Author Archives: TheAcsMan

Daily Market Update – June 19, 2015  (8:00 AM)

The Week in Review will be posted by 6 PM and the Weekend Update will be posted by Noon on Sunday.

The following trade outcomes are possible today:

Assignments:  ANF, BAC, TWTR (puts)

Rollovers: KSS

Expirations:  BNO, BP, CHK, GDX ($23), KO, MAT

The following were ex-dividend this week:  LVS (6/18 $0.60)

The follwing is ex-diivdend next week: DOW (6/28 $0.42).

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

Daily Market Update – June 18, 2015  (Close)

Yesterday couldn’t really be labeled as a disappointment.

With the market having gone higher on Tuesday and erasing all of Monday’s losses and with lots of anticipation about even the slightest changes in the wording of the FOMC’s Statement release, anything was possible.

The fact that there was to be a Chairman’s press conference following the statement release was probably a source of some comfort as boih Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen have been able to bring some optimism to light, regardless of the sentiment perceived to have been in the statement itself.

This time was a little different, though, but still not disappointing.

The market had already moved reasonably higher prior to the press conference and maintained that level all through the conference. It was only in the final thirty minutes of trading, after the conclusion of the question and answer period that the market gave up some of those modest gains.

During that conference, as one of my subscribers said, Yellen should have changed her name to Wallenda, as she did the best tightrope walking act ever.

Yellenda.

I like the sound of that.

She did indeed do a great job of not really answering questions, but she did make it clear that the data would lead the FOMC into action, unlike the “robotic” increases seen in an early Federal Reserve.

So that brings us to today and tomorrow.

With the pre-open futures again up modestly, there was still some hope for some assignments and maybe even some rollovers.

Not only was there a rollover, but an uncovered position actually had calls sold on it, although both reflected the really low volatility thought to reflect the market over the next few months.

As this morning was getting ready to begin, it was extraordinarily unlikely that I’d be adding any new positions this week, particularly since there were no interesting dividend plays today, tomorrow or on Monday of next week. I much rather preferred to see a couple of those assignments that appear to be possible and build up cash reserves, even if only slightly, than spend any money at the moment.

More importantly was being able to add to the pitiful income stream of late, but that would have required some more nice gains this week.

Who knew that they would come today? Even in the context of some negative news from overseas.

At the moment I’d be happy to meet or exceed the market’s performance for the week, but would still be a little greedy and like to add some income into that mix. After the past 2 weeks of having lots of ex-dividend positions, this week’s single position doesn’t make up for the lack of premium income.

Hopefully some of the optimism that may have been expressed by Janet Yellen ye
sterday, that makes it seem as if a rate increase won’t occur for another 3 months may be enough to at least keep us at this level as we head into earnings all over again in about 3 weeks. WIth today’s gain that seems more likely, even though tomorrow’s challenge could be a quadruple witching, as well as just not wanting to be long going into a weekend that may bring some adverse ECB/IMF/Greek news.

Otherwise, today’s party wasn’t even the least bit upset by Oracle’s poor earnings and attempts to spin the news into something good at the expense of its competitors. Even though Oracle reported yesterday and blamed currency exchange for its woes of the first quarter, those reporting the second quarter’s results, beginning early in July, may have a very different story to tell, as USD/Euro parity hasn’t occured, as expected.

That should only add to top line and bottom lines and should be good for us all.

But first, we have to get to that point. Today was a nice step forward and tomorrow could be another toward at least keeping us above the water line.

Daily Market Update – June 18, 2015  (9:00 AM)

Yesterday couldn’t really be labeled as a disappointment.

With the market having gone higher on Tuesday and erasing all of Monday’s losses and with lots of anticipation about even the slightest changes in the wording of the FOMC‘s Statement release, anything was possible.

The fact that there was to be a Chairman’s press conference following the statement release was probably a source of some comfort as boih Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen have been able to bring some optimism to light, regardless of the sentiment perceived to have been in the statement itself.

This time was a little different, though, but still not disappointing.

The market had already moved reasonably higher prior to the press conference and maintained that level all through the conference. It was only in the final thirty minutes of trading, after the conclusion of the question and answer period that the market gave up some of those modest gains.

During that conference, as one of my subscribers said, Yellen should have changed her name to Wallenda, as she did the best tightrope walking act ever.

Yellenda.

I like the sound of that.

