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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Gold Mminers ETF Attracts Bullish Option Plays
by Andrew Wilkinson - November 10th, 2009 5:08 pm
Today’s tickers: GDX, CF, S, XHB, PCLN, XLF, CX, CAR, BZH, CRI & ERTS
GDX - Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF – Shares of the gold ETF that invests in shares of precious metals mining companies are up 0.5% to $49.53 with one hour remaining in the trading session. Option implied volatility has come down from 54% to 46% recently as gold’s price has surged. Nearer-term investors sought downside protection on the fund, whereas long-term traders initiated bullish plays. Investors hoping to lock in gains experienced during the recent run-up in the price of gold purchased 4,000 puts at the January 2010 47 strike for 3.05 apiece. Further along, at the March 2010 44 strike, another 6,000 puts were picked up for an average premium of 3.10 per contract. Finally, long-term bullishness took the form of a call spread in the January 2011 contract. It appears one investor purchased about 5,000 calls at the January 50 strike for an average of 9.52 each, marked against the sale of the same number of calls at the higher January 55 strike for 7.55 each. The net cost of the optimistic play amounts to 1.97 per contract. The trader stands to accrue maximum potential profits of 3.03 each if shares of GDX rally 11% over the current price to $55.00 by expiration in January 2011.
CF - CF Industries Holdings, Inc. – Bearish option plays appeared on the manufacturer of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer products today after the firm rejected rival Agrium Inc.’s increased takeover offer of $4.52 billion. Shares of CF are currently trading 4% lower to $77.20. Investors purchased put options at the now in-the-money December 80 strike for an average premium of 6.70 apiece. Perhaps put-buyers are protecting long stock positions. Otherwise, they are hoping to accrue profits if shares of CF decline through the effective breakeven price of $73.30. Another trader unraveled a previously established bullish play in the January 2010 contract. The investor originally placed an extremely bullish 8,500-lot call spread at the January 90/100 strikes. However, the trader abandoned bullish sentiment today by closing out the spread. Option implied volatility on CF jumped 7.5% over Monday’s closing value of 52.9% to reach an intraday high of 55.9%.
S - Sprint Nextel Corp. – Shares of the wireless communications company surrendered a portion of gains experienced during yesterday’s 20% rally to an intraday high of $3.43. The stock rebounded due to news that Clearwire…
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October Overview - When the Goblins Come Home to Roost
by Phil - November 1st, 2009 8:15 am
What a crazy month we had!
The Dow began the month of October at 9,712 and finished the month of October at EXACTLY 9,712. Now I don’t want to say the market is manipulated but… No, I’ve got nothing, there are no buts - the market is totally manipulated! Either that or you believe that the random outcome of tens of millions of traders around the globe trading hundreds of billions of shares of stock would just so happen to begin and end the month within .50 after going as low as 9,378.77 (on the 5th) and as high as 10,157.94 (on the 21st). So that is literally a 1 out of the 779-point swing coincidence to hit that 9,712 nail on the head.
At PSW we couldn’t be happier about this frankly. As I often say to members: We don’t care IF the game is rigged, as long as we can figure out HOW the game is rigged so we can play along. We were bearish in our September 27th Wrap-Up when I predicted that Earnings season would bring about a "Return to Fundamentals." We targeted retrace moves of Dow 9,512, S&P 1,020, Nasdaq 2,030, NYSE 9,496 and Russell 556 - all of which we hit the following Friday.
That week I highlighted my fundamental market concerns and Monday (9/28) my topic was "6 Unemployed People Per Available Job," Tuesday I said "Consumer Confidence is Key," Wednesday we caught the turn perfectly as I predicted "End of Quarter, End of Pump," and Thursday, October 1st was the day that "REIT’s Turned Rotten" - which was something we had been playing for during the September rally so we were thrilled with what is NOW the 2nd worst down day of the month. That was the day GS decided to agree with me that REITs were over-valued and gave us a signal that the Gang of 12 were no longer all on the same page. Friday, the 2nd, we were back to looking at the Jobs numbers when I asked "Is Anybody Working for the Weekend."
We could not have been more pleased with what was the worst week in the market since then end of August, which was a,most as bad at the beginning of July (are you beginning to see a pattern?) and I said that Friday: "Just like any good roller coaster, market plunges can be fun when you are strapped in safely and prepared for them. Our members…
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Weekend Reading - Looking for Green Shoots
by Phil - October 11th, 2009 8:21 am
I’ve been beefing up our bullish plays on the Watch List.
If we’re going to get more bullish I thought it would be a good time to look for some bullish premises so we don’t feel totally silly paying 20-year high p/e’s for the S&P 500. Obviously, our main hope is that the stocks we buy will grow into their earnings so the next month’s worth of reports will be key. The bar for corporate earnings is still set at very easy to beat levels yet, like this limbo-playing child, when they announce their beats of very low expectations we’re going to get all excited and tell them how great they are doing.
The problem is, these are not kids who we hope may grow up one day to be President or CEOs of major companies. these ARE CEOs of major companies and they are being paid top salaries for top performance and we, the stock purchasing public, are paying top dollar for what should be SPECTACULAR performance, not beating 75% off last year’s earnings by a penny!
