Category Archives: Daily Market Update

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

Yesterday looked like it was going to be just another of those terrible days where the market decided after having tried for a couple of days to break away from oil, to just keep following it lower.

It did and then it didn’t.

No, it still followed oil. That didn’t change, just the direction of oil changed and in a big way.

So too did the market change in a big way.

Closing nearly 200 points higher, or any kind of triple digit move for that matter, is no big deal in 2016.

What was a big deal was actually getting a chance to make a couple of trades.

In both cases, the opportunity to sell calls on some uncovered positions happened before the market turned higher and they were trades that I was hoping to make the day before.

What was especially good was that the premiums were still reflecting some decent volatility and I was able to use some longer term expirations and at strike prices representing some potential gain on those shares.

This morning the futures are again pointing mildly higher, just as they did yesterday.

Maybe not so coincidentally, West Texas Intermediate is doing the same thing.

While I definitely liked yesterday’s action and chance to actually do something, I’d still like to see the market think on its own and break the association with oil.

In the meantime, I would take another day of gains and am anxious to see what the reaction will be to tomorrow’s Employment Situation Report.

Any kind of surprising number could lead to any kind of over-reaction, so I do have a seat belt prepared, but fingers are still crossed.

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Daily Market Update – February 3, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday was just another of those terrible days where the market decided after having tried for a couple of days to break away from oil, to just keep following it lower.

After 3 consecutive days of gains and looking as if maybe the market would finally make that break, yesterday it was back to the same old and tiresome association.

This morning’s futures had a very small bounce in it, but still far off from atoning for yesterday’s loss.

It’s hard to remember when we last had any really good news, other than perhaps the short term embrace of the FOMC’s decision to raise rates back nearly 2 months ago.

Ever since the very early part of December it has really been a straight line downward, with an occasional blip higher that has almost always been very quickly erased.

Since having reached a recovery high in that early part of December from the previous high in August 2015, the market is now down another 9% or so and 2016 is shaping up to be one that can’t wait for 2017 to finally arrive.

Going on the third week of not having made any trades, the only regret that I have is having made some trades to open new positions.

Every time it looked as if it might be safe to come out and test the waters, it’s been a foolish thing to do.

I’ve gotten to the point of trying to wait for some sense of stability and was hoping that yesterday could have been a continuation of the previous 3 trading days, but now it’s back to square one.

While I like volatility, I’d like it much more if I could be doing some trading at the same time, especially selling new calls on existing positions or rolling positions over.

That just hasn’t been the case, so there is no advantage to the volatility.

For now, stability is far more important and any moves higher would be much better if coming in smaller increments, rather than 300 or 400 point gains, which only lead to 300 or 400 point losses.

The same may possibly be said about today’s late day 183 point gain, which happened after an earlier in the day 100 point loss.

So what happened to turn things around?

You guess it.

Oil.

I thought that today would likely be another day of watching, although I was hoping that there would be some opportunity to make a call sale or two, as I was trying to get done yesterday and couldn’t get a bid at prices I thought were fair.

Today, I got those prices and was actually ecstatic about making a couple of trades.

Who knows, maybe there’s more ahead.

That would be nice, but hoping for nice things has been disappointing now for the longest of times.

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Daily Market Update – February 3, 2016 (9:00 AM)

Yesterday was just another of those terrible days where the market decided after having tried for a couple of days to break away from oil, to just keep following it lower.

After 3 consecutive days of gains and looking as if maybe the market would finally make that break, yesterday it was back to the same old and tiresome association.

This morning’s futures has a very small bounce in it, but still far off from atoning for yesterday’s loss.

It’s hard to remember when we last had any really good news, other than perhaps the short term embrace of the FOMC’s decision to raise rates back nearly 2 months ago.

Ever since the very early part of December it has really been a straight line downward, with an occasional blip higher that has almost always been very quickly erased.

Since having reached a recovery high in that early part of December from the previous high in August 2015, the market is now down another 9% or so and 2016 is shaping up to be one that can’t wait for 2017 to finally arrive.

Going on the third week of not having made any trades, the only regret that i have is having made some trades to open new positions.

