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 outlined the nature of the manipulation that takes place in yesterday’s post so…
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Wild Weekly Wrap-Up, Topping or Popping?
by Phil - November 14th, 2009 12:02 pm
This was an annoying week for bulls and bears alike.
We had a very exciting day on Monday, topping out at 10,248 but I didn’t like the way we got there (low-volume, commodity rally, as noted in David Fry’s chart) and, when pressed for a prediction on TV that evening, I had to say that I felt that we were more likely to be down by Thanksgiving than up with a possible Santa Claus bounce into Christmas. What we did get for the remainder of the week was very choppy action on even lower volume.
I had mentioned in last week’s "Wrong-Way Weekly Wrap-Up" that we were partying like it’s 1999 as we broke through Dow 10,000 and S&P 1,080, despite rapidly deteriorating fundamentals. Stocks are being bought because they are going up in price (much like commodities), not because there is any actual demand for them and that is very clear from the rapidly declining index volume as we run back into resistance at S&P 1,100.
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. In fact, yesterday as we got our mid-day spike to 10,300, I told members that it was sorely tempting to just cash out all bullish positions and take 20% of the portfolio 100% bearish with a 10% stop. Rather than mess around with a mix of positions, going fully bearish can allow for some spectacular gains if we crash and stopping out with a 50% loss would suck - but a breakout like that, well above Dow 11,000 and S&P 1,200 would certainly give us reason to be more bullish.
As I concluded last week: "We’re generally not happy until we see Russell 600 and the Dow Transports over 4,000 (now 3,852) and we took a 55% bearish stance into the weekend because we’ll feel a lot less silly being burned by a move up than we would if we weren’t bearish enough for a move down. It would be nice to be able to make more of a commitment but the bulls clearly have the bears cowering in fear so we’ll just patiently wait and see how far they can play things out." Not much has changed since then and we are still waiting to confirm…
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Risk Reversal Pops Up on Biotech-Company, Life Technologies
by Andrew Wilkinson - November 3rd, 2009 4:08 pm
Today’s tickers: LIFE, FL, VTR, WFC, RRI, WFR, CAR, FRX, SWK, BNI & WFR
LIFE - Life Technologies Corp. – Biotechnology company, Life Technologies, popped up on our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner this morning after one investor initiated a risk reversal in the December contract. Shares are relatively flat on the day at $47.58. The reversal is most likely the work of a bullish individual positioning for a rally in shares of LIFE by expiration next month. It appears the trader sold 5,200 puts short at the December 45 strike for an average premium of 1.30 apiece to finance the purchase of the same number of call options at the higher December 50 strike for 1.20 each. The investor receives a credit of 10 cents per contract on the transaction. The 10 cent credit is money in the bank as long as shares remain above $45.00 through expiration. Additional profits on the trade require the stock to surge to a new 52-week high of $50.00. Shares must rally 5% from the current price before the investor begins to accumulate profits. The 10,400 contracts exchanged in the spread represent about 23% of the total existing open interest on LIFE of 45,963 lots.
FL - Foot Locker, Inc. – A long-term bullish play in the January 2011 contract pushed the global retailer of athletic footwear and apparel onto our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner this afternoon. Shares are currently up nearly 1% to $10.25. It looks like the trader initiated a bullish risk reversal by selling 3,500 puts at the December 7.5 strike for 1.10 each, and by buying the same number of calls at the higher December 12.5 strike for 1.10 apiece. The investor put on the trade for free and hopes to see shares rise above $12.50 by expiration in 14 months. Profits begin to accumulate if the stock rallies 22% over the current price to surpass the breakeven point at $12.50. We note that shares of FL have traded beneath $12.50 since November 11, 2008.
VTR - Ventas, Inc. – Shares of the real estate investment trust edged slightly higher by less than 0.25% to $40.56 during the trading day. An investor expecting shares to appreciate by expiration in December put on a bullish risk reversal strategy. The trader sold 3,000 puts at the December 35 strike for 60 cents premium and simultaneously purchased the same number of calls at the December…
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Weekly Wrap Up - Double Up or Double Top?
by Phil - October 10th, 2009 8:37 am
Not such a good week!
