Testy Tuesday - Have the Markets Become Comfortably Numb?
by Phil - January 19th, 2010 8:08 am
"There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
but I have become comfortably numb." - Pink Floyd
I have a theory that the markets (and the American people in general) aren’t irrational, they are simply shell-shocked after suffering a very traumatic group financial experience…
To be shell-shocked is to be "mentally confused, upset, or exhausted as a result of excessive stress" and the most common symptoms are: Fatigue, slower reaction times, indecision, disconnection from one’s surroundings, and inability to prioritize - That certainly sounds like our Congress doesn’t it? Combat stress disorder was first diagnosed in WWI, when 10% of the troops were killed and 56% wounded - far worse than had been experienced in previous wars. Our current financial crisis has similarly affected more people than any previous crisis with almost everyone knowing someone who is bankrupt or lost their jobs or homes and almost no one escaped the carnage of the downturn without some financial damage.
Combat fatigue may go a long way to explaining the severe drop-off in volume that has plagued the markets since March, with participation now down to 25% of where we were last January and that leaves us open to the blatant sort of market manipulation that Karl Denninger caught last week as well as the usual nonsense we get daily from HFT programs that drive the market with such precision that we are able to tell how the day is going to go by simply checking our hourly volume targets. Here’s a clip from CNBC where a floor trader discusses market manipulation as a fact of trading (2 mins in).
As Nicholas Santiago points out on In The Money Stocks, "January is usually a very high volume month, yet it has started off the New Year even lighter than the last two months of 2009. Light volume markets are very difficult to short. Hence the old saying, ‘never short a dull market’." Not only is the market volume light, but over 60% of the trading volume is concentrated on 5 stocks: AIG, C, BAC, FNM and FRE!
We have often noted that high-volume (relatively) days almost always tend to be down days and PSW Members can tell you how the…
Email This Post
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Yahoo
Facebook
Twitter
Profit-Taking on Illumina, Inc. Options Illuminated
by Andrew Wilkinson - October 20th, 2009 4:18 pm
Today’s tickers: ILMN, USB, CCJ, BSX, VMED, SPY, GME & QSFT
ILMN - Illumina Inc. – The biotechnology firm’s shares slipped 3% today to $42.48. Profit-taking by one investor pushed the ILMN ticker symbol onto our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner. It appears the trader originally sold 5,000 puts short at the November 35 strike for 95 cents apiece back on September 22, 2009. Today, the investor closed out the short position by buying the put options back for 25 cents each. Net profits enjoyed on the closing purchase amount to 70 cents per contract for a total of $350,000. Next, the investor reestablished a short put position by selling 5,000 puts at the November 40 strike for an average premium of 1.12 apiece. The full 1.12 premium may be fully pocketed by the trader if shares of ILMN remain higher than $40.00 through expiration.
USB - US Bancorp. – Options activity in the near-term November contract suggests at least one investor anticipates greater volatility in the price of USB shares through expiration. Shares of the financial holding company edged 1% lower this afternoon to $23.56. A long strangle play took place through the purchase of approximately 2,000 puts at the November 23 strike for an average premium of 65 cents each, and the purchase of 2,000 calls at the November 24 strike for about 73 cents apiece. The strangle cost the investor a net 1.38 per contract to implement. The transaction may prove to be profitable to the trader if shares of USB either shift above the upper breakeven point at $25.38, or if the stock moves beneath the lower breakeven price of $21.62, by expiration day. Volatility on USB rose 13% from an intraday low of 31% to a high of 35.5%.
CCJ - Cameco Corp. – The world’s second-largest producer of Uranium experienced a more than 5.5% rally in shares during the trading session to $31.31. Shares in a number of uranium companies rose after an Australian newspaper revealed BHP Billiton Ltd. declared force majeure on uranium and copper sales from its Olympic Dam mine. Force majeure is a contract provision that excuses a supplier from liability due to uncontrollable circumstances. In this case, a BHP mine in South Australia will be out of commission for at least a month due to mechanical difficulties. Investors expecting shares of CCJ to rally higher purchased near-term call options 2,500 times at the November 35…
Email This Post
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Yahoo
Facebook
Twitter
$112,291 Portfolio Update, Week 16
by Phil - August 8th, 2009 8:23 am
Next week will be the last week for our very profitable portfolio, that started with $100,000 on April 10th.
