Author Archives: TheAcsMan

Daily Market Update – July 29, 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: MRO (puts)

Rollovers: HPQ

Expirations:   MRO

The following were ex-dividend this week:   F (7/27 $0.15), MS (7/28 $0.20), KMI (7/29 $0.125)

The following are ex-dividend next week:   INTC (8/3 $0.26), BP (8/3 $0.595)

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

.

Daily Market Update – July 28, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday the market did something differently.

It actually closed off from its highs of the day.

Those highs weren’t really any higher, but the market did rally after its knee jerk reaction to the FOMC’s non-action, but then in the final minutes of the day, the selling hit and the market ended the day just below the break-even line.

This morning there was nothing really on tap and the futures seemed to be reflecting that case. By the time today came to its end, the market was well off from its lows, but did retreat a little bit to finally close with a small loss signifying nothing.

With yesterday’s FOMC Statement release, the expectation is that there is less than an even chance of the FOMC finally finding a reason to raise rates in 2016.

This Friday there’s a GDP release and there could be a start to the kind of data that could move the FOMC into action.

What the FOMC did do a few months ago was to leave open the possibility that they could make a decision without having a regularly scheduled meeting required to do so.

That could mean August or at anytime between meeting as we now have 5 months left to go in 2016 and the expectations for multiple rate rises in 2016 have withered.

The expectation for the remainder of 2016 is that those expectations continue to be withered, although a single rate rise wouldn’t bring much back to life.

This morning markets continued to be flat as Facebook once again showed that it’s not ready to pick up the mantle once held by the likes of IBM, Microsoft and even Apple.

While Facebook was up strongly after last night’s earnings, it isn’t a stock to move markets, as the others once could.

For now, the earnings have been good enough, but it appears as oil is again taking center stage.

Since I have 2 oil positions expiring this week, I hope that the next  day does something to breathe a little bit of life back into oil.

Otherwise, it’s already time to start looking forward to the following week and hoping for even more opportunities to sell calls on some existing uncovered positions as was again the case offered yesterday.

More of that could make all of this worthwhile.

Being able to sell some more calls on another of the uncovered positions also made today a little more worthwhile, but I wasn’t able to get rollovers done for the two expiring oil positions.

Maybe tomorrow and if so, that will bring a good week to an even better end.

.

Daily Market Update – July 28, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Yesterday the market did something differently.

It actually closed off from its highs of the day.

Those highs were really any higher, but the market did rally after its knee jerk reaction to the FOMC’s non-action, but then in the final minutes of the day, the selling hit and the market ended the day just below the break-even line.

This morning there’s nothing really on tap and the futures seem to be reflecting that case.

With yesterday’s FOMC Statement release, the expectation is that there is less than an even chance of the FOMC finally finding a reason to raise rates in 2016.

This Friday there’s a GDP release and there could be a start to the kind of data that could move the FOMC into action.

What the FOMC did do a few months ago was to leave open the possibility that they could make a decision without having a regularly scheduled meeting required to do so.

That could mean August or at anytime between meeting as we now have 5 months left to go in 2016 and the expectations for multiple rate rises in 2016 have withered.

The expectation for the remainder of 2016 is that those expectations continue to be withered, although a single rate rise wouldn’t bring much back to life.

This morning markets continue to be flat as Facebook once again shows that it’s not ready to pick up the mantle once held by the likes of IBM, Microsoft and even Apple.

While Facebook is up strongly after last night’s earnings, it isn’t a stock to move markets, as the others once could.

For now, the earnings have been good enough, but it appears as oil is again taking center stage.

Since i have 2 oil positions expiring this week, i hope that the next 2 days do something to breathe a little bit of life back into oil.

Otherwise, it’s already time to start looking forward to the following week and hoping for even more opportunities to sell calls on some existing uncovered positions as was again the case offered yesterday.

More of that could make all of this worthwhile.

.

Daily Market Update – July 27, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday was one of those days that optimists could point at and say that as the market was hovering around its all time highs, and was able to again close well off from its intra-day lows, shows consolidation and strength.

That could be the case, as Monday was the same, despite ending up with a loss.

That was also the case as the market was reacting to the actual “Brexit” voting.

For me it was just another in a long series of 2016 days without any trading, but with those complaints tempered by a look at the bottom line which has a number of positions clawing back from their disappointing behavior in 2015.

As the record high level of the markets gets increasingly precarious, even as a base may slowly be forming, there is also increasing desire to either want to exit some positions, even if ROIs may not be anything to brag about, or at least secure some additional ROI by selling calls, collecting dividends and waiting out some actual profit on the underlying shares.

For too many positions that has been a frustratingly low proposition. The moves higher in individual positions that are still underwater are greeted by a mix of greed and hope on my part.

In those cases, even being able to close out some of those positions at a breakeven would secure a very good 2016, but still wouldn’t necessarily create an environment of more trading opportunities.

At these levels there may be more energy in positions that haven’t kept up the pace but may become attractive to others looking for the rare undiscovered gems among other positions thought to be too pricey.

Did I mention hope?

Additionally, with a portfolio still overweight energy positions, the recent decline in oil prices hasn’t taken a toll on the bottom line.

As analysts are calling for about another 10% decline in the price of oil after having already had a 10% drop in just a couple of weeks, I look at it as portending a move higher, sooner rather than later.

That’s pretty much how things work out.

Usually the siren calls come right before the inflection.

If that’s the case, I expect continued outperformance.

So I was happy to sit and await today’s FOMC Statement release and then Friday’s GDP.

The bad news is that the market, although recovering from a brief sell off after the announcement actually declined quite a bit in the final 30 minutes to end the day unchanged and people scratching their heads about where the theme resided today.

There was none, if you were also wondering.

The good news is that I did find an opportunity to sell calls on another uncovered position before it, like so many other stocks today reversed course and took opportunity along with it.

With only a handful of positions set to expire this week and 2 of them energy positions, I hope that some stability returns this week and along with it some more trading, too. 

But at this point, I’m pleased with having had some ex-dividend positions and a couple of new call sales and still some hopes of either rollovers or assignments within the next 2 days.

.