Last week was FANTASTIC and we had 28 winning trades out of 36 with an average gain of 42% on the winners and an average loss of 12% on the losers - now THAT’s A GOOD WEEK. We were stopped out of most of our bearish trades on Monday but we took a lot of new ones, which I’ll get into later… Of course, since we are rangish and play both ends, the good news is we still had our "losers" and puts that we sold on long positions and those turned into huge winners in just 5 days:
- AA at $13.30, out at $15 - up 12.7%
- AAPL Jan $165 puts sold for $7.40, now $4.70 - up 36%
- BAC Oct $17 puts sold for .97, now .28 - up 71%
- DIA Nov $92 calls at $5.40, now $7.30 - up 35%
- MHP 2011 $25 puts sold for $5.20, now 5.10 - up 2%
- RIMM March $100 calls at $1.45, now $1.25, down 13.7%
So, of the 6 that were not working last week, 5 are winners this week. As I mentioned at the end of last week’s wrap up, we were more than satisfied with our 5% drop that week and we did expect a bit of a bounce but we made the mistake of thinking The 250 points we gained by Tuesday morning was the end of it, but here we are at the end of the week, another 100 points higher and right back where we started from when we shorted into the rally in mid September.
Last weekend we were at a great point in our range as all our put plays had just paid off, this will be an interesting contrast as we have serious problems with our new short plays and we have a little less conviction than we had in mid September that we will get our correction - not after such a sharp turn off the 5% line this week. Nonetheless, we did stay 55% bearish into the weekend overall - still playing for our range. But, I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s go back to Monday and see how we got here….
Monday Market Manipulation - Goldman’s CIT Bonanza
I was not at all pleased with the scam GS was running on CIT and neither were many in the press but their attention span lasted all of 24 hours as the markets mysteriously began to take off, neatly drawing people’s attention elsewhere….
Our concern over falling tax…
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Will We Hold It Wednesday?
by Phil - October 7th, 2009 7:53 am
When your first trade of the day is a cover, you know you are too bearish!
That’s what happened to us yesterday when I sent out a 9:47 Trade Alert to Members for the QQQQ $41/42 bull call spread at .57 to cover the too bearish stance I was worried about in the morning post. We exited that trade at .70 (up 22%) and that served it’s purpose of giving us some cash to put into rolling up our puts, following through on the strategy laid out in the morning post. As I said at the time, these are the moves we’re making BEFORE we capitulate and our short plays will form a base from which we can aggressively go long once we clear our targets.
I called off that QQQQ trade at 11:32, about 9 cents off the high of the day as they looked about to fail our 42 target which, as you can see from David Fry’s chart, is right about the middle of the weekly range so it’s a level we have to respect on multiple fronts. We’re still waiting for a proper test of that 40 line, a 5% drop from here and PSQ (short QQQQ) calls are the main protection in our $100K Portfolio at the moment. Any move below 40 on the Qs can re-shape the chart to a much more bearish formation long-term.
We also covered up our long DIA puts, which flipped us more bullish overall and ended the day half-covered - neutral and confused but with more aggressive puts than we had on Monday so some small progress was made. In addition to rolling up our bear plays like GLD puts, we added hedged January bullish plays on EDZ and TZA, went bullish on RIMM as they sold off to $65, bearish on MOS as they ran up to $49, bullish on WFR at $16, bearish on FCX at $70, April bullish and hedged on SKF, bearish on OIH at $118.50, Jan bearish and hedged on TIF at $40.75, bullish and hedged on April SCO and bullish on FXP at $9.45. Overall a pretty busy and bearish day of trading.
As I said to members in my closing comments, the XLF couldn’t hold $15 and the Qs couldn’t hold 42, which were both watch levels for us during the day. The index levels we were targeting were a mixed bag as we were looking for upside resistance at Dow 9,700, S&P 1,060, Nas 2,120,…
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Friday - Is Anybody Working For the Weekend?
by Phil - October 2nd, 2009 8:28 am
Wheeee, what a ride!
Just like any good roller coaster, market plunges can be fun when you are strapped in safely and prepared for them. Our members have been so prepared we’ll have to hand our Eagle Scout badges (we don’t need no stinkin’ badges) for riding out a toppy market for two tedious weeks, which I won’t rehash here but you can go back to my Sept 19th "Wrong Way Weekly Wrap-Up" to see how hard it was to stay bearish in the face of all that "great" news that the media kept throwing at us. Nonetheless, had you followed our trading ideas in that post, you’d be a VERY happy camper right now!
