DNDN - Dendreon Corp. – Investors stormed Dendreon Corp. options this morning with shares hemorrhaging uncontrollably during the first 90 minutes of trade. The stock dropped as much as 68.0% to land an intraday low of $11.34. Shares in the maker of prostate-cancer drug Provenge currently trade at $11.97, a 66.6% discount to Wednesday’s closing value of $35.84, as of 11:40 am ET. Traders purged their portfolios of Dendreon after the Seattle, WA-based company withdrew its 2011 sales estimate and said revenues for Provenge failed to meet forecasts. The nosedive in the price of the underlying drove options implied volatility on the stock up 128.2% to 122.01% during the first half of the session. Strategists populating DNDN options are taking varied stances on the company, and have exchange more than 63,000 contracts so far today. It looks like some players are raking in hefty profits on previously established bearish bets, while others are snapping up calls in the hopes that selling is overdone. Traders eyeing a near-term rebound in the price of the underlying purchased more than 600 calls at the August $17.5 strike for an average premium of $0.25 apiece. Longer-term optimists initiated the Jan. 2012 $15/$22.5 bull call spread roughly 1,000-times at an average net cost of $1.21 each. Call-spreaders may profit if Dendreon’s shares surge 56.3% over the current price of $11.97 to surpass the average breakeven point at $18.71 by January expiration. Plain vanilla call-buying at the November $18 and $19 strikes indicates like-minded strategists are hoping a comeback story is in the works for the stock. Meanwhile, open interest in the August $36 strike put suggests traders purchased around 1,350 contracts at that strike for an average premium of $1.62 each this week. Buyers of these puts now hold options trading at a premium of $23.75 a-pop. Finally, outright bears expecting shares to slide lower ahead of August expiration paid an average premium of $0.27 per contract for around 600 of the…
A number of sites are commenting on a Bloomberg video in which El-Erian, PIMCO Co-CEO says "Dollar could lose its reserve currency status".
Bloomberg: "Mohammad what does a weak dollar signal to you, a dollar that can’t jump up here on a day like we’ve seen today?"
El-Erian: "It is a warning shot to America that we cannot simply assume flight to quality, flight to safety. That people are starting to worry about the fiscal situation in the U.S. They are starting to worry about the level of debt. They are starting to worry about what they hear about states and municipalities. So, I would take this as a warning shot that we cannot assume that we will maintain the standing of the reserve currency as we have in the past."
Reserve Currency Definition
Before we can debate whether or not the US will lose reserve currency standing, we must first define what it means.
"A foreign currency held by central banks and other major financial institutions as a means to pay off international debt obligations, or to influence their domestic exchange rate."
I accept that definition. Unfortunately Investopedia rambles on with nonsense about the implications: "A large percentage of commodities, such as gold and oil, are usually priced in the reserve currency,causing other countries to hold this currency to pay for these goods."
That sentence is a widely believed fallacy. The reality is no country is obligated to hold dollars to buy goods denominated in dollars.
Currencies are Fungible
Currencies other that illiquid currencies with low or no trading volume (think of Yap Island stones or the Cuban Peso) are fungible. It is a trivial process to switch from one currency to another.
You can buy gold or silver in any country, and I assure you those transactions do not all take place in dollars. Thus, just because a commodity is widely priced in dollars does not mean it only trades in dollars.
That holds true for oil as well.
I keep pointing this out, unfortunately to no avail, that oil trades in Euros right now. There is no selling of Euros to buy dollars on the front causing the oil producers to trade dollars for euros on the back end. The oil states simply sell oil for a price in Euros and then hold Euros in their…
In the future they might coin this the “Bernanke Effect” or maybe the great commodity bubble of 2011. The truth is that commodity prices are rising…dramatically. You might have started to notice this disconnect in your grocery store shopping or in gasoline prices, but if you were to ask our government they would tell you that a basket of goods consumed (CPI) is rising modestly. How modest do these numbers appear to you?
Sugar and Corn? Those are luxury goods.
If the basic ingredients to food are skyrocketing, then prices of food will eventually have to keep pace which will directly hurt consumers.
Of the 853 ETF’s that I looked at, which unleveraged funds do you think had the greatest return over that same time period? It is not a trick question:
Are you noticing a theme?
