Category Archives: Daily Market Update

Daily Market Update – June 26, 2015  (8:30 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:  MOS

Rollovers:   none

Expirations:   BBY, GPS ($41), GPS (42.50), KMI 

The following were ex-dividend this week:  DOW (6/26 $0.42)

The following will be ex-dividend next week:  EMC (6/29 $0.115), WFM (6/30 $0.13)

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

Daily Market Update – June 25, 2015  (Close)

Yesterday was one of those days that no one really saw coming.

The futures market certainly didn’t have any clue and there really wasn’t much in the way of news to have sent the market reeling, erasing all of the gains for the week.

With no news coming from Greece, the only real news for the day was the revision of the first quarter’s GDP, indicating that the decline was only 0.2% and not the 0.7% that was previously reported.

What that may mean to some is that the slowdown wasn’t as bad as the market had been discounting, with regard to how long interest rate increases could be held off.

That’s a pretty big stretch of the importance of the GDP revision. It’s not too likely that the FOMC will look back at 4 month old data and use it to make forward predictions. No matter how you look at it the GDP still shrunk during the first quarter and at its current rate, the first half year will be a very slow one as far as economic growth goes.

That doesn’t give the kind of data that an increase in interest rates would be predicated upon. While there’s still more data to come between now and the next FOMC meeting in July, it looks as if there’s going to need to be some significant additional data to even warrant an interest rate increase in September.

Too bad, because most are beginning to be in agreement that we just need to get it over and move on in the realization that a small increase in the interest rate, especially if it’s not the first of a series of increases, isn’t going to choke the economy to a standstill.

With the market’s pre-opening futures showing some bounce back, but only a fraction of what was lost yesteday, this was mounting up to be a week that I’ve been sitting and watching trades expire as they wait for price points that never came. Today was more of the same as 2 trades that were attempted just sat all day, even as I tried to tweak the prices.

Even with any bounce higher and that bounce was getting smaller as the early futures trading was nearing the opening bell, there was very little reason to think about adding new positions, as there’s so much uncertainty. The market continues to sit at a very precarious position, not necessarily because of its heights, but more because of its continuing tentativeness and inability to have any kind of breakout.

The fact that the market can’t even do more than a 3% rollback is a little worrisome and may give some creedance to Carl Icahn, you expressed the opinion that the market is overheated, although he put particular emphasis on high yielding investments.

Add to that the flurry of IPOs lately and you begin to draw some parallels in your mind about all of the previous times when companies were tripping over one another in trying to bring their shares public.

By this time next week we should at least have some near term answer to what will be happening in Greece and we will be just 2 weeks away from another earnings season, but until then, there’s not much reason to expect that any of these triple digit moves higher that we’ve seen lately have any real basis as being anything other than reactions to the large losses that immediately preceded them.

There’s still a little time to see some trades get made this week, but it’s looking like it may be a complete shutout. Even where a rollover may be possible, the cost of closing the position relative to the premium received is just so small for anything other than looking a
t a longer term timeframe.

I’ve spent a good deal of time looking at October and even January 2016 expirations.

Hopefully, when the dust settles tomorrow, the portfolio will at least keep pace with the market, which for this week, to this point, still means being at a loss for the week.

Even that can be a victory, but if you’re in it for the income, as I am, that victory has little meaning during weeks like this.

.

Daily Market Update – June 25, 2015  (8:30 AM)

Yesterday was one of those days that no one really saw coming.

The futures market certainly didn’t have any clue and there really wasn’t much in the way of news to have sent the market reeling, erasing all of the gains for the week.

With no news coming from Greece, the only real news for the day was the revision of the first quarter’s GDP, indicating that the decline was only 0.2% and not the 0.7% that was previously reported.

What that may mean to some is that the slowdown wasn’t as bad as the market had been discounting, with regard to how long interest rate increases could be held off.

That’s a pretty big stretch of the importance of the GDP revision. It’s not too likely that the FOMC will look back at 4 month old data and use it to make forward predictions. No matter how you look at it the GDP still shrunk during the first quarter and at its current rate, the first half year will be a very slow one as far as economic growth goes.

