Weekend Reading – Reviewing the Reviews
by Phil - January 1st, 2011 8:28 am
I am still trying to get more bullish.
I was thinking about writing something cute like I resolve to get more bullish but that would be wrong. I try, in my own humble way, to "get" the market right. That means I am not bullish or bearish but Truthish (to further botch Stephen Colbert’s use of the word) and, as Buddah says: "There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting." Confucious reminds us that there are three methods by which we may learn wisdom: "First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."
In that spirit, we will spend the day in reflection so that we are better able to start on that long road to the truth so that we will be better able to imitate the things that will work in the year to come while trying to avoid making mistakes that will give us bitter experiences.
This post is not about me – We had a fantastic year and I’ve already given some outlook for 2011 back on the 19th in that weekend’s "It’s Never too Early to Predict the Future" and our current position is short-term bearish in the Jan-April time-frame, looking for a pullback to at least 1,200 on the S&P and possibly back to 1,150.
After that, we are expecting a return to steady gains but without the irrational exuberance we’re currently experiencing. So no, I am not bearish – I simply think we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Since we don’t know where the rally train will stop, we have our "Breakout Defense – 5,000% in 5 Trades or Less" from Dec 11th, which were a set of very bullish, highly levered plays where a little bet can pay off a lot if we simply hold our long-established breakout levels.
How much is "a lot"? Well my GE trade idea, for example, was to sell the 2013 $12.50 puts for $1.10 (net $1.15 in ordinary margin according to TOS) and to use that money to buy the 2012 $17.50/20 bull call spread for .95, which was a net .15 credit on a $2.50 spread that was on the money at the time. GE has gained about .75 since the 11th and…
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Thank GDP It’s Friday – Finally Some Facts
by Phil - October 29th, 2010 8:29 am
Is bad news going to be good news?
Last quarter, after several adjustments, it has been decided that our GDP grew at a 1.7% rate. The general consensus is that this quarter we should be up around 2% but the whisper number is a big miss, down to 1.3%. Slower GDP growth will be GOOD for the stock market as it gives Ben and Tim the excuse they need to crank up the printing presses for some real Zimbabwe-style inflation.
It’s easy to pay off $15Tn in fixed rate 2-year to 30-year notes when your country is cranking out $1Tn bank notes, right? Can this really be the path our nation is following? The markets are certainly betting on it but we have been betting against it with longs on UUP at $22.50 (still there) and a short play on the QID weekly $13 calls at .46 yesterday along with other bearish trade ideas we’ve entered ahead of the GDP as well as the elections and next week’s Fed meeting.
Why can’t we just give up and go with the flow? Well, first of all, you can read my last few weeks of posts or you can read our last few Newsletters so I won’t rehash the great global macros here but I will make the point that (and this may shock you) we are not alone in the World and the things we do, or try to do in our economy, affect the economies of other nations. Perhaps when the US was 40% of Global GDP, we could have gotten away with it but now we are 20% and falling fast yet we still attempt to run our foreign and economic policies as if we are large and in charge.
This is not the way the rest of the World sees us anymore. To the rest of the World we are unrealistic children with dangerous spending habits who happen to owe them A LOT of money. We borrowed $15Tn and our "plan" is to pay them back with hyperinflated dollars that are already discounted 33% from where we began cranking up the borrowing in 2002 (to pay for wars and tax cuts).
Already, other nations are refusing to lend us more money so we have begun to engage in what Bill Gross, the world’s biggest bond…
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The Worst-Case Scenario: Getting Real With Global GDP!
by Phil - June 6th, 2010 8:27 am
$10,500.
That is the per capita average GDP for the 6Bn ape-like creatures on this planet who have pockets and purses. Of the still hairy and pocketless apes, there are only about 1M left and they are mainly prisoners so we won’t be worrying about them but it would be nice to consider the plight of our ancestors once in a while… Anyway, so 6Bn of us fill in those last 3 images in the planetary labor pool with the vast majority of us STILL FARMING and, of course, a select group of us are still hunting and gathering and contributing very little to the GDP.
None of our problems are new – as noted in this 2005 cartoon:
The United States of America with it’s highly evolved population of shopoholics has a per capita GDP of $46,381 – VERY IMPRESSIVE but we rank 6th! Brunei does a little better than we do and Singapore is up at $50,523 (so let’s hear it for corporal punishment) and Norway (one of my top choices of countries to flee to when it all hits the fan) is at $52,561 but Luxembourgh ($78,395 – banking) and Qatar ($83,841 – oil) simply trounce us in earnings power per person. For those of you who like to think Capitalism is all about keeping score – they must be better than you because they make more money, right?