My conclusion is simple: this time is NOT different. Commodity prices cannot go up forever and China will not continue to support the market regardless of prices. What is this “Bernanke Effect” doing to farmland prices? Well, according to a survey by Farmer’s National Company:
“non-irrigated crop land in central Kansas averaged $3,000 an acre, up 50 percent since June…
Crop prices have seen an extraordinary run since early July. A bushel of wheat priced about $4 a bushel on July 4 is now more than $8.50. Other crops have experienced similar increases.
As the land generates more income, it puts more cash in the pockets of the most likely buyers, nearby farmers. It also provides an attractive return for investors who then rent it out to farmers.
The result: Auctions are drawing twice the number of bidders as before, said area agents.”
As with all hot speculation, the commodity run will surely come to an end and will probably have repercussions for all financial markets. We should have learned by now that large financial dislocations tend to not occur in isolation.
As most sophisticated investors and traders are aware, the U.S. Federal government has run up significant deficits and the long term debt burden is becoming a drain on Gross Domestic Product. That being said, most economists are discussing the possibility of a major decline in the value of the U.S. Dollar going forward as inflationary monetary policy begins to strangle growth. While that view point may prove right over the long haul, in the short run most traders are not likely expecting the U.S. Dollar to rally.
The U.S. Dollar is expected to reach a multi-year cycle low in the near future. From the cyclical low, I expect the U.S. Dollar to regain a strong footing and work higher against the crowd. This is not to say that the U.S. Dollar will not eventually decline, but financial markets do not work that easily. Shorting the U.S. Dollar is a crowded trade and Mr. Market punishes crowded trades quite often by pushing prices the opposite of what the heard is expecting. Should the U.S. Dollar find a strong underlying bid, precious metals and domestic equities would feel the brunt force of such a move. While it remains to be seen if the U.S. Dollar rallies, if it does it will catch many traders and economists by surprise and the unwinding of the short dollar trade could unleash a wave of buying that we have not seen for quite some time.
Let’s take a look inside the market…
Major Index Price Action Over The Past 12 Trading Sessions – Bearish
Below is a table showing the main indexes used for tracking the market. The interesting thing about this data is that the indexes which typically lead the market have been deteriorating for the past 12 days and no one has noticed.
In short, the Nasdaq, Russell and Dow Transport indexes typically lead the market
Every radio station and business channel covers the Dow and SP500 indexes therefor the general public hears the market performance based on the those indexes. The problem here is that the Dow only consists of 30 stocks and the SP500 only holds the top 500
Everyone else seems to have forgotten, including the Europeans. The Stoxx EU 600 Index hit its highest point since September 2008 this morning as commodities continued to climb (another chance to short oil futures below the $89 line). The Stoxx 600 is up 6.5% for the month and up 9.9% for the year. We had talked about gold, oil and the S&P in my Weekend Post; all are up about 10% in the second half of the year as the dollar fell 3.5%. This morning, the dollar is hugging that 80.75 line, still 10% off it’s June high. If Europe really is "fixed" then the dollar is free to drop back to it’s lows, which could provide tremendous rally fuel for stocks and commodities.
Moody’s warned it may lower Spain’s rating, citing "substantial funding requirements" and France is on Credit Watch and Belgium faces a rate cut at Moody’s as well while Standard and Poor’s is reviewing its assessments of Ireland, Portugal and Greece. The credit default swaps tied to the French bonds imply a rating of Baa1, seven steps below its actual top ranking of Aaa at Moody’s but, if it doesn’t bother the Europeans – why should it bother us?
There is no (ZERO) logic to global markets racing back to all-time highs with the VIX running back to it’s lows as if there is not a care in the World and I don’t say that because I’m a bitter short – we had 16 bullish trade ideas last week and just 8 bearish ones as we simply threw up our hands and played the technicals in Member Chat as the Dow tested that magical 11,500 line. Europe reads the same news we do and markets over there are up 1% this morning despite a pretty poor performance turned in by China, where the Shanghai fell 1.4% (and that was AFTER a 50% recovery into the close) and the Hang Seng fell 0.3% (also big recovery into the close) and the Nikkei fell 0.85% (small afternoon recovery) and the BSE, our global leader into November, weakly flat-lined 5% off its highs.
We’re watching 11,500 on the Dow as well as the 1,225 line on the S&P, which is its "must hold" line that we’ve been tracking on the breakout. Will the Dow break higher or the S&P…
Can you visualize a possible scenario that could put a sudden end to the secular rise now underway in gold and silver?
In a recent conference call with the research team of The Casey Report, we once again collectively tried to imagine what situation… what scheme… what government manipulation… might finally put a stake through the heart of gold.