Now we are down 300 points from that Friday’s finish, about halfway to our 9,100 target, which is the top 5% of our original trading range around Dow 8,650. We’d love to see 9,100 hold, especially on a nice volume sell-off so we can move our range up 5% and make 9,100 our new mid-point, putting the 33% (off the top) lines withing striking distance of a proper breakout but suddenly the news-flow has turned sharply negative. This is something I warned members about way back on August 11th, the last time I thought we were getting toppy (and we were) at Dow 9,400 when I said: "Watch the newsflow in the MSM. If it starts to get negative, look out below."
Yesterday we talked about GS’s about-face on the REIT sector and, later that day, we noted during Member chat that JPM had decided to downgrade SKS, hitting the retail sector hard in the afternoon. I called a slightly early top on Retail on 9/16, when I said to Members: "Right now all retail is being played like a huge winner, as if no segment will lose market share to another. This is amazingly stupid in a declining wages and declining consumer credit environment." RTH was $88.76 that day after running up just about 20% from July 7th so we were looking for a pullback at least to $85, but I think worse as I see nothing in the data that makes me believe in Santa Clause this year or the rally he often brings.
As you can see from David Fry’s chart of the XLY (another Retail tracker) we topped out at technical resistance and are now looking for a completion of a 5% drop back to the August highs but I’m very concerned about today’s job number and wondering how Retail indexes…
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Which Way Wednesday - Fed Edition
by Phil - September 23rd, 2009 8:22 am
We’re just waiting on the Fed today, as are the rest of the markets.
Yesterday’s volume was the lowest since Sept 11th but not as low as Monday, which was our lowest volume since the end of June, just before we had a 5% correction. June 26th and 29th were our last two consecutive ultra-low volume days but June 30th was much bigger (a down 100 day), July 1st was up again on low volume and then July 2nd was another big down day and we bottomed out on July 10th. That was the time that the media was telling us we were forming a "classic" head and shoulders pattern and were doomed to revisit the March lows. It was also the last time we enthusiastically bought stocks.
At the time of that weekly review (7/11), we had CAL at $10 (now $16.82), CBS at $5.97 (now $12.58), COST at $43.45 (now $58.58), CVX - who we just shorted - at $58.20 (now $72.60), DIS at $22.41 (now $28.38), EXM at $6.05 (now $7.32), RT at $7.12 (now $8.85), SNDK at $14.47 (now $22.91), SPY at $87.96 (now $107.27), SPWRA at $22.35 (now $32.63), SUN at $22.09 (now $27.75), V at $59.86 (now $74.41), VLO at $15.57 (now $20.50), WFR at $16.61 (now 19.09), X at $30.77 (now $50.45), XLF at $11.10 (now $15.35), XOM at $65.12 (now $69.85) and ZION at $11 (now $19). Of course our members had much better entries as we had been targeting our entries on all of those but anyone reading our weekend review on July 11th could have played along at home from those prices (we even spiked down at Monday’s open) and when I say we are now bearish - it is that we are bearishly protecting these ridiculous profits - the kind of profits you usually don’t get after 3 years, not 3 months!
Overall, the broader market is up 20% over that time so it can be argued that a monkey with a dart board could have made good picks at that time but, if you read that week’s notes - you’ll notice that this monkey was screaming for people to buy and was going against what pretty much EVERY other analyst was saying and I was confident enough to lay out my picks, my strategy and my fundamental arguments for everyone to see. It would have really sucked if I was wrong, but…
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Which Way Wednesday - Fed Minutes Might Help
by Phil - September 2nd, 2009 8:26 am
Wheee what a ride!
I don’t think we could have had a better day as the move up allowed us to place our bear plays (we went naked on our DIA $98 puts right at the top at 10 am) and the only fear we had was the morning data but by 10:10 I sent out an Alert to Members reviewing the bullish-looking data but then concluding: "Still this should give us a big boost with volume still light at 30M at 10am. Unless we break 9,600 with some authority, this should just be another shorting opportunity." We were still concerned about good Auto Sales numbers boosting us back up but they were actually a series of disappointments all day long.
As David Fry points out in his morning post: "Most trading systems don’t have a “feel” component and mine doesn’t either. The only logical thing which we’ve commented on repeatedly as have others is light volume and how the news hasn’t jived with reality. And, recently, investors have been selling good news versus buying bad news as before." This is why PSW always stresses the fundamentals in stock trading. The market can trade against them for quite some time but, eventually, the true value will set you free (and often can make you a very nice profit!). I’ve had a very tough month in August pointing out the the news hasn’t "jived with reality" and suddenly we have gone from feeling overly conservative to being the only well-positioned people around - in cash, with plenty of winning puts and ready for another round of bottom fishing with the VIX right back at 30, which gives us exactly what we need to run our favorite plays.