Every time it looked as if it might be safe to come out and test the waters, it’s been a foolish thing to do.

I’ve gotten to the point of trying to wait for some sense of stability and was hoping that yesterday could have been a continuation of the previous 3 trading days, but now it’s back to square one.

While I like volatility, I’d like it much more if I could be doing some trading at the same time, especially selling new calls on existing positions or rolling positions over.

That just hasn’t been the case, so there is no advantage to the volatility.

For now, stability is far more important and any moves higher would be much better if coming in smaller increments, rather than 300 or 400 point gains, which only lead to 300 or 400 point losses.

Today will likely be another day of watching, although there may be some opportunity to make a call sale or two, as I was trying to get that done yesterday and couldn’t get a bid at prices I thought were fair.

Maybe today, if the market can continue and then add onto the bounce that the futures are indicating.

That would be nice, but hoping for nice things has been disappointing now for the longest of times.

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Daily Market Update – February 2, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday was a pretty nice day on a couple of levels.

Making a trade of any sort was not among those levels, though.

What was nice was that there was actually a small gain on the day and that represented a nice comeback from a sharp decline early in the trading.

What was especially good, however, is that while oil prices were plunging yet again, they didn’t take the market along for the ride.

Even that early decline in the indexes wasn’t anywhere near where it could have been, given oil’s descent and the way the market had been reacting to those kind of declines for the past few months.

So I did get at least one day of the stability that I had been hoping for, but there’s still not enough to really have much in the way of confidence when it comes to putting new money on the line.

But that was yesterday.

This morning the futures were again weak and the day just got worse and worse as oil went lower and lower.

Now, with 3 days left for the week, there’s not much in the way of direction until Friday’s Employment Situation Report is released.

Based on last week’s reaction to the weak GDP, there’s reason to believe that the market would be happy with weak Employment numbers maybe in the hope that then the FOMC wouldn’t go ahead and increase the interest rate any time soon.

Ultimately, that can’t be a recipe for success going forward, but it may be all that the market can really hope for, as earnings by Facebook and Google aren’t going to make up for weak earnings numbers coming from just about everything else and those oil company earnings are very sobering.

Right now, there isn’t really a single sector of the market that is performing well or can inspire any kind of confidence. What started out as less bleak this morning became very bleak in the snap of the finger.

No matter how good Facebook and Google may be, they just don’t reflect anything in the economy, at all. Today brought that lesson home.

This morning’s early futures performance was likely to lead to yet another day of just watching and waiting for some kind of a sign that a bottom is developing and maybe then being prepared to dip a toe. The way the day developed there was still no reason to think that it was yet safe to do anything.

Now we just sit and await Friday and scratch our heads trying to figure out just what investors want.

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Daily Market Update – February 2, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Yesterday was a pretty nice day on a couple of levels.

Making a trade of any sort was not among those levels, though.

What was nice was that there was actually a small gain on the day and that represented a nice comeback from a sharp decline early in the trading.

What was especially good, however, is that while oil prices were plunging yet again, they didn’t take the market along for the ride.

Even that early decline in the indexes wasn’t anywhere near where it could have been, given oil’s descent and the way the market had been reacting to those kind of declines for the past few months.

So I did get at least one day of the stability that I had been hoping for, but there’s still not enough to really have much in the way of confidence when it comes to putting new money on the line.

This morning the futures are again weak and there may not be much in the way of direction until Friday’s Employment Situation Report is released.

Based on last week’s reaction to the weak GDP, there’s reason to believe that the market would be happy with weak Employment numbers maybe in the hope that then the FOMC wouldn’t go ahead and increase the interest rate any time soon.

Ultimately, that can’t be a recipe for success going forward, but it may be all that the market can really hope for, as earnings by Facebook and Google aren’t going to make up for weak earnings numbers coming from just about everything else.

Right now, there isn’t really a single sector of the market that is performing well or can inspire any kind of confidence.

No matter how good Facebook and Google may be, they just don’t reflect anything in the economy, at all.

This morning’s early futures performance is likely to lead to yet another day of just watching and waiting for some kind of a sign that a bottom is developing and maybe then being prepared to dip a toe.

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