PSW Rewind of 2009 - The First Quarter
by Phil - January 1st, 2010 2:42 pm
Thursday’s close was very exciting, wasn’t it?
Well it sure was for us as my 10:01 Alert to Members was a play on the DIA Jan $103 puts at .56. Thanks to the late afternoon dip, they finished the day at .90 (up 60%) after peaking out at .95, a very nice win to close off the year. That was the only Alert trade all week as this market has been too tough to call and we don’t make trades just for the hell of it. I had been sniping at DIA puts all week expecting a pay-off but Thursday it finally came together.
Of course, I also strongly advocated hedging on Thursday morning and listed 4 trade ideas in the morning post to hedge ourselves against the possibility of just such a drop so don’t say you haven’t been warned. Whether there will be follow-through on Monday or a full reversal remains to be seen and, even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you here because this is a review - predictions are another article entirely.
We treaded very cautiously into last year because our PSW Holiday Retail Survey was not looking very pretty so it was no surprise to us, on Dec 26th, when we got some horrific retail reports. These are, of course, the same reports that we "beat" this year - but not by much. Dec 29th was Monday and Israeli jets attacked Hamas targets in the Gaza sending oil flying up to $48 a barrel. That gave us a nice commodity rally into the close of the year but January 2nd was a Friday and we decided (fortunately) to take the money and run on our long plays, holding open our main cover of SKF Jan $120s at $4.35, which hit $80 later in the month (up 1,732%) and USO Feb $32 puts at $3.40, which hit $10.50 in the Feb dip (up 208%) so, on the whole, not too differently positioned than we are now, coming into the new year. Visually 2009 looked a little like this:
January - Waiting for Obama, or Something, to Change
We began January much the same way we ended December with my Wed Jan 7th comment being: "We call it "Testy Tuesday" for a reason and our 5% rule was tested twice during the day but the market failed to break out despite what seemed to be a contrarian rally to Fed minutes that I summarized to members at 2:02 as "BAD!!!!" I set a…
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CAT-Bears Brace for Rocky Start to 2010
by Andrew Wilkinson - December 15th, 2009 4:34 pm
Today’s tickers: CAT, MS, UUP, STI, WFC, MCO, M, ROK, BBY, JAVA & HMY
CAT - Caterpillar, Inc. – Bearish option traders are bracing for potential CAT-share price erosion through expiration in February 2010. Shares edged nearly 0.75% lower in late afternoon trading to stand at $57.94. One pessimist purchased a put spread to prepare for potential declines. The transaction involved the purchase of roughly 7,000 puts at the February 55 strike for a premium of 2.35 apiece, marked against the sale of 7,000 puts at the lower February 35 strike for 49 cents premium each. The net cost of the trade amounts to 1.86 per contract. The investor responsible for the spread probably holds a long position in the underlying. Under this assumption, the trader has established downside protection, which kicks in if Caterpillar’s shares fall beneath the breakeven price of $53.14 by expiration day in February.
MS - Morgan Stanley – Analysts at Barclays Capital slashed fourth-quarter earnings estimates for Morgan Stanley to 40 cents from 90 cents today. Perhaps the bearish options activity observed on MS during the trading session was partly inspired by the significant profit-forecast revision at Barclays. Either way, investors populating Morgan Stanley’s January 2010 contract appear pretty pessimistic on the second-largest U.S. securities firm. Traders threw in the towel on MS by shedding nearly 20,000 calls at the January 31 strike for an average premium of 75 cents apiece. Some investors may be closing out previously established long call positions. Analysis of the existing open interest at that strike suggests traders are likely cutting their losses by selling the calls today. Investors abandoning bullish bets do not paint a rosy picture of where MS’s share price may settle during the first weeks of 2010.
UUP - PowerShares DB US Dollar index Bull Fund – The U.S. dollar is brimming with confidence on the first of a two-day FOMC meet in Washington and while investors are not expecting any signs of a policy change, there is certainly a firmer tone underlying the dollar in the past 72 hours or so. Option traders placed extremely bullish bets using call options on the bullish dollar index fund, whose shares currently stand 0.9% higher on the day at $22.82. Investors bought a huge chunk of 100,000 long-dated options reserving buying rights over the dollar at a fixed $24.00 before the contract expires in January 2011. That leaves traders hoping for a 5% rally…
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Bullish Ddollar Index ETF Intrigues Once Again
by Andrew Wilkinson - November 12th, 2009 4:14 pm
Today’s tickers: UUP, VIX, FSLR, HMY, M, GMCR, CTRP & DOW
UUP - PowerShares DB US Dollar Bullish Fund – A pair of bullish risk reversals on the PowerShares US Dollar Bullish Fund suggests today’s sharp rally for the dollar will likely continue over the next several months. We observed massive bullish plays on the UUP over the past couple of weeks, some tied to machinations of whether or not the fund had enough shares in circulation. But today’s activity predicts far more extreme movements in the price of the dollar index. The UUP is current up 1.4% to $22.80, while the dollar index, which it supposedly tracks, is up just 0.7%. Investors sold 4,700 deep in-the-money put options at the December 29 strike for an average premium of 6.30 apiece, spread against the purchase of 4,700 calls at the same strike for one nickel each. The high-delta put options hold very little extrinsic value because expiration is just over one month away. Thus, investors are expecting the intrinsic value of the puts to decline. The only way this will occur is if the dollar rallies forcing the UUP to increase. If traders’ bullish predictions are correct, the value of the long calls will appreciate, while premium on the short puts erodes. Such a scenario allows investors to profit by buying back the puts for less than the 6.25 net premium received on the reversal. A similar uber-bullish strategy was employed at the January 2010 28 strike price where investors sold 4,250 deep-in-the-money puts short for about 5.30 each, and purchased the same number of calls for 5 cents apiece.