That doesn’t give the kind of data that an increase in interest rates would be predicated upon. While there’s still more data to come between now and the next FOMC meeting in July, it looks as if there’s going to need to be some significant additional data to even warrant an interest rate increase in September.

Too bad, because most are beginning to be in agreement that we just need to get it over and move on in the realization that a small increase in the interest rate, especially if it’s not the first of a series of increases, isn’t going to choke the economy to a standstill.

With the market’s pre-opening futures showing some bounce back, but only a fraction of what was lost yesteday, this is mounting up to be a week that I’ve been sitting and watching trades expire as they wait for price points that never came. Even with any bounce higher and that bounce is getting smaller as the early futures trading is nearing the opening bell, there’s very little reason to think about adding new positions, as there’s so much uncertainty. The market continues to sit at a very precarious position, not necessarily because of its heights, but more because of its continuing tentativeness and inability to have any kind of breakout.

The fact that the market can’t even do more than a 3% rollback is a little worrisome and may give some creedance to Carl Icahn, you expressed the opinion that the market is overheated, although he put particular emphasis on high yielding investments.

Add to that the flurry of IPOs lately and you begin to draw some parallels in your mind about all of the previous times when companies were tripping over one another in trying to bring their shares public.

By this time next week we should at least have some near term answer to what will be happening in Greece and we will be just 2 weeks away from another earnings season, but until then, there’s not much reason to expect that any of these triple digit moves higher that we’ve seen lately have any real basis as being anything other than reactions to the large losses that immediately preceded them.

There’s still a little time to see soem trades get made this week, but it’s looking like it will be an extremely quiet week. Hopefully, if that does end up to be the case, the portfolio will at least keep pace with the market, which for this week, to this point, means being unchanged.

Even that can be a victory, but if you’re in it for the income, as I am, that victory has little meaning
during weeks like this.

.

Daily Market Update – June 24, 2015  (Close)

While we wait for some near term resolution to the Greek banking crisis, the market reacted very positively on Monday when there was reason to believe that an agreement was in sight and then did nothing the following day when there was no news.

This morning there was again no news from Europe and the pre-open futures are flat waiting for the morning’s GDP data to be released.

That data will be among those indicators that the FOMC will be closely looking at in about a month, before deciding whether or not to raise interest rates before it goes on its own vacation and won’t be heard from again until September.

What the data indicated in its final revision of the first quarter, was that it wasn’t as bad as thought. The decrease was revised from 0.7% to 0.2%. Better, but still at a very slow pace for the first half of the year.

Interestingly, in the past couple of days there have been more people popping up doubting whether we would see any increase in those rates in 2015, at all. That was a more common belief a few weeks ago, but seemed to disappear after the last FOMC meeting, when most became convinced that September was going to be “lift-off” for the rate hike.

Any surprises in GDP, particularly more revisions upward for the first quarter, could have gone a long way in convincing the FOMC that the consumer is coming to life. Whether due to more cash in pocket from decreasing energy prices or whether from greater employment numbers and at higher wages, sooner or later that consumer spending has to kick in.

With housing picking up and those prices increasing, and minimum wage increasing and more people working, the assumption has to be that some of that additional household money is going to get put back into the economy.

While everyone knows and understands that has to happen, what has come as a surprise is just how slowly the obvious is taking to happen, maybe because people had to dig such deep holes for themselves after the last financial crisis and collapse of the housing market.

Tomorrow’s Personal Income and Outlays data may give some more of that salient data that the FOMC craves and may also be a potential market mover.

If the data continues to be good and follows the path taken today with that good GDP news, no one will be very happy, as today’s market lost everything gained during the first 2 days of trading and none of it can be blamed on Greece.

For now, indexes still sit close to record highs and as long as they can stay at these levels heading into earnings, there’s reason to believe that those markets can go even higher.

So far, this week, despite Monday’s nice gain, hasn’t had any trades get executed.

I did have a couple of trades put out yesterday and some more today, but the options market has been very, very quiet, as volatility is just continuing to be so low. With today’s price declines those trades just got further out of hand.

With that volatility being so low and premiums following them, there’s actually reason to consider being on the purchasing end of the options transaction as the premiums are so low and as long as the market continues to have an upward bias. By the same token, portfolio insurance through the purchase of S&P 500 puts is fairly inexpensive, as well.

