Daily Market Update – April 4, 2016

 

 

 

Daily Market Update – April 4, 2016 (7:30 AM)

This week could be an interesting one.

There’s not too much going on in terms of economic news other than Tuesday’s JOLTS release, but we may get to see just how important words really are.

This week there are lots of Federal Reserve Governors out there giving speeches and it will also be the week to get a closer glimpse at what was said, or at least what the tone of the previous FOMC Meeting may have been.

Lately there has been lots and lots of mixed messages being sent from members of the Federal Reserve and that had been confusing the stock market.

Last week, the market elected to go with Janet Yellen’s re-discovery of the words a dove might say, but this week there could be much more of the opposite kind, maybe even some coming from closet hawks, such as Loretta Mester.

The other thing that may be of interest is whether oil and stocks are finally going to break their relationship.

That would be nice, unless oil decides to start moving higher again.

With a few ex-dividend positions this week and a single position in range for a rollover and maybe even an assignment, despite having some income stream already for the week, I wouldn’t mind adding to it.

That was the same situation last week, but I ended up just being happy about selling some calls on uncovered positions, making that single rollover and collecting some dividends.

I would like to break out of the “no new positions opened” funk of 2016, but given the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the first quarter, it will be interesting to see how the second quarter proceeds.

We got off to a good start after the market decided that the Employment Situation Report news wasn’t as bad as initially believed, but there’s really nothing for the next two weeks to give any confidence about anything.

More dovish words might help, or maybe some softness in the economy would help, for those still equating bad with good.

What I’ll be looking for really begins in 2 weeks, as earnings season starts again.

It has been a long time since true earnings and not those artificially inflated by stock buybacks did anything to move markets forward.

At some point, there has to be some good news on both the top and bottom lines as more and more people are heading back to work, or even beginning once again to look for a job.

While I don’t mind spending money this week, I won’t be profligate, for certain and am likely to want to look at a weekly play, if only to have a better chance to recycle the money the following week.



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Dashboard – April 4 – 8, 2016

 

 

 

 

 

SELECTIONS

MONDAY:   This week we’ll see how long Yellen’s dovishness carries the market and whether oil will let go of its grip on the market, as it’s an otherwise quiet week except for the release of FOMC Minutes and lots of Federal Reserve Governors voicing their opinions

TUESDAY:  Some hawkish words from an FOMC voting member and declining oil prices may be starting to offset last week’s optimism. The futures are continuing and accelerating that trend this morning. There are more Federal Reserve members to speak this week, so it could bounce back and forth from their mouths to our bottom lines.

WEDNESDAY: Oil and stocks went their own way yesterday, but both higher as the morning is setting up. Otherwise, there’s no real news to take either of those markets in one way or another.

THURSDAY:  What yesterday’s surge in oil gave to the markets, this morning’s futures are taking away. There’s no real reason behind the morning’s early move, but that has been the story for all of 2016, especially once oil is taken out of the picture

FRIDAY:.  Yesterday oil gave back half of their previous day’s gains and stocks gave all of theirs, and more, back. This morning, both are pointing higher to end the week.

 

 

 



 

                                                                                                                                           

Today's TradesCash-o-Meter

 

 

 





 “SNEAK PEEK AT NEXT WEEK” APPEARS ON FRIDAYS

Sneak PeekPie Chart Distribution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Summary

  

Weekend Update – April 3, 2016

 I used to love comic books, but I was definitely never in the market for comic books based on great literature, unless a book report was due.

Normally engaged in less high brow reading pursuits, I knew enough to focus on key phrases found in the great works of literature. Those often held the theme and offered insight without having to commit to reading from cover to cover.

Unfortunately, sometimes those phrases from different comic books tended to coalesce and my graded book reports were often characterized by large red question marks.

Lyrics to a song may have no relationship to famous snippets from great works of literature, but this week reminded me of the “Talking Heads” always poignant question that one may find oneself asking:

“Well… How did I get here?”

