XLE -Shares of the energy fund are up more than 1% to $52.92. We observed near-term bearishness and medium-term bullishness displayed through options on the ETF today. A ratio put spread initiated in the September contract indicates near-term pessimism by some traders. The transaction involved the purchase of 2,500 puts at the September 52 strike for 1.69 apiece spread against the sale of 5,000 puts at the lower September 48 strike for 55 cents each. The net cost of the trade amounts to 59 cents and yields maximum potential profits to the downside of 3.41 if shares fall to $48.00 by expiration. Bullish sentiment was seen at the December 57 strike where 2,100 calls were coveted for 2.00 apiece. An 11.5% rally in shares to the breakeven price of $59.00 will allow this optimistic energy player to begin to amass profits by expiration in December. – Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF –
PFEA - Short straddle initiated in the pharmaceutical company’s January 2011 contract today suggests far-term bullish sentiment on the stock. Shares of PFE are currently higher by approximately 0.5% to $16.71. The straddle was enacted at the January 20 strike where 15,000 calls were shed for 1.12 apiece and 15,000 puts sold for 4.90 per contract. The gross premium on the transaction amounts to 6.02, and will be fully retained by the straddle-seller if shares settle at $20.00 by expiration. Over the next sixteen months shares must rally about 20% for the trader to bank the full 6.02 premium. If the stock fails to center at $20.00, the investor’s premium will erode down to zero if shares move sufficiently in either direction. Once the entire premium has evaporated, the trader will begin to accrue losses above the breakeven point to the upside at $26.02 or beneath the breakeven point to the downside at $13.98. We note that Pfizer has not traded above $20.00 since May 20, 2008. Nearer-term trades indicate that investors may be bracing for declines in the stock. The October 16 strike price had 4,100 puts picked up for 43 cents apiece while the higher December 17 strike had about 2,400 puts purchased at 1.34 per contract. – Pfizer, Inc. –
FRE - Investors were observed making bullish bets on Freddie today as shares soared higher than 30% at times to a maximum of $2.34. Shares are…
Did we just finish lower on Friday than Monday? We almost forgot such a thing can happen in Obama’s magic market-land but here we are with a week in which the stock market had not one, not two but three (3) red days out of 5. You have to go all the way back to the week of June 22, when the market was finishing a 600-pont down leg from June 15th, to see so much blood on Wall Street. I have, for a month, been drawing parrallels betwen this market top and the market top that ended on June 12th and it’s all about next week as options expire and things begin to get very interesting.
As you can see from David Fry’s chart on the right, we hit the very tippy top of our expected range on the Qs and then could not close the deal above our $40 line. It didn’t seem too much too ask – just a teeny, tiny little breakout and we would have been happy to buy some GOOG and get back into SPWRA and find some other 4-letter stocks to play with, even some semiconductors if the SOX had finally taken out our 308 mark but nooooooooooooo – the Nasdaq couldn’t hold 2,000, let alone our 2,017 target, which they teased us with two weeks ago but never came back to.
And don’t even get me started on yesterday’s close. For those of you who have ever doubted the power of the stick, David and I say HA!, as there has never been a more bogus end to a trading session than the despicable display of market manipulation that went on yesterday, just before the close. The only good thing I have to say about this very sad state of unregulated market affairs is that at least we called it practically to the penny and played it perfectly because, as I often say to members: "We don’t care IF the markets are rigged as long as we know HOW they are rigged so we can place our bets accordingly."
As shamefully despicable as these "stick saves" are at least they fall into a pattern that we have learned to recognize and profit from in Member Chat. I was, of course, very bearish in the morning post as we expected a minimum 1.25% correction (1.27 on the SPY chart) by Monday, on the way…
We came right back to 1,000 on the S&P yesterday but it held like a champ and that gave us the confidence to take a bullish cover on our longer DIA protective puts, right at 3:04, ahead of the usual 50-point stick save but it was a move we initiated right at the bottom at 2:30, catching almost the dead bottom on our roll. Of course it’s total nonsense but it’s total nonsense we can count on with 8 stick saves of at least 50 points in the last 90 minutes coming in the last 10 market sessions accounting for 400 points of Dow gains or ALL of our gains since July 20th when we "broke out."