Setting the stage, I think it’s safe to assume that in order for the gold bull to decisively reverse direction, the following general conditions would have to be precedent in the economy:
The financial crisis will have to have ended. Which is to say that…
Unemployment would have to begin falling by significant numbers – with 300,000 jobs or more being added month after month, instead of being lost.
The housing markets will be stabilizing. Foreclosure rates would have to fall to more normal levels (and not because banks are forced
While America is entertained by a rather realistic cartoon of what happens when the Fed (semantics aside) prints money with which to buy up whatever assets it so chooses, and launders the cash for the Primary Dealers (a topic discussed ad nauseam on Zero Hedge), we present a rather more somber and serious look at the modern financial system, courtesy of Bill Still, creator of the movie: "The Secret of Oz" which explains in a far more nuanced manner the interconnectedness in the vicious square of power, politics, money creation and debt formation, and Wall Street, the Fed, and the Political forces in DC are intertwined to a degree that essentially makes the whole concept of democracy moot (a topic touched upon earlier by Bill Buckler). As Still says: "The world economy is doomed to spiral downwards until we do 2 things: outlaw government borrowing; 2. outlaw fractional reserve lending. Banks should only be allowed to lend out money they actually have and nations do not have to run up a "National Debt". Remember: It’s not what backs the money, it’s who controls its quantity." As more and more Americans are finally expressing an interest in what is really happening behind the scenes, but seem to not have the patience for simple algebra, we hope the following movie answers most of the pent up questions.
Still’s movie is well worth the two hours it takes to watch.
Moreover, look at the latest Commitment of Traders report at what has happened to the commodity complex.
The speculative long interest in gold has risen since late August to a near-record 253,638 contracts;
The speculative longs in oil have doubled to 208,726 contracts;
For copper, the net non-commercial longs has tripled to 25,139 contracts;
Meanwhile, there is a huge net short position in Treasury bonds on the Chicago Board of Trade of 25,240 contracts, and;
The net longs on the euro has swelled on the Mercantile Exchange, to 35,879 contracts.
Lord help us if the U.S. dollar ever embarks on a countertrend rally — everything from credit, to stocks, to volatility, to commodities have become abnormally correlated to the greenback.
The Dollar fell from 77.515 at 3:15 yesterday to 76.835 at 7:30 this morning.
That, my friends, is the story of the markets. A 0.9% drop in the Dollar overnight is a huge move, something that once upon a time would have made headlines as America’s $100Tn worth of household wealth has $1,000,000,000,000 shaved off of it in some overnight catastrophe. But there was no overnight catastrophe, just the horribly normal, shockingly ordinary destruction of the US Dollar, which has now become the plaything of International Market manipulators who boost it to pump the Asian markets up overnight and then crash it to goose the US markets in the morning. It’s MADNESS but we are loving it because, at least it’s predictable madness.
In yesterday’s post I reminded you about our $87.50 short on oil futures and we hit it again this morning and that’s exactly what I said would happen in my 2:21 comment to Members when I predicted they would run oil back up into inventories. We LOVE ranges – they are so much fun to play. Gold is now 20% above our $1,150 line and at the top of that range ($920-$1,380) we’ve been watching since March of 2009 so I updated our "Spinning Straw Trades Into Gold" post with a whole new set of trade ideas to help protect our cash if the dollar keeps getting weaker and gold keeps heading higher.
As I said to Members in yesterday’s Morning Alert, it’s all a huge sham but it’s the only game in town so we just need to learn the silly rules and figure out how to win if we want to keep playing (although I am currently advocating mainly cash and playing just for fun as we test our upside). We did go for an ABX trade in Member Chat on Friday, a play that was also made available to Stock World Weekly readers over the weekend (last chance to subscribe before we’re out of Beta and the rates double!) and ABX is, of course, flying as gold broke through the $1,400 mark yesterday. So we like gold as a small hedge against inflation eating into our sidelined cash but, on the whole, I’d rather short it – I just want to be clear about that.
We can’t short gold with Benny and Timmy running the…
The market went through some gyrations on Wednesday in reaction to Fed Chairman Bernanke’s testimony before the Joint Economic Committee. He first defended continued quant easing by warning, “A premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily but also would carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery.” Stocks dutifully rallied and all major indexes hit new intraday highs.
