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The S&P 500 gave up $23 yesterday, closing at $1727. Today, SPX rose $23 to
close at $1771. RUT behaved similarly, closing up $21 at $1100.
SPX essentially made a rather large round trip in just two days - wow!
What does that tell us? The trading gods are toying with us.
Yesterday we had an excellent GDP report
with annualized growth in the third quarter of 2.8%. And the market
traded down. The standard explanation was either 1) the correction we
have expected has begun, or 2) this means the Fed will begin to reduce
their stimulus programs. This morning we were surprised by a good jobs
report of 204 thousand new jobs. Unemployment ticked up a bit to 7.3%,
and most of the new jobs were minimum wage jobs, but it was still
refreshingly good. And the markets regained everything that was lost
yesterday! So good news was bad news yesterday, but good news was
treated as great news today. I can't explain it. I think it merely
reinforces what we have been subjected to all year. The markets have
repeatedly traded scared and then reversed on a dime. Very
few fund managers have reported consistently good results this year. It
has been a maddening market. I think it is a combination of traders
trying to predict the effects of the Fed supporting the market and the
increasing amount of automated trading that swings huge volumes back and
forth in very short periods of time.
Trading volume dropped back
a bit from yesterday with 2.4 billion shares of the S&P 500
trading. Trading on the NYSE declined 8% while trading volume on NASDAQ
dropped 13%. Volatility decreased by a full percentage point with the
VIX coming in at 12.9%.
I think yesterday's price action, at a
minimum, serves as a warning about this market. Traders are nervous and
the rush for the exits can easily be triggered by rather benign events.
I
closed my Nov SPX 1800/1810 call spreads today. This locks in a 6.4%
loss for November, assuming the 1650/1660 put spreads expire worthless. But my December positions are already up about 3%.
This was certainly an interesting week in the markets. Relax and enjoy your weekend.
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Today's markets were reasonably positive, if you didn't look too closely. And the talking heads struggled to explain why. The two most common reasons given were a report from Germany of improved industrial orders and a report that Microsoft is narrowing their search for a CEO. Really?
SPX gained $8 to close at $1770, but RUT didn't follow suit. It fell $5 to close at $1099. So, once again, as we have seen several times recently, SPX and the Dow are running higher on their own and the small caps and mid-caps are showing weakness. This isn't a sign of strength. And the root cause isn't German industrial orders. This market is running out of steam. A sideways consolidation will be the most gentle correction. Investor's Intelligence reported its weekly survey of investors' bullish and bearish expectations. We are near record highs with over 55% of the investors surveyed saying they are bullish. This survey often predicts the tops and bottoms of the market based on these excesses of sentiment in one direction or the other.
Trading volume was mixed, with the S&P 500 stocks increasing to 2.1 billion shares and volume dropping 4% on the NYSE. But trading volume rose 5% on NASDAQ.
My November condor continues to limp along. I will most likely close the call spreads Friday and that will effectively close the trade.
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Just when many of us were counting on a small correction, the markets turn and bounce strongly - surprise! SPX gained $5 to close at $1766 and RUT outperformed SPX with an eleven dollar gain to close at $1107. However, trading volume fell off to 1.9 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks (the 50 dma = 2.1B). Trading on the NYSE dropped 17% and trading volume decreased 7% on NASDAQ. SPX opened strongly this morning and then traded down to its opening price by mid-morning. But the remainder of the day saw a slow but steady climb higher.
There weren't any significant economic reports to drive this market today. Many are looking forward to the Twitter IPO on Thursday and the jobs report Friday.
Perhaps the bullish undercurrent is just too strong to allow a correction, and we will trade sideways for a while and burn off the excesses. The test of that theory will be whether SPX can break out above the highs set last week around $1775. Today's gains on weak volume don't provide very strong motivation to buy into this market. Many of the gurus on CNBC are predicting a correction, but the market has a way of surprising traders.
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After yesterday's strong push back higher, one might have expected a continuation of the bullish trend. The markets opened weakly this morning, but regained their footing by noon and closed with modest losses on the day. SPX lost $5, closing at $1763 and RUT closed down $5 at $1104. Volatility rose a touch with VIX closing up three tenths of a point at 13.3%. Trading volume was modestly higher with 2.0 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading today (up from 1.9B yesterday). Trading volume increased 13% on the NYSE and increased 7% on NASDAQ.
The ISM Services index came out this morning at 55.4 for October, up modestly from last month's 54.4. But that didn't seem to impress the markets. The Boston Fed president, Eric Rosengren, was reported to have said that the FOMC will keep interest rates low for "quite some time". You might think that would encourage the bulls, but it didn't appear to have much effect. My impression is that more and more market observers are worrying about the long term effects of the Fed meddling in the markets.
My Nov iron condor on SPX continues to benefit from time decay lessening the loss on the position to -9% with position delta = -$66 and theta = +$230.
In after hours trading the market darling, Tesla, appears to have stumbled with the shares down over $20 to $157 in after hours trading following their earnings announcement. Is this the beginning of a slide or will the bulls come to the rescue?
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SPX traded lower through the middle of the day, but then recovered sufficiently to close with a $5 gain at $1762. However, RUT continued its slide downward with a loss of $4. closing at $1096. One positive sign was RUT's low on the day at $1087, almost ten points lower than its close. That suggests some buying strength around support at $1088, the high set in early October. Trading volume fell off today with 2.3 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading. Trading volume fell 3% on the NYSE and dropped 14% on NASDAQ.
Due to the government shutdown, the jobs report has been delayed until next Friday. The ADP report came out a couple of weeks ago at a modest 130,000 jobs, so expectations have been lowered for the federal report.
My November iron condor on SPX is doing well with a net loss of $1,900 or -9% with position delta = -$79 and position theta = +$122. However, due to previous adjustments, the best outcome for this position is a loss of $660 on 20 contracts or -3.9%.
Enjoy this nice fall weekend. We are starting to rake leaves in this neighborhood.