VIX - CBOE Vix index – With the equity market down and the dollar on the rise, investors across different asset classes today appear to be blaming one another for prevailing direction. No one seems to know why anything is moving in the fashion it is. The suggestion of course is that risk appetite is on the demise and fear is picking up. Compounding such indecision in the volatility class are trades suggesting ongoing disparate views on the fortunes for equities going forward. The so-called fear gauge is 5% higher at 24.90 today while trading has been two way. In the November options one investor loaded up on 25,000 call options at a 25 cent premium suggesting that the index will be above 25 when options expire next Tuesday. The December contract equally hinted…
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Thrilling Thursday Morning - Beijing Bop
by Phil - September 3rd, 2009 8:28 am
That is, of course, what residents of Macau are required to chant every morning in honor of Stanley Ho, who held the monopoly on casinos in China until 1992. This morning it turns out Macau’s economy contracted by 13.7% in Q2, it’s 3rd consecutive quarter of shrinkage. It’s possible that the restrictions placed on civil servants in 2008 to stop them from gambling and to curb money laundering has caused much of the decline why is the decline accelerating if things are so good in China? One thing about Macau is that all the US businesses that are now there make it harder for the Chinese government to pad the statistics and, taken at face value, Maccau is underperfoming the rest of China by 22%.
This is worth noting today as China is leading the market bounce as the vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said the authorities will promote a “stable and healthy” market, tempering investor concern that the government wants to curb equity and property speculation. Ministers from the Group of 20 nations are likely to suggest the global economy is healing when they meet in London this weekend, while the European Central Bank probably will keep interest rates at a record low today. The Shangai composite index ran right up to the 5% rule today and has pulled a turnaround in global equities. As noted in David Fry’s chart, we were oversold and due for a little bounce anyway.
As noted by Ben over in our Chart School section, copper has climbed back into the "stupid zone" on that news but still has a ways to go before getting stupid enough to short again. We’ll be keeping an eye on the copper miners like PCU, FCX and RTP as well as BHP, who got a nice pop on a UBS upgrade this morning but it’s a little early to short until we see jobs reports today and tomorrow.
This is not surprising to us as we read the Fed minutes yesterday and the greenest shoot they could find was that things were picking up in other countries, a favorite ploy we discussed in Monday’s post as the Shanghai was falling 6.7% that day. Fortunately, we were playing bullish into the close as we know how this game works and I had said to members just ahead of the Fed, at 1:58: "Beware bears - I was just noticing that last minutes were May 20th…
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Friday Already?
by Phil - May 22nd, 2009 8:29 am
Man what a fun week, I can’t believe it’s ending so soon!
We are already on vacation, having followed our plan to cash out at the bottom yesterday anticipating some short covering today that would take up the markets. Actually, we took some bullish plays into yesterday’s close as it was such an obvious set-up for a stick save and there was so much bad news out already that we weren’t too worried about more. My hot streak continued as I posted to members at 11:13, with the Dow on the rise at 8,267: "OIH now at the 5% rule (94) and XLE at -4% (47.50 is 5%) and Nas at 2.5% rule (1,685) along with RUT (477) while S&P needs 880, Dow needs 8,220, and NYSE 5,725. Those are the points that should hold and bounce us at least back to -2% but, after the way they behaved at 1.5%, we need to see them retake -1.25 before we’re even slightly safe."