This portfolio has already made 19% in 16 weeks and many members wanted to start a new one from scratch. So, by popular demand, we will be restarting a brand new portfolio the week after options expiration, also with $100,000 and also a hedged portfolio but this time with the goal of drawing a monthly income. I got this idea when I went down to Florida last week and spoke to many people who asked me about their investing accounts. Many of these "safe" accounts had been cut in half or worse and the returns they were producing were coming in at 5% year - if that and people were counting on this money for their monthly expenses. I spoke to many people with $1M in the bank who were living off $50,000 a year in interest and dividends!
Using options and good hedging strategies, we have been able to produce a return in our virtual portfolio of 19% in just 16 weeks (12% cash, 7% unrealized). I’m not advocating someone take a whole $1M and shift it to stocks and options but, if you can make 20% on $200,000 while your other $800,000 makes a "safe" 5%, your annual income goes from $50,000 to $80,000 - that’s a lot of early-bird specials! I will, of course, be happy to answer any adjustment questions on this portfolio anytime during chat but we will no longer be tracking it weekly or making new plays. The goals of the new portfolio will be similar and the new trade ideas can be applied whether you are looking to draw an income or just start building long-term set of holdings for reinvestment.
In the last $112,007 Portfolio Update, from July 28th, we remained bullish and it really paid off with another $2,117 in unrealized gains ($6,690 not included in above total) as we made a very well-timed bottom call the week before and ran with it. We have haven’t had to call an "audible" in two weeks, sticking to our plan as the market held up nicely.
The first few weeks after you sell options are usually the worst and the rising VIX had boosted the premiums of the puts and calls we sold but none of that matters because we played a little more aggressive to the upside and, despite losing $3,080 on our covers, we are still way ahead of goals. As usual, we are…
Email This Post
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Yahoo
Facebook
Twitter
Just Another Manic Monday
by Phil - May 18th, 2009 7:22 am
I went away this weekend and didn’t do much reading.
Traveling and speaking to actual people every so often is a good thing when you are looking for perspective. As I’m often introduced by friends to new people as "Phil the stock guy," I tend to get into a lot of interesting conversations about people’s jobs, the economy, their investments (including their homes), outlook… etc.. It’s kind of like being a doctor, where everyone wants to tell your their medical status as soon as they meet you. This is a good thing actually, as I love to get "real" information to offset the mountains of anonymous statistical data that we usually have to wade through.
I was down in DC, where most people still have jobs and retired people have insanely generous government pensions so I wouldn’t call them typical but there is a lot of optimism that things are really getting better and will continue to do so this year. On the way down there, I was reading a horrific article in the NY Times on the foreclosure rates in our region so I was in a pretty bad mood when I got to our nation’s capital but I was very impressed with the "can do" attitude of my political pals, who couldn’t hang out on Sunday because they had to work. I haven’t seen government employees work on a weekend since just after 9/11 but I will tell you that people in DC are busting their butts to get things done with a motivation I haven’t seen since Clinton took office.
Whether it will be "Yes they can" or "No, they are deluded" remains to be seen. Barry Rhitholtz did a nice, negative overview of the NYTimes article so I won’t go into it here and the map below is really horrific but an optimist would say that 98% of the people still have their homes and, even if the worst is not over, it’s certainly not as bad as the doom and gloom crowd is painting it. In the Great Depression, 25% of the people lost their jobs and, in 1934, nearly 1/2 of all US urban home mortgages were delinquent as US personal income dropped 44% over 5 years. THAT’S A DEPRESSION. The only reason the talking heads on TV can get away with using the "D" word so often is that we, as a nation of viewers, are such poor students of…
Email This Post
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Yahoo
Facebook
Twitter
Stress-Free Investing In Stress-Tested Banks
by Phil - May 8th, 2009 7:08 am
Finally the official results are in!