As illustrated in David Fry’s SPY chart, the only exceptions to the stick save were the last two Fridays and I said to members in yesterday’s chat, perhaps that is somehow significant that the collective we call "Mr. Stick", does not feel confident enough to make bullish plays into the weekend anymore. Today we should head right back to re-test 1,000 on the S&P but we are much more bearish overall, having taken profits yesterday and covered our unrealized gains in our $100KP - the plan we discussed in yesterday’s morning post.
We got a re-test and a re-failure of the Russell at exactly our 574 target right at 11:15 and the the Qs never even mounted a serious threat on our 40 line so it wasn’t a tough call for us in the morning. The other levels we are watching, Dow 9,297, S&P 1,000, Nasdq 2,017, NYSE 6,438, Russell 562 and SOX 308,are looking shaky and may not stand up to another test, especially if we get any bad news on our upcoming data with Wholesale Inventory and Productivity Reports on deck this morning. Our bearish additions were an ERY spread (3x Energy bear) and COF Sept $40 puts, which are already up 10% from our 12:17 pick. It wasn’t all negative, we liked a couple of buy/write plays and we took a very bullish spread on FRE, which should do very well this morning. At 12:57 we had noticed FRE moving up and, in Member Chat, we were discussing the merits and my take was this:
FRE/Ifl – The float of FRE is just 650M shares and they are capable of earning $5Bn a year in a
DRYS DryShips, Inc. – With the wind at its back, DryShips has experienced a 26% rally today to stand at $5.29. Investors were seen getting bullish on the drybulk carrier by purchasing call options across multiple contracts. Highly optimistic traders picked up more than 5,600 calls at the April 7.5 strike price for 39 cents each. In order to profit from the calls, shares would need to increase by an additional 49% from the current price in order to breach the breakeven point at $7.89 by expiration next month.
SLB Schlumberger Limited – When the closing bell tolls oil will likely remain above $50 for the second time since January 15th. SLB is riding the wave of higher oil prices today with shares up 5.5% to $45.30. A provider of project management and information solutions to clients in the oil and gas industry, SLB has seen its share price touch all the way down to $35.61 earlier this month. Hoping that the darkest days are behind Schlumberger, option traders picked up 14,000 calls at the April 50 strike price for a premium of 1.23 each. Shares will need to continue to rally by another 13% in order to surpass the breakeven point at $51.23 by expiration.
GE General Electric – Voicing loudly his opinion that the share price rally at GE won’t necessarily be long lasting, one option trader wrote the September 10/12 call spread 34,000 times earlier for a credit of 88 cents. Currently the rally is holding after comments from the company and shares are higher by 2% at $10.50. Higher premium calls at the 10 strike were sold in exchange for lower premium ones at the 12 strike. The size of the credit for bearing the risk of the trade determines that losses would accrue starting from a share price of $10.88 at expiration and would amass to a maximum of 1.12 per contract should shares rally to the upper strike or above.
EWZ iShares MSCI Brazil – As the U.S. markets travel downward, risk appetite has spread to emerging markets where such an appetite is more favorable today. Shares are up 2% for the ETF and option trades indicate bullish sentiment on EWZ. In the April contract traders shed more than 66,000 puts between the 28/36 strike prices, bringing in premiums ranging…
Jobless claims improve while leading indicators decline in today’s economic report card
by Wall Street Sector Selector Staff
Weekly jobless claims declined to 424,000 from last week’s 432, 000 but stubbornly stayed above the all important 400,000 level for another week.
August Leading Indicators came in at +0.3% compared to 0.5% for July, as the economy continues registering weakness.
Good news came from July Home Prices which rose to +0.8% from the previously reported +0.7%.
But the biggest economic news of the week came yesterday when the Federal Reserve said it saw “significant downside risks to the economic outlook, including strains in global financial markets.”