The Nas bottomed out at 1,678 at 2:45 but came back 20 points to -1.89%, the Russell hit 474 at the same time but finishe down 1.66%, the S&P hit 880 on the nose at 2:53 before recovering to -1.68%, the Dow hit 8,224 at 2:52 but rallied back to down 1.54% and the NYSE bottomed out at 5,728 at 2:58 before making it back to -1.53. Now I know there are lots of stock services that can tell you exactly what the market will do for the day 3 days in a row and I’m certain that there’s no way to profit from that kind of information anyway so, whatever you do - don’t sign up for this service (see, we are cleverly experimenting with reverse psychology!). We took quick profits on our DIA calls into the close but left our DDM (ultra-long Dow) calls on for fun and they should get a nice pop this morning. We also couldn’t resist some great buy opportunities during that sell-off and we picked up new, hedged positions in HMY, FIG, DRYS, RF, DAL and UYG in addition to our Dow plays. As we also sold the Dow puts to cover our longer covers - we ended up pretty darned bullish after being 100% bearish at the open. We are flexible if nothing else!
Our futures are looking pretty good this morning despite BKUNA being siezed by regulators in a move that will take a $4.9Bn bite out of the FDIC. The FDIC sold the company’s banking…
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Qualcomm – Rally in sight, but not just yet
by Andrew Wilkinson - February 28th, 2009 12:32 pm
Today’s tickers: QCOM, GT, IVN, AMGN, C, GFI, HMY, SQNM & GE
QCOM – Qualcomm Inc. – Things might be looking better for Qualcomm – but not just yet according to one large option trade that went through earlier today. An investor sought protection in the April contract for fear that shares would be below $35.00 when the contract expires and turned the cost of the premium into a credit by selling January 2010 expiration puts at the same strike. The strategy assumes that the shares will not break through the strike price as the second quarter begins, in which case the investor gets paid out for every penny below $35.00 the share are at that time. But ahead the investor’s core assumption is that shares will shift ahead of $35.00 when next year begins, rendering the sold put options worthless. Today Qualcomm is trading a shade higher at $33.75.
GT – The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company – Shares of the manufacturer of tires and rubber products have fallen by 5% to $4.57 today. Perhaps the continued decline stems from the downgrade GT received on Monday to ‘underweight’ from ‘hold’ by a KeyBanc analyst, who cited challenges such as global sales declines, and rising costs related to pension and raw materials. Despite the downgrade and today’s decline in share price, one investor established a bullish play on the stock. At the April 7.5 strike price, 10,000 calls were purchased for 10 cents each. Should there by a rally in shares before expiration, this trader will see premiums grow richer at the 7.5 strike, and could then potentially sell the calls to profit. There is a delta of 0.13 on the trade, thus there is a 13% chance that these calls will land in-the-money by April. The current share price would need to experience an increase of 66% in order to surpass the breakeven point on the trade located at $7.60. Whether the shares can breach the breakeven point or not, this investor can still capitalize on today’s position with even a slight rally in shares by selling premium.
IVN – Ivanhoe Mines Limited – The international mineral exploration and development company’s shares have rallied by 3% to stand at $4.59. IVN caught our attention when it edged onto our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner. Calls were in demand in the June contract, where over 12,300 calls were purchased for 50 cents at the June…
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Which Way Wednesday
by Phil - February 25th, 2009 6:48 am
Well I’m uplifted!
We had a fantastic day in the markets yesterday as we went bottom fishing in earnest early in the morning, picking up entries on JPM, X, IP, VNO, HMY, M and IYR early in the day, ahead of my 12:48 observation to members: "BAC breaking up along with their preferred stock - that’s a good sign. SKF back at $192 test area, XLF at $7.45 so just a little push and maybe we can get somewhere!" Indeed watching our levels paid off and we went flying up after that. As I often say, you NEED to make these buy decisions at the bottom, it’s too late once the train starts moving. We did grab a momentum play on BAC as they crossed $4.40 but, other than adjusting our DIA cover play, we had no need to make adjustments during the run-up because it’s what we were playing for.
We went into the close fairly neutral (a very slight bearish bias on our DIA puts), having accomplished our mission and not being sure what kind of speech Obama would be giving. It turned out to be a great one and the Republican response by Gov. Bobby Jindal was so mind-blowingly awful that Rachel Maddow was stunned to the point where she was unable to speak and I will leave my own commentary at that! On this same clip, Cris Matthews had the comment of the week, saying that the Republicans were so mired in responsibility for this crisis that they had to outsource the response (Jindal is Indian). I found that very funny…
As we expected, there is no "quick fix" in Obama’s speech and we’ll see how well the markets hold yesterday’s gains. We would have been more bullish had we not had so much trouble with our two critical levels I said we should watch in yesterday’s morning post: Russell 411 and NYSE 4,790. As I said in the morning, these were just the levels we needed to break in order to consider the day’s action anything more than a weak bounce off the horrendous drop of the past two weeks. That’s why we do not jump on the bandwagon once the rally gets going - we do our bottom fishing at the bottom and we sell or cover into the rallies. If it’s a real rally, we have a long, long way to go and we will have very strong buy signals - a good start would be…
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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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