Nov42016

Week in Review – October 31 – November 4, 2016

Week in Review

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review


October 31 – NOVEMBER 4, 2016

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

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

October 31 – November 4, 2016

This week it was easy to know what was going on, which made it very different from the past few weeks.

This week there was nothing good going on, even as earnings weren’t so bad.

There was just no reason to be enthused about anything at all.

Still, I was happy this week, but only because it could have been much, much worse.

I was pleased not to have put any new money at risk, because I couldn’t find any reason at all to spend money.

The S & P 500 finished the week 1.9% lower, as it extended its daily losing streak to nine days.

By comparison, I suppose that existing positions being only 0.6% lower is a victory.

It was nice to also sell some calls on some uncovered positions and to have had at least one ex-dividend position on the week, but all in all, there wasn’t very much activity.

There were, again, no new closed positions on the week and 2016 is looking like it will have fewer than 30 closed positions on the year.

There was so much going on this week, but none of it helped markets.

There were no really bad days, since the market did have some recovery from the steepest of its losses, but there was barely any effort to go anywhere but lower.

With earnings not really being awful and the FOMC offering no surprises, the week ending Employment Situation Report did nothing to buoy markets.

Neither did it do anything to depress them.

What seemed to be depressing the market was every time it appeared as if Clinton’s lock on victory was less secure.

That may portend for a really, really bi
g move on Wednesday.

With everything being so very unpredictable this election season, that’s not a runaway train that I want to get in front of, no matter what the election outcome.

I would be more than happy to watch it go higher without putting any more money at risk.

Anything to put existing positions in better position would be just fine with me at this point.

With the large loss of this week, we are now about 5% below our all time high from just 2 months ago.

That puts us within easy striking distance of a correction, but it also is a good springboard for a rebound.

I’m not really a betting kind of person, but my guess is that we’re in for a rebound, but with the clouds hanging over people’s heads these days with one investigation after another, there may yet be shoes to drop.

The sidelines never looked better.

With an expiring position next week, I would actually like to roll it over, rather than see those short puts expire.

At least that way I would have something to do for the week.

Otherwise, it’s more of the same watching and waiting game.

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 cycle:  none

New STO: AGQ, MRO

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

< strong>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:      INTC (11/3 $0.26)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: IP (11/10 $0.46)

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.



Nov42016

Daily Market Update – November 4, 2016

Daily Market Update

 

 

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


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

The following trade outcomes are possible today:

Assignments: none

Rollovers: none

Expirations:   none

The following were ex-dividend this week:    INTC (11/3 $0.26)

The following are ex-dividend next week:  IP (11/10 $0.46)

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

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Nov32016

Daily Market Update – November 3, 2016 (Close)

Daily Market Update

 

 

Daily Market Update –  November 3, 2016 (Close)


Waking up this morning there were two big items of news.

The first was the end of that 108 year old baseball drought in Chicago.

The second was that as the S&P 500 futures were trading flat in the early trading, we had just come off of a 7 day losing streak on that index.

Surprisingly, that was the longest such losing streak in the past 5 years, as we have been in a slow, stealthy kind of decline from our highs on 2016.

Make that 8 straight days.

For the most part, 2016 hasn’t exactly been anything to crow about, but what little we had has been eroding as each of the past 3 months have been net losers.

For my part, I’m still pleased that this isn’t 2015 and I would be happy to close the books on the year, as I type, but  there is still lots and lots ahead of us.

This week still has more earnings and an Employment Situation Report tomorrow.

Next week brings more earnings and I tend to think that in the current economy the retailer earnings reports may be the most important of all.

What everyone really wants to hear from them is their outlook for the Christmas season and what they believe 2017 may bring in its first few months.

By this time next week, we should, then, have a decent idea of whether the FOMC can find it relatively easy to interpret the data that they care about to make an interest rate decision in time for their December 2016 meeting.

While most everyone has been expecting a rate increase to be announced at that time, no one is really predicting what the reaction by traders might be.

Of course, there are predictions and then there is reality, but there is also the short term immediate reaction and the longer term reaction.

The last time we were in this position the short term reaction wasn’t bad, but it didn’t last very long and the longer term reaction took us down by 10% in the space of about a month.

Circumstances shouldn’t be very different this time around, but who knows what the outcome might end up being.

We will, in a couple of months.

Or, maybe tomorrow.

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Nov32016

Daily Market Update – November 3, 2016

Daily Market Update

 

 

Daily Market Update –  November 3, 2016 (7:30 AM)


Waking up this morning there were two big items of news.

The first was the end of that 108 year old baseball drought in Chicago.

The second was that as the S&P 500 futures were trading flat in the early trading, we had just come off of a 7 day losing streak on that index.

Surprisingly, that was the longest such losing streak in the past 5 years, as we have been in a slow, stealthy kind of decline from our highs on 2016.

For the most part, 2016 hasn’t exactly been anything to crow about, but what little we had has been eroding as each of the past 3 months have been net losers.

For my part, I’m still pleased that this isn’t 2015 and I would be happy to close the books on the year, as I type, but  there is still lots and lots ahead of us.

This week still has more earnings and an Employment Situation Report tomorrow.

Next week brings more earnings and I tend to think that in the current economy the retailer earnings reports may be the most important of all.

What everyone really wants to hear from them is their outlook for the Christmas season and what they believe 2017 may bring in its first few months.

By this time next week, we should, then, have a decent idea of whether the FOMC can find it relatively easy to interpret the data that they care about to make an interest rate decision in time for their December 2016 meeting.

While most everyone has been expecting a rate increase to be announced at that time, no one is really predicting what the reaction by traders might be.

Of course, there are predictions and then there is reality, but there is also the short term immediate reaction and the longer term reaction.

The last time we were in this position the short term reaction wasn’t bad, but it didn’t last very long and the longer term reaction took us down by 10% in the space of about a month.

Circumstances shouldn’t be very different this time around, but who knows what the outcome might end up being.

We will, in a couple of months.

.

Nov22016

Daily Market Update – November 2, 2016 (Close)

Daily Market Update

 

 

Daily Market Update –  November 2, 2016 (Close)


There was still reason to believe that this would be a busy week, on paper, at least.

Unlike the start to the week, yesterday was far from boring, but it wasn’t really anything related to the economy or to business that stimulated selling.

It was another round of fear over the election results.

Today was the same as there was some evidence that the Presidential race may be closer than most anyone thought it might be.

The investor class clearly doesn’t like the idea that a billionaire non-politician could end up as the leader of the free world.

Next Wednesday morning can’t come soon enough.

Yesterday’s sell-off wasn’t as bad as it was heading to be, as the market did make back about half of its losses by the close.

That’s usually a good sign, but this morning there was no indication of a continuing rebound in the futures market.

With the week coming to its mid-point and the FOMC meeting this afternoon culminating in its statement release, there was little reason to get ahead of the announcement, other than in a defensive way.

I would certainly have taken an opportunity to sell calls into strength prior to that announcement, but could see no reason to part with cash.

It wasn’t really likely that anything good would come out of today’s meeting as far as market sentiment is concerned.

Any wording that was hawkish may have sent sellers selling as they will feel that time is really now running out to take profits, while dovish words would possibly make people wonder just how bad the economy really was, even as we start seeing signs of awakening.

I tried to keep myself awake as it was getting ready to wind, but there didn’t appear to be much trading action in the forecast, even as yesterday’s call sale was a nice surprise.

With the FOMC ultimately saying nothing, the only news for the day really turned out to be those election polls and a nap would have been the smartest thing to have done today.

There’s always tomorrow.


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