Author Archives: TheAcsMan

Daily Market Update – October 7, 2014 (CLose)

It’s hard to say whether yesterday was a disappointment or not.

While it’s true that the early morning gain never quite survived, neither did it give way to any kind of tangible profit taking.

But even if you had doubts about yesterday, there can’t be any about today.

This morning appeared ready to start exactly where yesterday left off. The market was pretty ambivalent yesterday and had a hard time deciding whether to finish higher or lower. This morning it looked as if there would be a mildly lower opening with no real news to fuel anything.

That changed, but without any real obvious reason and the market ended with another of these 200+ point moves, but in the wrong direction, unless you’re really into volatility.

Even I’m not that into volatility.

While yesterday had the Hewlett Packard news which by all appearances was a dizzying spin of why the split up was a reflection of Hewlett Packard’s success, today had nothing.

Other than all of the scheduled speakers this week and tomorrow’s FOMC Statement release, that pretty much describes the rest of the week.

In the meantime the market had been sitting just short of the mid-way point for its 2 year pattern of mini-corrections. It was getting ready to start the morning about 2.3% below its high from a few weeks ago, so it was really anyone’s guess where the next stop would be be.

Tomorrow morning the only thing to guess is whether we will see the market takes us to and perhaps beyond that 5% mini-correction level that we last saw at the very end of July, as the market ended today about 3.6% below its high.

Tomorrow comes the next challenge.

With the anticipation for the last FOMC Statement being so focused on the phrase “considerable time,” as it was being used to describe when the increase in interest rates would start, somewhere along the line will come the realization that with each passing month, by definition that “considerable time” has been shortened by a month.

Sooner or later there will be no time left and rates will go higher.

Although it shouldn’t come as a surprise, you can be reasonably assured that the market will react as if it was a surprise and then will bounce back from the shock that should never have been a shock.

But that scenario may not have to play out for so
me considerable time.

What will play out almost immediately will be earnings, that really get going tomorrow, even though the traditional leader of the season, Alcoa is no longer in the DJIA.

This earnings period will be interesting because the likelihood is that retail will have some good news, but energy will have some bad news, especially as it gives forward guidance.

If you asked anyone what the future would hold for the energy sector, given all of the geo-political risk, they would have had to have been crazy to not believe that the future for profits was incredibly bright. But this period in time is markedly different, as even with all of the world’s craziness energy prices (and precious metals) are plummeting.

They will surely go up at some point, but as the expression goes “if not now, when?”

After a couple of purchases yesterday, I wouldn’t have minded adding some others for the week, but am still not committed to it. If anything, I may be interested in buying back some of last week’s assigned positions, but I’m not too convinced that I’ll have much interest to break out beyond those names at the moment. As the afternoon progressed and there was a sell-off on top of the already weak numbers, there was even less reason to make those purchases.

As has become the pattern of late, unless there’s a spike higher to open a session, giving an opportunity to sell calls, the likelihood is that sitting back and watching to see how that early trading evolves is the way to go. That was definitely the way to go today and it was also a good idea to resist anything looking like a value.

With the exception of last Friday when the market indicated higher and stayed that way, these early morning trading patterns have had very poor predictive value. Lower opening trading hasn’t offered much in the way of value and higher opens haven’t led to higher closes, for the most part.

I had suspected that the typical FOMC pattern would be in play today, unless, as last month, someone thought to have an inside track, such as the Wall Street Journal’s Jon Hilsenrath, offers an opinion on what tomorrow will bring. Otherwise, there was very little reason to suspect any kind of accentuated movement in either direction, as most traders are playing very conservatively now.

Most of the time that’s not too bad of an idea.

Today, though, they were neither conservative nor in panic, but maybe a blow off from some kind of panic is better than this seemingly unwarranted syncopated sell-off that has been going on for the past three weeks.

But who knows, maybe Janet Yellen will give us a brief respite tomorrow.

Daily Market Update – October 7, 2014 (9:15 AM)

It’s hard to say whether yesterday was a disappointment or not.

While it’s true that the early morning gain never quite survived, neither did it give way to any kind of tangible profit taking.

This morning appears ready to start exactly where yesterday left off. The market was pretty ambivalent yesterday and had a hard time deciding whether to finish higher or lower. This morning it looks as if there will be a mildly lower opening with no real news to fuel anything.

While yesterday had the Hewlett Packard news which by all appearances was a dizzying spin of why the split up was a reflection of Hewlett Packard’s success, today has nothing.