Below the US, per capita GDP drops off fairly quickly. Rounding out the top 10 are Switzerland ($43,007 – watches and more bankers), Hong Kong ($42,748 – don’t tell China!), Netherlands ($39,938 – legal drugs!), Ireland ($39,468 – free beer when on wellfare!) and Australia ($38,911 – beer comes in oil cans plus gigantic bouncing rats). 20th on the list is Germany at $34,212, Greece is 25th at $29,882 (but not for long), 30th is South Korea at $27,978, 40th is Slovakia at $21,245. Lithuania comes in at 50 with $16,542 (1 ahead of Russia) and it steadies out there with emerging market star Brazil in 75th place with $10,514 and, keep in mind – that is where you FINALLY get to the average leverl of economic activity for the world.
Another BRIC in the global wall is mighty China, with a per capita GDP of $6,567 for each of their 1.2Bn persons and India’s Billion people average out at less than half of that, at $2,941, ranking 128th and still ahead of 53…
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Strangle Strategist Tightens Grip on JPMorgan
by Andrew Wilkinson - March 4th, 2010 4:15 pm
Today’s tickers: JPM, TIVO, RHT, UTX, CSCO, CI, BA, XRX, DIS, AKS & M
JPM – JPMorgan Chase & Co. – A long strangle enacted on JPMorgan today indicates one investor is expecting the firm to experience a significant shift in the price of its shares by June expiration. The investment banking and financial services giant realized a 1% rally in share price during the current session to $41.94. The investor initiated the strangle strategy by purchasing 9,000 calls at the June $46 strike for a premium of $1.06 apiece and by picking up 9,000 puts at the June $36 strike for $0.96 each. The net cost of the transaction amounts to $2.02 per contract. Strangle-players benefit from drastic moves in share price, but lose out if the value of the stock stagnates. In this specific trade, the investor profits if JPM’s shares rally above the upper breakeven price of $48.02 by expiration, or if shares trade below the lower breakeven point at $33.98, by June expiration. The trader is looking for increased volatility in the price of the underlying shares, but also may benefit from higher options implied volatility. Moves higher in options implied volatility corresponds with greater option premium on both calls and puts. Thus, the investor could potentially sell the strangle at a profit ahead of expiration day if combined premium on the trade exceeds the $2.02 per contract paid today. We note that JPM’s shares have not exceeded $47.47 in the past year, but did trade as low as $14.96 back on March 6, 2009.
TIVO – TiVo, Inc. – Shares of the innovator of digital-video recording services surged as much as 61.30% to an intraday high of $16.42, the highest price recorded for TiVo’s shares in at least five years. TiVo was named the victor today after a U.S. appeals court ruled that Dish Network Corp. and EchoStar Corp. are “still infringing its patent and should stop providing digital-video recording services.” Options traders had a field day with the news and exchanged upwards of 275,300 contracts on the stock by 3:10 pm (ET). Today’s options trading volume on TiVo represents just under 80% of the total existing open interest on the stock of 348,203 contracts. Investors populated the stock with a plethora of trading strategies. Some traders banked profits on the rally, while others employed the use of strangles. Plain-vanilla call buying and put selling…
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PetroBras Bear Braces for Aftershock – Buys Ratio Put Spread
by Andrew Wilkinson - February 10th, 2010 5:01 pm
Today’s tickers: PBR, HOG, BMY, FXE, KFT, YHOO, MOS, NTGR, BIDU & DIS
PBR – Petroleo Brasileiro SA ADR – Shares of Brazil’s state-owned oil and natural gas company rose 1.20% to $40.02 this afternoon, adding to the nearly 8% recovery in shares since Friday February 5, 2010, up to an intraday high of $40.25. But, painfully recent memories of the nearly 30% decline in the price per PBR-share from $52.88 on December 1, 2009, to a six-month low of $37.31 on February 8, 2010, have one investor casting doubts that this week’s rebound in shares will last. The investor initiated a ratio put spread to hedge against further share price erosion through February expiration. The trader bought 10,000 puts at the February $39 strike for a premium of $0.50 apiece, and sold 20,000 puts at the lower February $36 strike for a premium of $0.10 each. The net cost of the pessimistic play amounts to $0.30 per contract. Thus, the investor is positioned to amass profits should PBR’s shares slip beneath the breakeven price of $38.70 by expiration day. Maximum potential profits of $2.70 per contract are available to the trader if PetroBras’ share price falls 10% from the current price of $40.02 to reach $36.00 by expiration next Friday.
