portfolios before the reports need to be sent out.

Earnings season is about to start again….in about 2 weeks. And next week we have the monthly Employment reports. The big question, is this the summer rally and how long will it last?

Deja Vu again

Published on May 11, 2011, 9:54 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Markets were under water oil all day! It was last Thursday all over again. Commodities, all of them, took another bashing all because the US Dollar looks like it may have hit bottom…or at least bouncing strong.

Today I cashed out the short hedges I made yesterday via VIX DUG and IWM. Actually they became profits rather than hedges. I also nibbled on some USO thinking oil will bounce.

Tomorrow and Friday will bring some inflation news via the PPI and CPI, along with Jobless Claims and Consumer Sentiment. This week looks to end in a wild way. I’m holding some TBT in anticipation of inflation.

Have you noticed how all the down days have a higher volume? Except for a couple hours this morning, it was still a fairly boring day. Maybe with all the eco news coming up we can get some action going. See you in the markets. :mrgreen:

Two economists are walking down the street. One sees a dollar lying on the sidewalk, and says so.
“Obviously not,” says the other. “If there were, someone would have picked it up!”