Guest View
User: Pass: | become a member
Posts Tagged ‘VIX calls’

VIX Calls Attract Attention

VIX Calls Attract Attention

Courtesy of Bill Luby at VIX AND MORE 

The VIX is up about 7.4% as I type this [yesterday], to 26.84, as the recent rally is finally beginning to shows signs of running out of steam.

Weakness and stocks and the rise in the VIX has generated some interest in VIX calls, with the September 35s, September 45s and August 37.5 calls attracting most of the action at the ask.

With today’s session not even at the halfway point, VIX call volume is running at a high level and the ratio of VIX calls to puts is considerably higher than the recent trend, as the chart below from WhatsTrading.com reflects. It is difficult to determine whether the VIX options activity reflects new speculation or new hedging activity, but my best guess is that a good deal of the activity is speculative.

Note that VIX options expire one week from tomorrow (see expiration calendar) and have a last trading day of one week from today.

Any close over 26.31 would mark the highest close in the VIX for a month, but it would take a spike all the way to 28.13 to bring the VIX to a level that is 10% over its 10 day moving average.

Vix chart

[source: WhatsTrading.com]


Tags: ,




 
 
 

Zero Hedge

Is This The "Recovery" That Bernanke Believes In?

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

It seems the Fed head is confident that we are on our way back (despite cutting forecasts) - well he should be given his efforts - but as the following chart shows, arguing that downside risks have diminished seems not to fit too well with macro reality...

 

 

The question is - if the macro situation is so clearly weak, juist why is he is discussing a taper (if not because he knows he has broken the markets)

...

more from Tyler

Market Montage

Typical Fed Volatility

Submitted by Mark Hanna

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

No change to the statement as expected and Ben is speaking now.  Basically he is dovish – one takeaway which I mentioned quite a few months ago but he reiterated today.  The 6.5% unemployment rate is a threshold NOT a trigger.  What that means is if inflation is benign when 6.5% unemployment returns, the Fed will be in no rush to raise interest rates.  i.e. the goalposts are soft, nor hard.  The market rallied on that… but it's not new news really.

Also the majority of members do not anticipate selling MBS off the balance sheet – this is part and parcel with the view that the balance sheet will not...



more from Mark

Phil's Favorites

If Bernanke really shakes the tree, half the world may fall out

If Bernanke really shakes the tree, half the world may fall out

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

We no longer have a free market. The world’s financial asset prices have become a plaything of central banks and the sovereign wealth funds of a few emerging powers.

Julian Callow from Barclays says they are buying $1.8 trillion worth of AAA or safe-haven bonds each year from an available pool of $2 trillion. Nothing like this has been seen before in modern times, if ever.

The Fed, the ECB, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, et al, own $10 trillion in bonds. China, the petro-powers, et al, own another $10 trillion. Between them they have locked up $20 trillion, equal to roughly 2...



more from Ilene

All About Trends

Mid-Day Update

Reminder: David is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Click here for the full report.




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...

more from David

Chart School

WSJ Economists' Forecasts for 10-Year Yields and the FFR

Courtesy of Doug Short.

In advance of today's FOMC meeting outcome and Chairman Bernanke's press conference, let's take a quick look at a couple of items in the latest Wall Street Journal survey of economists -- this one conducted June 7-11. With the recent controversy over the direction of Treasury yields, a key issue addressed in the survey is where economists expect the 10-year yield to be across six timeframes: mid-year and year end 2013 through 2015.

The survey was sent to 52 economists, 46 of whom responded, and of the 46, some skipped individual survey questions. Here is a table showing the major response statistics: Low, Median (middle), Average (aka Mean), Mode (most frequent) and High.

As we readily see from the table, the responses for ...



more from Chart School

Insider Scoop

Senators Carper, Murkowski, Representatives Cassidy, Kind Introduce Bill to Help Reduce Obesity

Courtesy of Benzinga.

On the heels of the American Medical Association's decision to officially recognize obesity as a disease, Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Reps. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.) and Ron Kind (D-Wis.) introduced legislation today to help lower health care costs and prevent chronic diseases by addressing America's growing obesity crisis. The Treat and Reduce Obesity Act gives Medicare beneficiaries and their health care providers additional tools to reduce obesity by improving access to weight-loss counseling and new prescription drugs for chronic weight management, among other provisions.

Health care costs related to obesity total nearly $200 billion each year. Furthermore, nearly 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, and 42 percent of Americans are projected to become obese by 2030. Obesity increases the risk for chronic diseases ...



http://www.insidercow.com/ more from Insider

Option Review

La-Z-Boy Options Active Ahead Of Earnings

Today’s tickers: LZB, DD & PRLB

LZB - La-Z-Boy, Inc. – Shares in furniture producer, La-Z-Boy, Inc., increased as much as 3.9% to $19.80 at the start of the session, the highest level since 2004, ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report after the closing bell today. Options volume is up ahead of the report, with roughly 400 contracts in play this afternoon versus average daily volume of around 80 contracts. Trading in La-Z-Boy call options is outpacing puts, with the call/put ratio up above 4.3 as of the time of this writing. Some traders appear to be p...



more from Caitlin

Sabrient

What the Market Wants: Market Will Likely Challenge Earlier Highs this Week

Reminder: Sabrient is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Courtesy of David Brown, Sabrient Systems and Gradient Analytics

The market responded well today to good economic news and to the positive and somewhat surprising response to the election of a moderate Iranian President.  Some moderation in Turkey didn’t hurt either, and overnight positive markets in Asia and Europe gave bullish investors enough encouragement to buy equities broadly. 

This drove all three major domestic indices up about 1% before a late small selloff left the S&P 500 Index up nearly 1% and the Nasdaq and Dow Jones Industrial Average both up well over 0.5%.  We think it likely this week that the market will challenge highs set in late May.

Today’s positive economic news inclu...



more from Sabrient

Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly

NEW: Writers are available to chat with Members regarding topics presented in SWW, comments are found below each post.

Click here for the latest Stock World Weekly.  Sign in with your PSW user name and password, or sign up for a free trial. There's an interesting option trade on LULU presented in the newsletter this week. 

Trivia on lululemon via Paul Price, article found in NYTimes. 

Lululemon Athletica Combines Ayn Rand and Yoga

By 

...



more from SWW

OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of June 17th, 2013

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

Optrader 

...

more from OpTrader

IRA Strategy/Income Trader

The IRA portfolio

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...


more from Strategies

ETF Selector

Stock Market Gets Big News After Friday’s Close

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

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:...



more from John

Pharmboy

Give Them an Inch, They Will Take a Mile

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...



more from Pharmboy



FeedTheBull - Top Stock market and Finance Sites



About Phil:

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...

Learn more About Phil >>


As Seen On:




About Ilene:

Ilene is editor and affiliate program coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site (blogroll, archives, more). Contact Ilene to learn about our affiliate and content sharing programs.

Favorites Site >>