It was really a week with no real direction, but it was the “Same As It Ever Was” and a perfect ending to the first quarter of 2016, which was truly a tale of two very different markets halves with much ado signifying nothing.

Despite there not being anything really different having occurred from one half of that quarter to the next half your head would have irreparably rolled had you succumbed to the temptation to cut loose, sell and run following the first 6 weeks.

Continue reading on Seeking Alpha

 

Week In Review – March 28 – April 1, 2016

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

MARCH 28 – APRIL 1, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED EX-DIVIDEND
0  /  0 2 1 0   /   0 0   /   0 0 3

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

March 28 – April 1,  2016


This week was one that had very little of fundamental value going for it, until Friday’s Employment Situation Report.

Until that point, it was all Janet Yellen inspired.

Once again, no new positions were opened this week as there really was no reason to believe that anything of substance would occur or have any kind of sustaining impact.

By “sustaining” I mean more than a day or two.

For what was mostly a week of watching, the S&P 500 ended the week 1.8% higher.

Existing positions weren’t able to match the performance of the S&P 500 for the week as they were hobbled by oil reacting to Saudi Arabia’s line in the sand over production cuts.

Still, as energy wavered, the market closed the book on the first quarter of 2016, which was truly a tale of two very different halves and which worked out nicely from a more global strategic perspective.

After coming off a rare week lower since the market turned on February 11th, Janet Yellen gave doves a reason to smile.

Even the more hawkish Federal Reserve Governors couldn’t upset the optimistic tone that had come back to the market as we headed into the Employment Situation Report.

Despite an initial negative reaction to another 200,000+ monthly increase in new jobs, the market quickly reversed itself and closed up nicely higher for the week.

As the first quarter of 2016 came to its end, it’s amazing how it has really been a tale of two halves.

There was the world before February 11th and the world after.

Nothing of any kind of substance has changed, but the world is so very, very different for traders.

For now, though, it does seem that traders are still more likely to look at news the opposite way in which a normal person would interpret the news.

Good is bad and bad is good.

For the most part no news is also good news.

This week at least had some ex-dividend positions and a chance to roll over some uncovered positions, in addition to getting an opportunity
to roll over the single expiring position.

In keeping with the theme of 2016 and the latter part of 2015, where possible, there’s been some reason to use longer term expiration dates.

Sometimes the reason is to accumulate some more dividends and sometimes it’s to take advantage of some volatility and maybe even to capitalize on some gains in the shares themselves.

That was the case this week as the process of gaining cover for uncovered positions is still progressing far too slowly, for my tastes.

It remains, however, a long term outlook and I don’t mind using short term, mid-term and long term approaches all in the name of boosting return and waiting out some of the ups and downs that every market seems to have.

With no assignments this week, I’m still scraping the bottom of the barrel for some cash, but wouldn’t be overly hesitant to borrow from myself, as a form of margin, if anything looks appealing.

At the moment, some positions do look appealing, despite the market’s second half of the first quarter story.

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  none

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cyclenone

New STO: CY, CY

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  none

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions   CY (3/29 $0.11), DOW (3/29 $0.48), EMC (3/30 $0.11)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week:  CSCO (4/4 $0.26), GPS (4/4 $0.23), WFM (4/6 $0.135)

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO,  CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



Daily Market Update – April 1, 2016

 

 

 

Daily Market Update – April 1, 2016 (7:30 AM)

The Week in Review will be posted by 10 PM tonight and the Weekend Update will be posted by Noon on Sunday.

The following trade outcomes are possible today:

Assignments:   none

Rollovers:   M

Expirations:   none

The following were ex-dividend this past week:  CY (3/29 $0.11), DOW (3/39 $0.46), EMC (3/30 $0.12)

The following are ex-dividend next week:   CSCO (4/4 $0.26),  GPS (4/4 $0.23), WFM (4/6 $0.13)

Trades, if any, will be attempted to be made prior to 3:30 PM EDT


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