As I mentioned yesterday, the ADP numbers were not good.
Now it’s one thing to see something happen and quite another to do something about it. One of the reasons we like to be in cash is we get to wait for the market to do something silly so we can bet against it. Yesterday was a gift as the Dow climbed all the way to 8,577 at 10:30 and we gave it a few minutes for the Crude Inventories, which were a disappointment for the oil bulls and our first Trade Alert of the day went out to Members at 10:35 saying: "OIH $95 puts are a good deal at $1.58." These trades don’t happen in a vacuum – we had been watching OIH all week and decided it was a safer short than USO, which also sold off nicely but the OIH was no slouch with the $95 puts finishing the day at $2.30 (up 45%).
Just a few minutes later, at 10:43, we were able to take advantage of the DIA $84 puts at .84, which finished the day at $1.08 (up 28%) and we were able to get back to cash while speculating on TOT $55 puts at $1.20 and BG $60 puts for $1.30 into today as we expected some downside follow-through to grip Europe, who were overly complacent yesterday. I wanted to mention this as I hear from many traders who are getting hit hard because they feel the need to stay "invested" for fear of missing something and the only thing you are missing in this market by not having a cash position is a good night’s sleep. Having cash allows us to pick our spots, make money and get back out to cash. We’re not day-traders but we sure as hell take our profits if we hit our goals in a day!
We’re still waiting for the market to pick a real direction but there are some things we do know and one of them is that oil is massively over-priced. AAA just released a report stating that the peak for gasoline prices has already passed and estimates that auto trips will be down 2.6% this summer. As I keep saying, people simply CAN’T afford to pay these pumped-up prices, no matter how much speculators wish it to be otherwise. Clearly the dumb money is following Goldman et al into the commodity game – just like last year and MarketWatch reports that passive investors (that’s YOU through your pension fund!) have increased their crude holdings by 600M barrels in June and that’s up more than 30% from the end of last year. This sheep-like move into commodities has pushed crude futures up 60% with a 41% increase in Q2 alone, proving once and for all that the greater fool theory can go on much longer than one would think.
The entire US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is 720M barrels and these idiots bought 600M barrels hoping for an emergency so large that it will spur demand for 600M more barrels than that. "Institutional investors such as country funds and pension funds are basically pushing prices where they shouldn’t go," said Steve Briese, author of "The Commitments of Traders Bible." MarketWatch used a supplement to the CFTC’s Commitments of Traders report to calculate index traders’ holdings in oil positions. On Tuesday, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., introduced a bill that would give the CFTC new authority to prohibit "excessive speculation" – this could get interesting as over 90% of all outstanding crude contracts are now held by speculators, seems a little excessive doesn’t it?
Speaking of excessive speculation: Most Asian stocks fell about a point this morning but the Shanghai keeps going and going, finishing up 1.7% at a 13-month high. China did have a good manufacturing report but shouldn’t they with a stimulus program that amounts to 20% of their GDP? Financial and property stocks led the declines in Hong Kong indicating China’s "recovery" is a VERY localized phenomena. "Irrational exuberance .. describes the recent market sentiment. Everyone knows stocks are already expensive, but people still buy and sell quickly because they’re convinced they won’t get burned," said Guoyuan Securities strategist Simon Wang. Also helping exporters was the dollar recovering to 97 Yen.
Europe is down about a point ahead of the US jobless claims as the ECB keeps rates unchanged at 1% although Sweden’s Central Bank cut rates in half, from 0.5% to 0.25%. "The weak development of the economy requires a somewhat more expansionary monetary policy," the Riksbank said in a statement. "The repo rate is expected to remain at this low level over the coming year." Even more accommodating than Sweden was our friend Jean-Claude Trichet who injected a record $625Bn into Euro-zone money markets last week. It was the central bank’s first-ever offer of one-year funds and the largest amount it has ever dispersed in a single shot. Oh yeah, everything MUST be fine…
Also hitting Europe hard is the highest jobless rate since the EU was formed 16 years ago with 9.5% of the citizens out of work in May, up from an upwardly revised 9.3% in April. 15M people are out of work in Europe, that would be the entire population of Austria and Iceland combined! The European Commission’s latest forecast looks for unemployment to continue to rise all the way to 11.5% in 2010. Oh yes, it must be time to buy more oil… Producer Prices fell 0.2% in May and that’s down 5.8% from last year, also a record-breaking decline. Spanish unemployment led the zone at 18.7% while the Netherlands (where drugs are legal) had just a 3.2% rate so maybe California is onto something with their moves towards legalizing pot!
Non-Farm Payrolls fell 467,000, which is way worse than the 350K job losses expected yet right in-line with the ADP report so no real surprise. Unemployment climbs to 9.5% from 9.4% last month. June hourly earnings were unchanged and weekly jobless claims came in at 614,000, about in-line with expectations. We are still waiting on May Factory Orders at 10:30. All this has knocked US indexes down about 1% in pre-market trading and now we’ll see what they can hold onto ahead of the holiday weekend.
In yesterday’s morning level watch for Members, I had posted the downside levels to look for and we’ll see how we handle the test this morning of Dow 8,400, S&P 913, Nasdaq 1,826, NYSE 5,865 and Russell 507. If there is any real strength at all to the markets then those levels should provide good support, below there is a move back to retest June lows at Dow 8,250, S&P 888, Nasdaq 1,750, NYSE 5,700 and Russell 488. I’m very confident about our short plays and we’ll be looking for an opportuntity to play off our levels on the indexes, more likely looking for a breakdown than a bounce up but we’ll take either. As I said in yesterday’s comments, down is the easier play this week and it sure is nice to be in cash so we can enjoy the weekend!
