I’m posting the response I gave to a close family member upon hearing that he took profits on positions established last Friday with my advice. My objective per his request was to build a long-term portfolio of financial stocks with the potential to start paying dividends several years hence… His reasoning for taking profits? “I [...]
The December CBOE S&P 500 3-Month Variance futures settled at 5053, which is a volatility of about 71% (square root). That number was once “unreachable” on a short term basis, let alone over a 90-day period. Longer-term Variance much lower for now, in the range of 38% to 43% volatility (still relatively high). If market [...]
Barclays, after rejecting the need for a bail-out in an open letter sent to staff this week by it’s Chairman and CEO, continued to surge higher, posted another 11.6% rally in London on Tuesday. The FTSE is slightly negative as I write this, but US futures are pointing to a higher opening. Focus remains on [...]
Week of Jan. 26 This potential bottom almost looks perfect. Do we go in aggressive early and keep buying dips? I think that’s the play here. NTRS- Strong rel. strength. Did not follow sector to new lows in Jan. All of the following are giving qualified Sequential buy signals: SPY: Also inv. H&S ABK- Buy [...]
For Thursday: JPM- Top name. Target size is 3 boats. Work hard for it. Confirmed/Qualified 12 count. Assume all insiders have been massive buyers over prior several weeks at unheard of prices. This is where crowd psychology starts to shift, and the beginning of the momentum shift is always the toughest AND most profitable. FOCUS…FOCUS…FOCUS… [...]
Or should I say “feast”, to better reflect my opinion? Perfect catch of the turn. Having switched from net short to net long mid day and scored doubles on both sides is excellent for a typically uneventful Wed. Nevertheless, should have crushed it beyond what was achieved. Seems like overly cautious following prior 8 weeks [...]
All inverse ETF’s, including double and triple inverse ETF’s, are in the process of discounting (i.e. price discovery) a “volatility” premium due to institutional hedging in times of extreme market stress. When gamma explodes because of the impact of volatility on derivative pricing, hedging becomes much more difficult as “prudent” hedges seem to malfunction all [...]
I smell blood on the street today. Seeing huge spikes in Volatility and breadth is flashing PANIC. Safest way is to get long the S&P 500 but hedge away exposure to financial sector either via SKF long FAZ long. Lots of opportunities out there due to price dislocations. Arbitrage activity hammering financial names like Bank [...]
Long-term study of S&P 500 cash index shows 18m RSI below30 for first time since 2003 bottom. Modify long basket: re-weight sectors based on model runs on Sunday!!! ERX, CRM, CAT & CME, ICE - swing pivot UYG- Friday 8 count. Volume rising. Looking for climax low… URE- 2nd volume spike around major low. Final bottom [...]
Brief note…more to come later… Asset managers getting hammered pre-market because of State Street numbers, and disclosure of at least $10B in losses for next quarter. Why they didn’t just include it in this quarter, even though their stock is taking the hit because of the disclosure, defies logic. What’s going on? Could this get [...]
An incredible and unexpected event just took place in my life, and the things happening around me are just too beautiful to not document. Sharing my daily trading journal is different when the readers are anonymous, as is the writer. But add the “radio” into this equation (you know who you are), then it’s not so anonymous [...]
USO- Bulllish set up. Start buying big. GSG- Set up for long commodity macro play SKF- Def. going to at least 150. CMO/CMF confirming breakout. SPY – going to $80 perhaps. MON- Gap closed! CMF/CMO bullish divergence. CAT- gap closed, vol. spike t/l = $36.75 ACI- $14.15 BTU- $19 PCLN- at critical t/l with multiple [...]