Oddly enough, it was MUCH worse than the original indication that started this leg of our rally when we were told that every bank passed the stress test but the results were skillfully leaked in dribs and drabs interspersed with rumors that things were much worse in such a way that there is a general sense of relief that "only" $75BBn of additional capital must be raised and almost half of that by Bank of America, where $34Bn represents just 2% of their assets (although it is 40% of their current market cap).
While that level of dillution will keep us out of BAC for now, there’s no reason to not invest in C, who "only" need $5.5Bn against their $2Tn in assets although that is still 25% of their current market cap. For the banks that do need capital, they have until June 8th to present a plan for raising it and until November 9th to implement the plan, which must maintain the target capital ratios through December 2010 after which we can assume they will again be allowed to run wild. The banks are all coming up with various schemes to raise cash but the ones on the left need none at all.
Rather than go into a huge explanation about each pick, I’ll just say that I’m favoring banks that I feel have room to run and have not already been overbought. I discussed with members yesterday that it is ridiculous to assume that banks will get back to their 2007 levels as those earnings came under unique and ideal market conditions which are not likely to be repeated in the next decade so I was disgusted with Cramers BUYBUYBUY rant on the banks last night and I’m looking for a far more conservative play and we will be shorting some of the high flyers as Cramer herds his sheeple into overvalued positions.
![[Commentary]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-DP568_oj_rou_E_20090504185544.jpg)
We got out of our bullish bank plays this week and our $100K Hedged Portfolio, which was focused on financials in round 1, made huge gains and we (contrary to Cramer’s advice) took them off the table. Now that we have FACTS, we can reinvest with more confidence. I am not advocating jumping into all of these positions ahead of the weekend, we still want to see stability next week but we can scale in by selling puts on those banks that sell off as…
Email This Post
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Yahoo
Facebook
Twitter
Cisco lower ahead of earnings: Put selling noted
by Andrew Wilkinson - May 4th, 2009 6:11 pm
Today’s tickers: CSCO, NYT, DRYS, INTC, VIX, MON, USB, CROX, IPG, ELN, & WFC
CSCO Cisco Systems, Inc. – Shares are off slightly by less than 1% to $19.42 ahead of earnings expected for release from the company this Wednesday. We observed a rash of put selling in the June and July contracts, a bullish sign from option investors on the stock. The in-the-money June 20 strike price saw some 4,700 puts sold for a premium of 1.40 apiece while the in-the-money July 20 strike also had about 4,500 puts sold for 1.61 per contract. Finally, the deeper in-the-money July 21 strike had some 4,400 puts shed for a rich premium of 2.23 apiece. Perhaps put-sellers see Cisco rebounding through the summer months.
NYT The New York Times Company – The media company has experienced a share price surge of more than 8.5% to $5.87 amid reports that the New England newspaper, The Boston Globe, is safe for now as NYT has not filed its intention to close the newspaper. NYT appeared on our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner late in the trading day as one investor appears to have sold 5,000 in-the-money puts at the July 7.5 strike price for a premium of 2.12 apiece in order to fund a bull call position in the October contract. The put premium helped fund the purchase of 15,000 calls at the October 10 strike for about 37 cents each. The trade yields a net credit of about 1.01 to the investor given the richer put premium received on the sale (1*2.12 – [3* 0.37] = 1.01). NYT plans to continue talks with its unions in order to avoid closing The Globe. The deadlines for negotiations have been extended to Sunday.
DRYS DryShips, Inc. – Shares of the shipping company have gained 13% to arrive at the current share price of $9.35. The drybulk carrier received a target share price increase to $12.00 from $10.00 by an analyst at Jeffries & Co. as well as an upgrade to ‘outperform’ at Oppenheimer. Bulls hungry for a continued near-term rally on DRYS picked up 12,500 call options at the May 11 strike price for an average premium of 25 cents apiece. The overall tone on the Greek fleet was optimistic as investors showed their preference for call options by trading calls more than five times to every put option in play. It will be interesting to monitor bullish…
Email This Post
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Yahoo
Facebook
Twitter
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
(