HOG – Harley-Davidson, Inc. – The motorcycle manufacturer’s shares declined 0.25% to $22.67 today prompting pessimistic options trades in the March contract. Investors purchased put spreads to position for potential share price erosion through expiration next month. Approximately 12,500 puts were picked up at the March $22 strike for an average premium of $1.08 apiece, spread against the sale of 12,500 puts at the lower March $19 strike for a premium of $0.25 each. The debit put spreads cost traders a net $0.83 per contract. Maximum potential profits of $2.17 per contract accumulate for put-spreaders if HOG’s share price plummets more than 16% from the current value of the stock to reach $19.00 by expiration.
BMY – Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. – Pharmaceutical company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, attracted bullish options traders today despite the 1.25% decline in the price of its shares to $23.94. One investor is optimistic that BMY’s shares will rally approximately 9% in the next five months to June expiration. The trader purchased a debit call spread to position for potential bullish movement in the price of the underlying stock. It appears the investor purchased 5,900 calls at…
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Blackberry Bull Banks Profits as RIMM Shares Rebound
by Andrew Wilkinson - December 7th, 2009 4:13 pm
Today’s tickers: RIMM, BAC, VZ, CAG, NYB, RMBS, TEVA, DIS & NVDA
RIMM – Research in Motion Limited – Blackberry maker, Research in Motion, revealed a distribution deal with Digital China – a unit of Legend Holdings – aimed at expanding its business in China. Shares stood 2.5% higher to $60.22 thirty minutes before the closing bell. One option investor banked profits on a previously established call position in the January 2010 contract today. It appears the trader originally purchased 25,000 calls at the January 80 strike for 30 cents apiece on December 4, 2009. Today the investor shed all 25,000 lots for 43 cents each. Net profits on the closing sale amount to 13 cents per contract for total gains of $325,000. Option implied volatility on the stock is up slightly on the day to 59.91%.
BAC – Bank of America Corp. – A bearish risk reversal on Bank of America this afternoon suggests one investor expects shares to suffer significant declines by expiration in May 2010. BAC’s shares slipped 2% to $15.98 in late-day trading. It appears the pessimistic player shed 7,500 calls at the May 22 strike for 36 cents apiece in order to partially offset the cost of buying the same number of put options at the lower May 13 strike for 70 cents premium each. The net cost of the transaction amounts to 34 cents per contract. The effective breakeven point on the put options of $12.66 is 20.77% lower than the current price per BAC share. The investor responsible for the reversal could be taking an extremely bearish bet on Bank of America. If this is the case, the investor expects shares to nosedive down to lows experienced at the end of July 2009. Alternatively, the trader could be long the stock, and financing cheap downside protection by selling covered call options. The long puts serve as protection in case the stock tumbles, whereas the short calls suggest the investor is happy to have the underlying stock position called from him at $22.00 each. Shares of BAC would need to rally 38% from the current price in order for the March 22 strike calls to land in-the-money.
VZ – Verizon Communications, Inc. – Option traders displayed mixed near-term sentiment on the communications company this afternoon. Shares edged 2% higher to a new 52-week high of $33.36 with less than one hour remaining in the…
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Two Week Wrap-Up – Trading Our Range
by Phil - December 6th, 2009 7:58 am
Your "crystal ball" was dead-on with the insights into the report on jobs as well as the initial rise and then correction. Truly impressive. – Champstar2
We didn’t have a weekly wrap-up last week because of the holiday.
In our Nov 21st Wrap-Up, I had said next week we’ll be watching to see if we can get more bullish above our 25% lines at: Dow 10,250, S&P 1,100, Nasdaq 2,187, NYSE 7,000 and Russell 600 and that became the bottom of our new range while I sent out a 9:41 Alert to our Members on Nov 23rd sticking with our upside targets of Dow 10,471, S&P 1,113, Nas 2,205, NYSE 7,266 and Russell 605. That has been a very reliable range to play for the past two weeks and we’ve been having a good time playing both ends of it.
Rather than just wrapping up this week’s moves, I thought we’d add the prior week as the pattern is very much the same (and it was the same the week before) so it certainly bears (oops, don’t say bears!) studying. Of course, when I talk about patterns, I don’t just mean the chart pattern where we have all of our gains for the week on Monday and Tuesday on low volume and then larger volume selling for the rest of the week as the funds who pump the futures up dump their ill-gotten gains on retail investors. I’m talking about the global new patterns, as reported by the MSM, that make this sort of manipulation so effective. It’s not that I’m so good at predicting things – it’s really just that I’m good at spotting the BS…
Monday - Stuffing the Futures for Thanksgiving
I was pointing out that morning that 90% of the market gains since October had been coming on a single day each week and how a lot of that was happening in the very thinly-traded Futures market, where a few thousand shares traded overnight are able to lever the entire US market up by Trillions of Dollars. It’s a very sick and broken system that has been seized by manipulators to yank investors around, making sure retail investors have little ability to participate in these wild market moves as the game is already over by the time trading starts the next day.