Other than all of the scheduled speakers this wek and tomorrow’s FOMC Statement release, that pretty much describes the rest of the week.

In the meantime the market is sitting just short of the mid-way point for its 2 year pattern of mini-corrections. It is currently about 2.3% below its high from a few weeks ago, so it really is anyone’s guess where the next stop will be.

With the anticipation for the last FOMC Statement being so focused on the phrase “considerable time,” as it was being used to describe when the increase in interest rates would start, somewhere along the line will come the realization that with each passing month, by definition that “considerable time” has been shortened by a month.

Sooner or later there will be no time left and rates will go higher.

Although it shouldn’t come as a surprise, you can be reasonably assured that the market will react as if it was a surprise and then will bounce back from the shock that should never have been a shock.

But that scenario may not have to play out for some considerable time.

What will play out almost immediately will be earnings, that really get going tomorrow, even though the traditional leader of the season, Alcoa is no longer in the DJIA.

This earnings period will be interesting because the likelihood is that retail will have some good news, but energy will have some bad news, especially as it gives forward guidance.

If you asked anyone what the future would hold for the energy sector, given all of the geo-political risk, they would have had to have been crazy to not believe that the future for profits was incredibly bright. But this period in time is markedly different, as even with all of the world’s craziness energy prices (and precious metals) are plummeting.

They will surely go up at some point, but as the expression goes “if not now, when?”

After a couple of purchases yesterday, I wouldn’t mind adding some others for the week, but am not committed to it. If anything, I may be interested in buying back some of last week’s assigned positions, but I’m not too convinced that I’ll have much interest to break out beyond those names at the moment.

As has become the pattern of late, unless there’s a spike higher to open the session, giving an opportunity to sell calls, the likelihood is that sitting back and watching to see how that early trading evolves is the way to go.

With the exception of last Friday when the market indicated higher and stayed that way, these early morning trading patterns have had very poor predictive value. Lower opening trading hasn’t offered much in the way of value and higher opens haven’t led to higher closes, for the most part.

I suspect that the typical FOMC pattern will be in play today, unless, as last month, someone thought to have an inside track, such as the Wall STreet Journal’s Jon Hilsenrath, offers an opinion on what tomorrow will bring. Otherwise, there’s very little reason to suspect any kind of accentuated movement in either direction, as most traders are playing very conservatively now.

Most of the time that’s not too bad of an idea.

Daily Market Update – October 6, 2014 (Close)

What a wild week ahead.

There’s not too much as far as scheduled economic news goes and there may also be some peaceful short term resolution to the protests underway in Hong Kong, but there will be an incredible amount of hot air generated this week.

Today, Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew speaks and on Thursday European Central Bank President Mario Draghi speaks

In-between will be Wednesday’s release of the monthly FOMC Statement and the eager anticipation around the wording used to indicate what we all know is now coming at least one month sooner than we thought last month.

Finally, there are 12 speeches scheduled to be given by members of the FOMC this week, winding up with hawkish member, Richard Fisher, who is able to move markets very much in the same manner that the Chairman, Janet Yellen can do, despite the fact that Fisher has frequently been wrong in his opinions and predictions.

Unfortunately, he speaks just a few hours before the market finishes its trading for the week and he has a habit of sending shares lower when he focuses on the need to increase interest rates sooner.

This morning none of that seemed to matter as the pre-opening futures indicated a moderately higher opening, possibly buoyed by Hewlett Packard’s split into 2 companies. Nonetheless, 28 out of 30 of the DJIA components were higher prior to the bell ringing,

That kind of opening would have been welcome, even though I ordinarily like to see weakness to start the week.

That’s because I generally am looking to replace assigned positions and want to spend money, but don’t want to overspend.

This week, however, is another week that I’m not overly anxious to spend much money. Following 2 weeks of very confusing trading and seeing large moves in both directions with little or no provocation, it seems a little reckless to commit one way or another.

Today really did nothing to get rid of the confusion. After looking as if there might be a possible early triple digit move to the upside the market loss all of it and actually was down as low as about 70 points, only to finish the day virtually unchanged.

Rational thinking might say that there’s more downside than upside, but when has rational thinking really worked terribly well in the markets?  If rational thinking had any role most people would have missed the last couple of thousand of points gain in the DJIA while awaiting the correct
ion that we all knew to be obviously lurking.

With a handful of positions scheduled to expire this week and the same for next week’s monthly cycle end, at the moment, if making any new purchases I’m likely to look to add to this week’s expirations or possibly go out to October 24th.