Global stock markets responded negatively yesterday an...
Shares of Priceline.com Incorporated (NASDAQ: PCLN) are trading higher in the after-hours following the release of its Q1 earnings results. Currently, shares are up 2.74%, trading at $548.60; they closed the regular session down 0.67 %, at $533.97.
The company said that its Q1 EPS came in at $2.66 on revenues of $809.3 million; this compares to the Street's estimate of $2.46 per share on revenues of $779.5 million. Revenues rose 38.6% year over year.
"In the 1st quarter, the Group benefited from strong growth in our global hotel business, particularly at Booking.com and Agoda," said Jeffery H. Boyd, Priceline President and Chief Executive Officer.
He added, "Room nights booked grew by 55.8% and our international gross bookings grew by 79% compared to prior year...
The damage control to the Fukushima explosion reported earlier is coming fast and furious. According to CNN, "the explosion at an earthquake-damaged nuclear plant was not caused by damage to the nuclear reactor but by a pumping system that failed as crews tried to bring the reactor's temperature down, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday. The next step for workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant will be to flood the reactor containment structure with sea water to bring the reactor's temperature down to safe levels, he said. The effort is expected to take two days." While the government is trying to play down the threat from the explosion, it has nonetheless double the evacuation zone radius from 10 to 20 kilometers: "Radiation levels have fallen since the explosion and there is no immediate danger, Edano said. But authorities were nevertheless expanding the evacuation ...
Note from dshort: I retired this chart series last summer in deference to my prefered inflation-adjusted series that aligns the S&P 500 2000 high with the Nikkei peak in 1989. However, I continue to receive requests for this version, despite the "V" shape of the the recovery since the March 2009 low. This chart series overlays the current S&P 500 with the L-shaped "recoveries" after the Dow Crash of 1929, the Nikkei 225 after Japan's 1989 bubble, and the post Tech Bubble NASDAQ. Click the chart below for a larger version and use the links to see various comparisons.
Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisVLOSTRONGBUYAn increasingly positive growth rate of past earnings, along with improving expectations for long term growth, make Valero a good prospect for high returns.KROSTRONGBUYKronos Worldwide has been gaining recognition from analysts as a good canditate for achieving higher than expected earnings along with higher overall projected valuation.SFIBUYiStar is one of the top candidates projected to achieve both higher than previously projected earnings in the short run and a higher earnings growth rate in the long run.AMATSTRONGBUYApplied Materials has been...
This post is for live trades and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current virtual trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).
We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options.
Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.
To learn more about the swing trading portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here
February is now past, and the Biotech Porfolio is loaded with winners and a miss (PLX). MRK is down a bit, but I expect that trade to recover, and one could be more agressive and double down on it, or play another round at the Jan13 $30 options for roughly the same price. Below is the summary, and note the grey boxes are ones that did not fill. I am still a fan of BMRN, and like DEPO as well. Now let's look at a few others.
Table 1. PSW Biotech Plays Since January 2011
 
Our newest play is Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA), who is pursuing a three-part business model which includes complex generic equivalents in partnership with the Sandoz division of Novartis, proprietary compounds, and follow-on- biologics (FOB). It seems that this company is tied up in competition/litigation wit...
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
(blogroll, archives,
more).
Contact Ilene to learn about our affiliate and
content sharing
programs.
Email This Post
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Yahoo
BlinkBits
BlinkList
What was that?
And don’t even get me started on yesterday’s close. For those of you who have ever doubted the power of the stick, David and I say HA!, as there has never been a more bogus end to a trading session than the despicable display of market manipulation that went on yesterday, just before the close. The only good thing I have to say about this very sad state of unregulated market affairs is that at least we called it practically to the penny and played it perfectly because, as I often say to members: "We don’t care IF the markets are rigged as long as we know HOW they are rigged so we can place our bets accordingly."
Our levels are holding so far. FRE/Ifl – The float of FRE is just 650M shares and they are capable of earning $5Bn a year in a
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
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
(