This week, we had 2 days like that with both Tuesday and Friday gapping up over 100 points…
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Weak Weekly Wrap-Up
by Phil - November 21st, 2009 8:26 am
This chart says it all (thanks Jesse).
In last week’s wrap-up I said: "Since early September our upside targets for the indexes have been: Dow 10,087, S&P 1,096, Nasdaq 2,173, NYSE 7,204 and Russell 623 and nothing has happened to change our fundamental outlook for the better so the closer we get to those levels, the LESS comfortable we are taking bullish positions." I mentioned how tempting it had been to cash out all our longs and go 100% bearish when we hit 10,300. Our downside levels told us to wait until the 16th, when Monday’s move up was finally the last straw and we are out of the bull game (our last major Buy List was July 11th and most picks are up over 100%), probably for the rest of the year.
This chart shows you that the S&P is primed for a 5% correction back to 1,050. I don’t know why Jesse didn’t extend out the lower support line, which would take us right about to my pullback target of S&P 1,000/Dow 9,650. I stuck my neck out on TV two weeks ago, calling for a 10% correction to those levels but we’ve been playing both sides of the fence until this week, when I finally had to put my foot down on Monday, after having discussed cashing out for the holidays in Member Chat over the weekend. Our general plan this week was to cash out the winners and leave only longer-term, hedged bullish plays while adding more speculative downside plays for the short-term correction.
Why the change of heart? Well, something you don’t see on this chart but is pretty clear on the Yahoo monthly view, is that virtually all of the gains (ALL of them if you include the spikes) in the Dow for the ENTIRE month of November have come on single days each week. This week it was Monday (139 points), last week Monday (206 points) and Nov 5th was Wednesday (198 points). Take those days out of the run from our Oct 30th close at 9,712 and we’re up just 63 points to 9,975 despite there being only 1 losing day in the first week (11/3, down 16 points) of the month and one losing day in the second (Nov 12th, down 92 points). That is one super-flimsy way to build a "rally" don’t you think?
Getting 90% of our gains in on 3 days in 3 weeks indicates a certain lack of follow-through to these bullish market moves. I…
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Trash in Drugs Sends Genzyme Lower
by Andrew Wilkinson - November 13th, 2009 4:47 pm
Today’s tickers: GENZ, AGO, UUP, PALM & DIS
GENZ – Genzyme Corp. – - A hot topic in the last few minutes has seen shares of biotech company, Genzyme slide by 5% to $50.50 with the AP reporting that the FDA has found tiny particles of trash in Genzyme made drugs, which according to the article says “bits of steel, rubber and fiber in drug vials could cause serious adverse health effects for patients. Option wizards were quick to pounce on the opportunity to sell rapidly deteriorating call options in the December 50 and 55 strike prices. While this could be the work of frantic bulls trying to get out of the way of a potential sandstorm it’s more likely the case that trigger-happy bears have been awakened. Ahead of the news the December 50 call traded lightly during the morning at a 4.70 premium before slumping to 2.30 on volume measuring a couple of thousand contracts, while the 55 strike fell from a pre-breaking news premium of 1.85 all the way down to 70 cents. While the situation has stabilized, option implied volatility across the field is up around 25% at 42% today. That’s something for call-writers to pay heed to.
AGO – Assured Guaranty Ltd. – – Shares in the bond issurer are 14.8% higher at $20.77 and broke right through the 52-week high after Moody’s lowered its insurance financial strength rating on the company from Aa2 to Aa3. In a statement the company expressed its delight in having maintained a double-A rating in the current economic climate. It also noted that Moody’s number-crunching of its insured residential mortgage exposure was conducted under a pretty dire scenario and was based on “an extremely pessimistic view of the future performance of residential mortgage exposure.” The company boasted that even on this worst case scenario its $12.5 billion claims paying resources are more than sufficient to meet projected obligations. The options activity confirmed the bullish jump in Assured’s share price. Using the December contract investors established 11,000 bullish bought call options at the December 22.5 strike price indicating further bullish moves ahead. The 1.40 premium would require the share price to rise a further 15% to reach breakeven at expiration. Curiously the call buying frenzy caused options implied volatility to rise from 69% to 75% today. Options volume of almost 30,000 contracts is around nine times the usual on the…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(