But alas, consensus is apparently not a given over the longer term. The minutes hinted that a tapering off could start sooner, “A number of participants expressed willingness to adjust the flow of purchases downward as early as the June meeting if the economic information received by that time showed evidence of sufficiently strong and sustained growth.” So …...
UPDATE: They are paniccing... BOJ injected 2 trillion yen ($19.4 billion) into the financial system to stem volatility following a circuit breaker in JGB futures trading.
All the time it is just the quadrillion JPY second-largest bond market in the world that is experiencing volatility on an unprecedented scale, the BoJ and her partners in crime are more than willing to 'officially' say "please do not worry." But when the equity market - that barometer of everything good and holy about Abenomics starts to crater, you can bet the excuses will co...
Few stocks have attracted more news over the last six months than nutritional supplement maker Herbalife (NYSE: HLF).
Even casual market observers are aware of the circumstances surrounding the the initial bout of extreme volatility in the name back in December 2012. The shares went into free-fall at the end of the year after hedge fund manager Bill Ackman revealed in typical sanctimonious fashion that his firm Pershing Square Capital Management was short around $1 billion worth of the stock.
Amid much pomp and circumstance, Ackman laid out his short thesis at a New York investment conference and...
SKS - Saks, Inc. – Timely bullish bets initiated in Saks options just seconds prior to the closing bell on Tuesday are generating sizable gains for at least one trader today, with shares in the high-end retailer up at the highest level since 2008. The stock closed Tuesday up 11% on the day at $13.67 after the company reported first-quarter revenue above average analyst expectations. Within minutes of the close shares in SKS moved sharply to the upside after the New York Post, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported...
With yesterday's dovish duo Bullard and Dudley to set expectations, the S&P 500 rallied in anticipation of Chairman Bernanke's congressional testimony and soared to its all-time intraday high, up 1.07% during his prepared remarks. But the Q&A deflated the balloon, and the 2 PM release of the latest Fed Minutes accelerated the decline. It seems that the possibility of tapering QE in the near term is not entirely off the table. The index hit its -1.23% intraday low about 30 minutes before the final bell. It then trimmed its loss to close down 0.83%. The 10-year yield jumped 9 bps to close at 2.03%, just off the 2013 interim high of 2.07% on March 11th and 37 bps off its 2013 low set 14 sessions back.
Here is a 15-minute look at the week so far.
Not surprisingly the volume on today's 2.32% high-low intraday range was 24% above its 50-day movi...
To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...
Doing a lot of data mining as we watch this market go parabolic.
The S&P 500 is 13.4% over the 200 day moving average. 10%+ is considered overbought, and 12% is very rare.
The current Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the S&P 500 is 75. Over 70 is generally overbought (below 30 oversold). To put in perspective in 1999 the S&P touched 70ish a few times but never hit 75. The NASDAQ in 1999 – early 2000 hit mid 70s a few days in July 99 and Mar 00. Then in the parabolic move in November and December 1999 (NASDAQ gained over 1000 pts!) it sat between 70 and mid 80s for most of two months; of course t...
Reminder: OpTrader is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current 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 virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.
To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here
Reminder: Craigzooka is available to chat with Members regarding his virtual portfolio performance, comments are found below each post.
By Craigzooka
I am going to share with you how I manage my IRA and the power of reducing your cost basis. My goal each year is a 20% return in my IRA. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't, but I believe that all of my success is due to reducing my cost basis. To illustrate the power of reducing your cost basis here are some trades we did last year. These trades are taken from an educational portfolio we ran in a paper-trading account for a little more than a year.
We bought RIG on 5/15/2012 for $44.13, sold it on 1/18/2013 for $46 but booked a profit of $1,154.
We bought MT on 1/4/2012 for $19.24, sold it on 12/21/2012 for $15 but booked a profit of $454.
We bought CHK on 1/27/2012 for $21.93, sold it on 10/19/2012 for $18 b...
Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.
Courtesy of NASA
The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...
Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi. Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward. So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...
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As most sophisticated investors and traders are aware, the U.S. Federal government has run up significant deficits and the long term debt burden is becoming a drain on Gross Domestic Product. That being said, most economists are discussing the possibility of a major decline in the value of the U.S. Dollar going forward as inflationary monetary policy begins to strangle growth. While that view point may prove right over the long haul, in the short run most traders are not likely expecting the U.S. Dollar to rally.
The Dollar fell from 77.515 at 3:15 yesterday to 76.835 at 7:30 this morning.
We can’t short gold with Benny and Timmy running the…
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
(