She did indeed do a great job of not really answering questions, but she did make it clear that the data would lead the FOMC into action, unlike the “robotic” increases seen in an early Federal Reserve.

SO that brings us to today and tomorrow.

With the pre-open futures again up modestly, there’s still some hope for some assignments and maybe even some rollovers.

It’s extraordinarily unlikely that I’ll be adding any new positions this week, particularly since there are no interesting dividend plays today, tomorrow or on Monday of next week. I’d much prefer to see a couple of those assignments that appear to be possible and build up cash reserves, even if only slightly, than spend any money at the moment.

More importantly is being able to add to the pitiful income stream of late, but that will require some more nice gains this week.

At the moment I’d be happy to meet or exceed the market’s performance for the week, but would still be a little greedy and like to add some income into that mix. After the past 2 weeks of having lots of ex-dividend positions, this week’s single position doesn’t make up for the lack of premium income.

Hopefully some of the optimism that may have been expressed by Janet Yellen yesterday, that makes it seem as if a rate increase won’t occur for another 3 months may be enough to at least keep us at this level as we head into earnings all over again in about 3 weeks.

< p>Even though Oracle reported yesterday and blamed currency exchange for its woes of the first quarter, those reporting teh second quarter’s results, beginning early in July, may have a very different story to tell, as USD/Euro parity hasn’t occured, as expected.

That should only add to top line and bottom lines and should be good for us all.

But first, we have to get to that point. Today and tomorrow could be a step toward at least keeping us above the water line.

Daily Market Update – June 17, 2015  (Close)

“What the market taketh, the market giveth“, although it could just as easily be “what the market giveth, the market taketh.”

Yesterday it was the former, almost tick for tick erasing the performance from the day before. Not only in the amount of the change, but also in the quality of the trading. Neither day had much in the way of uncertainty associated with it, although Monday had a greater range.

This morning, as the FOMC got ready for the second day of its meeting and about 5 hours in advance of its statement release, all was quiet in the futures, sending no signal as to what anyone believes will be coming from the FOMC.

Some 30 minutes after the release was to be made would also come the last Chairman’s press conference until September, when many had already believed the first interest rate increase will happen and now have even more reason to believe so.

Regardless of what new ideas of words may have been introduced in today’s statement, if there was to be no change in the interest rate, you can bet that there would be plenty of questions directed toward Janet Yellen focusing on the timing and her assessment of the changing pattern of economic growth.

As it would turn out, there was no change, and there was plenty of time for questions.

What Janet Yellen did, she did masterfully, as she skirted those questions that sought any kind of detail or that tried to pin her down.

With almost every of these press conferences Yellen has been able to push markets higher. She didn’t really do that today, and I hadn’t been expecting her to do so, but at least she didn’t torpedo the mild gains that ensued from the FOMC Statement release.

As expected, and she made it pretty clear, if rates aren’t raised today the only things that could be said is that those rate rises are coming soon.

I thought that if that was to be the case,  rather than being relieved at that news and getting on with life, traders would take that as a short term negative.

But they didn’t.

Maybe they were able to remember that most of them expected a rate increase as early as June. So when not introduced today, it would just represent another month or more of the gift that the Federal Reserve has been giving the stock market. Now it looks as if it may be another 3 months.

That should be a cause for celebration, as should the actual raising of interest rates, when it does eventually come.

While waiting for today’s scheduled events, there was also the continuing matter of Greece, which may account for some of the back and forth having been seen in the market the past couple of weeks.

Also waiting have been some trades.

After being close to desired prices on a few trades on Monday, I was really hopeful that they would have happened on Tuesday, especially as the market headed higher.

But nothing.

I would have liked like the chance to rollover any position that makes sense to do so before the FOMC Statement release in order to avoid any potential plunge, but it just didn’t happen that way, yet again.

With the delay in an increase in interest rates for now, there was some bounce back in gold, so at least that gave a chance to rollover one of the Gold Miners ETF positions, yet again.

However, as we now near the end of the monthly option cycle, I may end up making fewer trades than may be possible because I don’t really want to take on the cost of the transaction, including buying back an option position that almost certainly would have expired worthless. With volatility so low the relative cost of buying back some of those positions is just too high compared to the new premium received, unless that premium is boosted by an upcoming earnings release.

While there’s always hope to extricate myself from some of the expiring positions this week, the clock is now really ticking. It would be especially nice to see some real follow through with another day of gains and most of all, for those gains to hold until the books are finally closed on this month’s options.