We still have tons of cash in our $100,000 Portfolio and I’ll be initiating some buy/writes this week. I already proposed one for TTWO after last night’s earnings but now it looks like I’m not the only one who thought they looked pretty good and we’re not going to chase - there are, once again, plenty of fish in the sea! The last time we ran a Buy List was the week of July 6th and if you want to see what an actual list that goes 18 for 18 with an average upside of over 25% looks like, you can check that week’s wrap-up, which has a lot of good commentary for how we recognize a bottom. We will,…
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Oxen Group: Short Selling MEMC Electronic Materials
by David Ristau - July 6th, 2009 3:16 am
Oxen Group: Short Selling MEMC Electronic Materials
Courtesy of David of The Oxen Group
The Oxen Group recommends short selling MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (WFR).
The solar chip sector may be in for a pullback tomorrow after news on Thursday and over the weekend that was bearish for the market. For one, LDK Solar gave bad news, [an earnings estimate] that fell below Wall St. expectations, estimating it would earn $215 - $225 million in revenue, while expectations were near $250 million. The company [increased its wafer shipment forecast], but it did not matter because the market sent the stock down over 5% on Thursday evening.
Then over the weekend, the Semiconductor Industry Association saw worldwide semiconductor sales up 5.4%. However, this was down over 23% from one year ago, which means there is still slow pick up in demand. The SIA is optimistic, but the market is still not completely turning up.
Furthermore, futures are down quite significantly tomorrow, with the Nasdaq down over 12 points. The reason one should short sell MEMC over LDK is that MMEC won’t drop as significantly as LDK right out of the gate. Therefore, there is more room for downward movement on WFR. Moreover, last week MEMC got a serious downgrade from JP Morgan, and it has moved up some from that point. That bearish fundamental should continue to threaten the share price. The company’s technicals show that it has more ability for downward movement and fast stochastics lower band is lower as well. Enter MEMC with a short sale and make some money on WFR’s downward movement.
Entry: Recommend buying from 10 - 25 minutes into session.
Exit: We recommend exiting after a 2-4% increase.
Stop Loss: We recommend a 3% stop loss on all buy in prices.
Upper Resistance: 16.75
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Lights back on in Vegas
by Andrew Wilkinson - May 5th, 2009 5:47 pm
Today’s tickers: MGM, DFS, MOS, WFR, LVS, XHB, KFT & HNZ
MGM MGM Mirage, Inc. – Shares of the biggest casino owner on the Las Vegas Strip have skyrocketed by more than 42% to $13.41 amid reports from the company that occupancy has recovered and convention cancellations have lessened. More than 112,000 option contracts on the stock traded today with a number of bullish plays by investors looking for continued strength in its share price. The company also received an upgrade by – surprise, surprise – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch to ‘buy’ after also upgrading fellow casino giant, Las Vegas Sands Corp., as well. Early bird investors were able to buy call options that have since landed in-the-money during the rally at the May 12.5 strike price for an average premium of just 83 cents. Now (post 2pm EST) getting long of those same calls cost 1.75 apiece. More optimistic traders looked to the May 15 strike where more than 8,000 calls were traded. At least 3,000 of those calls were purchased for about 38 cents each earlier today. However, the premium has since increased to the current ask price of 65 cents. Option implied volatility on the stock is currently at 150% down from 200% recorded last Thursday.
DFS Discover Financial Services – The credit card issuer and electronic payment services firm is up by less than 1% to $9.02. Option investors were observed buying bullish call options on the stock despite concerns over weaker earnings for the first-quarter across the board for credit card issuers. At the May 10 strike price traders exchanged calls about 15,000 times with more than 8,300 contracts bought at an average premium of 24 cents each. Optimism spread to the June contract where about 3,400 puts were shed at the June 7.5 strike for a VWAP of 43 cents. The June 10 strike witnessed the purchase of 3,500 calls for about 72 cents apiece. The most bullish individuals discovered calls available for the taking at the July 12.5 strike price where some 1,100 were coveted for 33 cents per contract. The more than 29,900 contracts traded on the stock today represent 54% of the existing open interest on DFS of 55,244 lots.
MOS The Mosaic Company – The producer of potash and animal feed has experienced a rally in shares of more than 4% to $46.04 amid rumors reported by one news source regarding renewed speculation over a…
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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
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