In addition to the usual considerations whenever buying any new positions this week begins yet another earnings season, so that has to be thrown into the mix.

However, for the first time in a while, I’m actually optimistic about the upcoming earnings. The potential confounder will be the impact of share buy-backs. During the past few quarters those buy-backs have artificially boosted earnings per share, even as revenues were flat or even decreasing.

This time around, I expect revenues to be higher, especial in retail and consumer sections, but expect that buy backs have slowed down. That may result in higher revenues, but not the same pace of share reduction, which could lead to some earnings per share disappointments.

So as the bell was getting ready to ring, I was hoping that the strength would continue, but as we all know those kind of mild to moderate pre-open futures really don’t mean much of anything. Just as so often happens, today’s early jump higher just withered away.

Although there wasn’t much of a net change today, the constant back and forth did end up increasing volatility, which had fallen on Friday’s straight climb higher. That climb wasn’t too much, though, and did nothing really to make finding extended option opportunities any easier. Nonetheless, for now, I’d prefer to see some higher moving prices, even at the expense of volatility, if that meant a greater likelihood of putting some existing stock positions to work.

This week I’d rather see myself producing income in that manner, along with more than the usual number of ex-dividend positions, than through the depletion of cash reserves.

Like last week, it’s very possible that the two early purchases for the week may be as much as will be made, although with any further declines in eBay, Comcast and Walgreen, the stocks assigned this past Friday, it may just be time to buy those back.

Daily Market Update – October 6, 2014 (9:00 AM)

What a wild week ahead.

There’s not too much as far as scheduled economic news goes and there may also be some peaceful short term resolution to the protests underway in Hong Kong, but there will be an incredible amount of hot air generated this week.

Today, Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew speaks and on Thursday European Central Bank President Mario Draghi speaks

In-between will be Wednesday’s release of the monthly FOMC Statement and the eager anticipation around the wording used to indicate what we all know is now coming at least one month sooner than we thought last month.

Finally, there are 12 speeches scheduled to be given by members of the FOMC this week, winding up with hawkish member, Richard Fisher, who is able to move markets very much in the same manner that the Chairman, Janet Yellen can do, despite the fact that Fisher has frequently been wrong in his opinions and predictions.

Unfortunately, he speaks just a few hours before the market finishes its trading for the week and he has a habit of sending shares lower when he focuses on the need to increase interest rates sooner.

This morning none of that seems to matter as the pre-opening futures are indicating a moderately higher opening, possibly buoyed by Hewlett Packard’s possible split into 2 companies. Nonetheless, 28 out of 30 of the DJIA components were higher prior to the bell ringing,

That kind of opening would be welcome, even though I ordinarily like to see weakness to start the week.

That’s because I generally am looking to replace assigned positions and want to spend money, but don’t want to overspend.

This week, however, is another week that I’m not overly anxious to spend much money. Following 2 weeks of very confusing trading and seeing large moves in both directions with little or no provocation, it seems a little reckless to commit one way or another.

Rational thinking might say that there’s more downside than upside, but when has rational thinking really worked terribly well in the markets?  If rational thinking had any role most people would have missed the last couple of thousand of points gain in the DJIA while awaiting the correction that we all knew to be obviously lurking.

With a handful of positions scheduled to expire this week and the same for next week’s monthly cycle end, at the moment, if making any new purchases I’m likely to look to add to this week’s expirations or possibly go out to October 24th.

In addition to the usual considerations whenever buying any new positions this week begins yet another earnings season, so that has to be thrown into the mix.

However, for the first time in a while, I’m actually optimistic about the upcoming earnings. The potential confounder will be the impact of share buy-backs. During the past few quarters those buy-backs have artificially boosted earnings per share, even as revenues were flat or even decreasing.

This time around, I expect revenues to be higher, especial in retail and consumer sections, but expect that buy backs have slowed down. That may result in higher revenues, but not the same pace of share reduction, which could lead to some earnings per share disappointments.

So as the bell rings, I hope that the strength continues and doesn’t do as so often has been the case and just withers away. If that strength does continue and builds on Friday’s close, volatility will move lower and that may make it a little more difficult to find expanded option opportunities. Nonetheless, for now, I’d prefer to see some higher moving prices, even at the expense of volatility, if that meant a greater likelihood of putting some existing stock positions to work.

This week I’d rather see myself producing income in that manner, along with more than the usual number of ex-dividend positions, than through the depletion of cash reserves.