The cure for that would be some uncertainty and there should have been plenty of that over the past month, but somehow it never materialized. despite what common sense may have expected.

Common sense also says that with the market going higher you would think that premiums for call options would get bid higher, as well, as people would be looking at options increasingly as a way of cashing in on that upward momentum.

But it was that same common sense that would have expected a spike in consumer spending to have occured more than 6 months ago as oil prices plunged, andf that still hasn’t arrived.

This morning, as the market has a moderately negative tone, there wasn’t much to do other than to await the GDP release and see where things would go as the market got ready to open for trading.

After that. there was even less to do.

Maybe tomorrow.

While I’d like to see some more of that uphill climb so that I can finally make some trades, it would be nice to see some uncertainty come back and goive option buyers a reason to come back into the market.

.

Daily Market Update – June 24, 2015  (Close)

While we wait for some near term resolution to the Greek banking crisis, the market reacted very positively on Monday when there was reason to believe that an agreement was in sight and then did nothing the following day when there was no news.

This morning there was again no news from Europe and the pre-open futures are flat waiting for the morning’s GDP data to be released.

That data will be among those indicators that the FOMC will be closely looking at in about a month, before deciding whether or not to raise interest rates before it goes on its own vacation and won’t be heard from again until September.

What the data indicated in its final revision of the first quarter, was that it wasn’t as bad as thought. The decrease was revised from 0.7% to 0.2%. Better, but still at a very slow pace for the first half of the year.

Interestingly, in the past couple of days there have been more people popping up doubting whether we would see any increase in those rates in 2015, at all. That was a more common belief a few weeks ago, but seemed to disappear after the last FOMC meeting, when most became convinced that September was going to be “lift-off” for the rate hike.

Any surprises in GDP, particularly more revisions upward for the first quarter, could have gone a long way in convincing the FOMC that the consumer is coming to life. Whether due to more cash in pocket from decreasing energy prices or whether from greater employment numbers and at higher wages, sooner or later that consumer spending has to kick in.

With housing picking up and those prices increasing, and minimum wage increasing and more people working, the assumption has to be that some of that additional household money is going to get put back into the economy.

While everyone knows and understands that has to happen, what has come as a surprise is just how slowly the obvious is taking to happen, maybe because people had to dig such deep holes for themselves after the last financial crisis and collapse of the housing market.

Tomorrow’s Personal Income and Outlays data may give some more of that salient data that the FOMC craves and may also be a potential market mover.

If the data continues to be good and follows the path taken today with that good GDP news, no one will be very happy, as today’s market lost everything gained during the first 2 days of trading and none of it can be blamed on Greece.

For now, indexes still sit close to record highs and as long as they can stay at these levels heading into earnings, there’s reason to believe that those markets can go even higher.

So far, this week, despite Monday’s nice gain, hasn’t had any trades get executed.

I did have a couple of trades put out yesterday and some more today, but the options market has been very, very quiet, as volatility is just continuing to be so low. With today’s price declines those trades just got further out of hand.

With that volatility being so low and premiums following them, there’s actually reason to consider being on the purchasing end of the options transaction as the premiums are so low and as long as the market continues to have an upward bias. By the same token, portfolio insurance through the purchase of S&P 500 puts is fairly inexpensive, as well.

The cure for that would be some uncertainty and there should have been plenty of that over the past month, but somehow it never materialized. despite what common sense may have expected.

Common sense also says that with the market going higher you would think that premiums for call options would get bid higher, as well, as people would be looking at options increasingly as a way of cashing in on that upward momentum.

But it was that same common sense that would have expected a spike in consumer spending to have occured more than 6 months ago as oil prices plunged, andf that still hasn’t arrived.

This morning, as the market has a moderately negative tone, there wasn’t much to do other than to await the GDP release and see where things would go as the market got ready to open for trading.

After that. there was even less to do.

Maybe tomorrow.

While I’d like to see some more of that uphill climb so that I can finally make some trades, it would be nice to see some uncertainty come back and goive option buyers a reason to come back into the market.

.