Have a great holiday,
– Phil
rofl eph you were counting? I lost count some time in april 😛
Big nothing into the NYMEX close, oil finished at $66.70, down from $73 on Tues. I’m out of those calls at USO .60 if possible, otherwise, I’ll probably spread over the weekend. They could still get dragged up with the market on a stick move even with the NYMEX closed.
Here’s Obama, it’s been a while since he gave a market-boosting speech.
UNG/Cap – Good call, worth holding through hurricane season.
Rain/Eph – It is truly amazing how much rain we’ve had…
Well that was spooky – I lost connection to eTrade US, eTrade UK and eTrade UK Spreadbetting sites. I could access Phil and other US/UK sites but not those. Had to reboot computer and routers yet eTrade themselves said they had no problems yet it was only their sites I couldnt get. They are out to get me !!!
Any opinions on buying the Apple 8/150 call and selling the Apple August 8/130 puts for a net debit of .30?
Phil / UNG…
Good entry point at $13… any LEAPS you prefer versus the stock???
No stick save (yet).
Phil, do you consider "crazy" to leave some puts open over weekend?
Or better just going back to cash?
ETrade/DB – Sounds suspicious to me!
AAPL/Sarahd – What are you trying to accomplish? They are both bullish bets, overall you would be better off just selling the July $140s for $3.25 and managing that bet. Despite your net debit you are still going to be using up margin on the other spread so it’s far from a free trade.
UNG/Mirachael – As a spread on UYG I likke the 2011 $7s for $7, selling the 2011 $13s for $4, which is $3 for the $6 spread but you have to be patient. Otherwise, for leverage, the Oct $11s are $2.98 and you can sell Aug $14s for .88 so net $2.10 for the $3 spread.
Weekend/Spider – Either hedged neutral or back to cash. The simple lack of something bad happening over the weekend could boost the markets on Monday. If we get a good stick from here, then maybe bearish into the weekend but if we’re just laying here at support, it’s pretty easy to move up in pre-markets from this base.
Volume just 108M with an hour to go, still easy to stick 50 – 100 points with just 20% of the day’s volume so don’t write it off yet…
Phil/DIA
If there is no stick save, and we just flatline into the close, are would you hold the 85 Calls in anticipation of a bounce on Monday?
Thanks.
Brutal !!
A.S.S.
(Anti Stick Save)
DIA/Jofori – Well, now that they fell off I’m going to ride it out. Rather than DD at .64 better to wait over the weekend but if I can get out down .05, I will. Still no volume…
A.S.S.
(Anti Stick Save)
I didn’t feel good about those Calls and went ahead and set a tight trail of .05 when they didn’t want to rise, got em at .76 and let em go at .72.
Back to breakeven on FAZ from the oxen trade earlier in the week.
Its a "long" squeeze.
FAZ/Smash – See, worth sticking with. Wish I could say the same about DIA calls but not looking so good at the moment! Still, volume 120M with 20 mins to go, someone is saving up some buying power for something…
Like to see rut get back to 500, this weakness isn’t comforting over the long weekend
Go Sticky go!
Closing my BIDU short from yesterday. It actually held up pretty well, compared with GOOG.
Off to burgers, beers, and big explosions. Have a great holiday Phil and all.
HEHEHE, at least they filling the end gap. Nice holidays for @ll – Spider
Easy on the beer (beer+rockets not good combination)!!
Have a good holiday Mr M and to everyone else as well!
Only one more potentially dull week and then it’s earnings and we can make our own excitement!
BXP and VNO STILL going down so it doesn’t look very promising for the last 5 minutes, it would take a big change of attitude over the weekend for us to pop back up on Monday….
Woops – Watch out – NYSE extending session to 4:15 – that can be chaos!!!
Mr. Sitck call in a favor for 15 more minutes?
Extended session why ? All stocks amd options ?
LOL, the gap was "unfilled" in last 5 minutes.
NSYE was down couple of times today. Maybe thats the reason for the extension.
BB
For the record, volume is 135M at the moment. It seems Nas is closed (down 2.67%) but this is really strange. Dow held 2.5% on the nose so far but all the other indexes below 2.5% line and that is usually strong indication of follow-up down 1.25% more at least. Off 8,550, 8,112 would be 5% drop. For the S&P, down from 930 would be 883, those could be the gap downs on Monday if things stay negative.
Why extend/DB – They say the NYSE had computer problems today that prevented some orders from being processed so this is their solution.
my VLO puts never filled even though the ask was below 1.05. they did it for me, of course.
Extended session. Never seen that before. Gonna stay short anyway. Closing below 900 on S+P is significant in my view.( Assuming they cant get in back to 900 in the 15 minutes.)
I’m going American tomorrow even though the UK market is open. I’m having a long weekend with you guys so I’ll down a beer or two on Saturday while watching the Lions play in SA, Enjoy yourselves.
Not a very exciting last 15 mins. Now we can’t even count on closing time in this crazy market!
GS still falling, USB, BAC, COF, TD, IBM, SLM, BXP…. FAZ with a nice 8.9% gain on the day.
Well that’s really it now, no big deal in the end, Dow finished on down note, looks like 8,287.
Have a nice weekend everyone!
Have a great weeknd phil.
have a great weekend folks!
Who would I address member problems with? I had basic membership, then upgraded to Premium, then when it was time to renew, there was difficulty in transacting my credit card as I am a foreign address and then when I rectified the problem, there was a huge 80.00 surcharge on my monthly feel. I sent in an email and never got a response. This is the best service out there but want my account adjusted to the level I signed into, what do I do? Anyone to call? Sorry to enter this during trading day.