When I am being asked to buy IBM back at it’s all-time high or AMZN or BIDU or AM, PALM, NFLX, PCLN, URBN, UHS, CERN, CREE, GMCR, CY, SWM, TRLG, BKE, etc - then their performance better look like this:
Nothing against those particular companies, any individual company can be exceptional and beat the market, but - Are the companies we’re buying really doing exceptional things or are have we just developed such ridiculously low expectations that we have been psychologically conditioned (and Wall Street firms employ armies of behavioral psychologists for a reason) to treat these stocks and the CEOs who run them like our children? If your child was the child in the above picture and I asked you for $20 to see her limbo show - you might pay it. If it’s not your child though, would you even consider making an afternoon of it? No, of course not, for good money you expect to see the cool fire guy at the top of his game and that is what you should expect from companies trading at or near all-time highs - NO LESS!
I love President Obama but he was just given a Nobel Peace Prize simply for not being President Bush - low expectations! On Sept 17th, PALM announced that it lost 10 cents a share, not losing the 25 cents expected and gave lowered guidance for Q3. The non-adjusted loss for PALM was their 9th…
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Bearish Plays Surround Caterpillar Options
by Phil - August 10th, 2009 4:48 pm
Today’s tickers: CAT, JWN, TIBX, XLI, FXI, M, C, FRE & PCLN
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DryShips upgrade attracts option investors to upper deck
by Andrew Wilkinson - April 17th, 2009 4:29 pm
Today’s tickers: DRYS, XTO, LGF, MCRI, RVBD, RF, HA, CBS, PCLN
DRYS DryShips, Inc. – The drybulk carrier’s share price rally of more than 25% to $6.94 breathes new life into DryShips’ sails today amid an upgrade to ‘outperform’ from ‘market perform’ by an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. this morning. The company has also managed to raise $500 million via equity offering that it plans to use to decrease its massive debt. Option investors saluted the bullish news by purchasing calls in the May contract. At the May 7.5 strike price 7,300 calls were picked up for an average premium of 59 cents apiece. Shares need only rise by an additional 7% in order for the May 7.5 strike calls to land in-the-money by expiration next month. More optimistic traders selected the May 9.0 strike and bought 3,000 calls for about 28 cents per contract. Another positive sign for the cargo-carrier was the sale of 1,400 puts at the May 6.0 strike price for 74 cents each as some investors hope that shares remain above the breakeven on the trade at $5.26 by expiration. While much of the activity we observed was bullish in the May contract, we did notice that some downside protection was sought at the May 7.5 strike price as about 2,100 in-the-money puts were picked up at an average premium of 1.55 each.
XTO XTO Energy, Inc. – Shares of the oil and gas exploration company have rallied by more than 3% to $35.20. XTO edged onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner after one investor took profits by closing a short put position. It appears that this individual originally established a short position on March 11, 2009, by selling 19,500 puts at the August 22.5 strike price for a premium of 1.86 apiece. Today, he purchased the lot of 19,500 puts at the same strike for an average price of 75 cents apiece. The difference between the two put premiums yields this investor 1.11 today for closing the position. It looks as though he plans to once again profit from a similar trade as he sold 15,000 puts at the August 26 strike price for an average premium of 1.35 apiece.
LGF Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation – The diversified independent producer and distributor of motion pictures jumped to the top of our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner after one investor rolled a long call position set…
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Semiconductor credit spread indicates bearish view
by Andrew Wilkinson - March 20th, 2009 6:14 pm
Today’s tickers: SMH, ELAN, FDX, DELL, AN, GE, POT, PCLN & ERIC
SMH Semiconductor HOLDRS Trust – The semiconductors ETF has seen shares decline by more than 3.5% to stand at $18.11 today. We noticed one investor who is looking to profit from a near-term pull back in shares, by establishing a credit spread in the April contract. While the open interest at the April 18 strike suggests that there has been bullish activity there recently, we believe the trader we observed today is taking the opposite stance. At the April 20 strike price 25,000 calls were purchased at 46 cents apiece, while at the April 18 strike 25,000 in-the-money calls were sold for 1.36 each. The net credit achieved with this strategy amounts to 90 cents and is safe in the bank if shares remain below $18 by expiration next month. SMH has not traded above $20 since November of 2008, and the stock has reached a line of resistance at around $18. This investor may turn out to have made a wise choice in taking advantage of the richer premium afforded by the in-the-money contracts at the lower strike, and he will look for both the April 18/20 calls to expire worthless in 30 days in order to pocket the 90 cent premium. This bear was not alone in the woods today, as the May contract saw 14,000 puts purchased at the 14 strike price for 24 cents apiece. Super-pessimists are looking for shares to decline below the 52-week low on the stock at $14.51 because profits begin to amass as shares fall beginning at the breakeven share price of $13.76.
ELN Elan Corporation PLC – The neuroscience-based biotechnology company has experienced a share price decline of 2% to $5.29. ELN appeared on our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner after one investor traded a large number of calls in the January 2010 contract. The trader purchased 28,000 calls for 20 cents each at the January 17.5 strike price. Given that shares are light-years away from nearing $17.50, we investigated the open interest of 29,000 at the 17.5 strike. It looks as though this investor sold a good portion of these 28,000 calls short on January 8, 2009 for a premium which ranged between 70 cents and 1.25 per contract when shares were at $9.00. We noted at the time in our commentary that this was part of a three-legged spread. Option…
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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
(