Category Archives: Daily Market Update

Daily Market Update – March 18, 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:  GM

Expirations:  none

The following were ex-dividend this week:  BBY (3/15 $0.28), BBY (3/15 $0.45 Special Dividend), JOY (3/17 $0.01), LVS (3/18 $0.72)

The following are ex-dividend next week:   none

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

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Daily Market Update – March 17, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday the focus was much more on the FOMC and Chairman Yellen.

The take home message was that the economy wasn’t growing as fast as had been hoped and the world’s economies are even worse.

As a result, the FOMC believes that it will have fewer interest rate increases in 2016 than it had planned.

Somehow, that’s good news.

I understand why it may offer some more time for people to get cheap money to play with, but the increases that the FOMC had in mind weren’t going to leave money more expensive for those borrowing, in any real terms.

Instead, a less than optimistic picture was painted, but traders liked it.

This morning, as it all sank in, stock futures had been all over the place.

They were moderately higher and then equally moderately lower, both bordering on triple digits.

In the meantime, stocks looked as if they might spend another day diverging from oil, which was again moderately higher.

Sooner or later I expected that had to happen, but as long as oil is going higher, I’d have liked to have seen some delay in everyone coming to their senses.

Based on the futures inability to get on a single frame of mind, I thought that today may very well be a day of confusion as various sides try to figure out whether yesterday’s FOMC news was good or bad.

Still, with yesterday’s close, the DJIA was at its highest for 2016, so it’s as if the first 6 weeks of trading never even happened.

It’s as if 2016 hasn’t even happened yet.

Ultimately, it seems that stocks decided to rejoin with oil and yesterday’s FOMC decision and rationale for the decision was still being embraced.

Although the market closed beneath its high for the day, the S&P 500 is now just very slightly in the red for the year as the DJIA is in the black.

Who would have thought?

Based on the number of trades that I’ve made in the first 10 weeks of 2016, you would be excused for believing 2016 had never even started yet.

Hopefully, that will change before the next interest rate hike.

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Daily Market Update – March 17, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Yesterday the focus was much more on the FOMC and Chairman Yellen.

The take home message was that the economy wasn’t growing as fast as had been hoped and the world’s economies are even worse.

As a result, the FOMC believes that it will have fewer interest rate increases in 2016 than it had planned.

Somehow, that’s good news.

I understand why it may offer some more time for people to get cheap money to play with, but the increases that the FOMC had in mind weren’t going to leave money more expensive for those borrowing, in any real terms.

Instead, a less than optimistic picture was painted, but traders liked it.

This morning, as it all sinks in, stock futures had been all over the place.

They were moderately higher and then equally moderately lower, both bordering on triple digits.

In the meantime, stocks looked as if they might spend another day diverging from oil, which was again moderately higher.

Sooner or later I expected that had to happen, but as long as oil is going higher, I’d have liked to have seen some delay in everyone coming to their senses.

Based on the futures inability to get on a single frame of mind, today may very well be a day of confusion as various sides try to figure out whether yesterday’s FOMC news was good or bad.

Still, with yesterday’s close, the DJIA was at its highest for 2016, so it’s as if the first 6 weeks of trading never even happened.

It’s as if 2016 hasn’t even happened yet.

Based on the number of trades that I’ve made in the first 10 weeks of 2016, you would be excused for believing 2016 had never even started yet.

Hopefully, that will change before the next interest rate hike.

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Daily Market Update – March 16, 2016 (Close)

Once again, the previous day did nothing to get 2016 closer to the breakeven point, but at least it didn’t push things further out of reach.

By the looks of the futures this morning, we might yet get to say the same thing, except that at 2 PM there was a scheduled big event and then maybe an even bigger one beginning about 30 minutes later.

Those would be the FOMC Statement release and Janet Yellen’s press conference, respectively.

What the market did yesterday was to dispense with the customary pre-FOMC rally, as stocks again followed oil.

First lower, but then recovering from a triple point loss to end with another visit to the baseline.

Today, it may just be a case of “wait and see” as no one really put themselves out on the line in advance of today’s events.

That was definitely the case as oil was sharply higher early in the morning before stocks opened and stocks decided not to play along.

I certainly didn’t feel like adding any risk with what could be a very big unknown, even as most expect no change in policy.

Sometimes, it’s not the change that makes the difference.

Often it’s the nuance contained in the FOMC Statement and when there also happens to be a press conference, any single word can cause gyrations.

Unfortunately, those surprises that may come are not only unpredictable in their own rights, but the reactions are equally unpredictable and subject to multiple reversals.

Today, as expected, there was no increase in rates, but what may have come as a surprise was the news that there would likely be fewer than originally expected increases for the year.

The market interpreted that positively, without thinking that means that the economy isn’t growing as had been expected.

I look at that as bad news. Maybe at some point so will others.

At the moment, I just hope to be in a somewhat better position to get some rollovers of the 2 positions expiring this week and perhaps adding to the dividend income for the week.

So, that’s not asking for much, but the market hasn’t given too much lately, anyway, leaving expectations low.

Lately Janet Yellen hasn’t sent markets higher, but I expected that she might have been able to help things out today, especially if the net result of the initial reactions to the FOMC Statement were negative. She does have a way of mollifying what could be perceived as bad news.

Instead, she neither helped nor hurt, although maybe on a net basis she helped, except that the DJIA actually closed 2 points lower than when she started speaking, despite having spiked an additional 50 points beyond the close during the beginning of her question and answer session

At least it was nice to think about something other than oil for a change

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Daily Market Update – March 16, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Once again, the previous day did nothing to get 2016 closer to the breakeven point, but at least it didn’t push things further out of reach.

By the looks of the futures this morning, we might yet get to say the same thing, except that at 2 PM there’s a big event and then maybe an even bigger one beginning about 30 minutes later.

Those would be the FOMC Statement release and Janet Yellen’s press conference, respectively.

What the market did yesterday was to dispense with the customary pre-FOMC rally, as stocks again followed oil.

First lower, but then recovering from a triple point loss to end with another visit to the baseline.

Today, it may just be a case of “wait and see” as no one really put themselves out on the line in advance of today’s events.

I certainly didn’t feel like adding any risk with what could be a very big unknown, even as most expect no change in policy.

Sometimes, it’s not the change that makes the difference.

Often it’s the nuance contained in the FOMC Statement and when there also happens to be a press conference, any single word can cause gyrations.

Unfortunately, those surprises that may come are not only unpredictable in their own rights, but the reactions are equally unpredictable and subject to multiple reversals.

At the moment, I just hope to be in a somewhat better position to get some rollovers of the 2 positions expiring this week and perhaps adding to the dividend income for the week.

So, that’s not asking for much, but the market hasn’t given too much lately, anyway, leaving expectations low.

lately Janet Yellen hasn’t sent markets higher, but i expect that she may be able to help things out today, especially if the net result of the initial reactions to the FOMC Statement are negative. She does have a way of mollifying what could be perceived as bad news.

In the event that those initial reactions are ebullient, she may serve us well by putting a little damper on any unrestrained fervor.

At least it might be nice to think about something other than oil for a change

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