SP 500 and NDX December Futures Daily Charts
by Chart School - October 20th, 2010 10:18 pm
SP 500 and NDX December Futures Daily Charts
Courtesy of JESSE’S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Meanwhile the financial sector is imploding because of the continual revelations of pervasive mortgage fraud.
It will be interesting to see if the PPT can hold things together until the November elections in the States.
Danger Zone? Nasdaq 100
by Chart School - October 14th, 2010 7:43 pm
Danger Zone? Nasdaq 100
Are we entering a “Danger Zone” right now?
The phrase “Highway to the Danger Zone“ (theme song here) became popular due to the movie “Top Gun,” starring Tom Cruise.
I share information with several types of investors…long-term (retirement/401k plans) that don’t move monies often, (which “harvested” at the April highs). Medium term investors, that feel comfortable moving monies once a month/6 weeks and shorter-term investors that are open to adjustments frequently, yet are NOT day traders. I am not interested in day trading!!!
This post would be for the shorter-term audience, that are aggressive and open to “attempting to score on defense!”
The NDX 100 is at the top of its trading range and the VXN has created a falling wedge. During this trading channel, when the NDX is at the top of the range, wedges have formed, followed by lower prices in the NDX.
For any medium-term investors that are long the NDX, stay long and keep the 3% stop in play! For those aggressive short-term investors that are comfortable attempting to score on defense, take the inverse position here (Buy PSQ). Momentum and trends remain a positive so far. This is totally a “Power of the Pattern” play for short-term investors.
If this pattern really forces the NDX lower and changes it momentum, I will follow-up with more suggestions per scoring on defense.
SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts
by Chart School - September 23rd, 2010 3:15 pm
SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts
Courtesy of JESSE’S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
SP 500
Except for perhaps some hedging or a daily ‘skin’ this is not a market to be shorted until the uptrend is broken. It is drifting higher on a steady short squeeze and light volumes in the kind of artificial action that is reminiscent of the 2004-2006 reflationary stock market rally fueled by Fed easy money.
An event can bring it down and quickly. But one can burn a lot of cash trying to pick a top ahead of the market signal that it has gone far enough. I do think that the two gaps will be filled, and that this market will retest its lows again. The timing is problematic, especially given the upcoming November elections. No president or Congress wishes to go into an important general election on the heels of a stock market crash. But this could serve the desires of those on Wall Street. So a continued rally is hardly a ‘sure thing’ despite the statistical profile of the SP 500 in the second year of a presidential term.
The SP 500 is up against resistance but the NDX has broken out cleanly. With relatively few risk-comparable productive outlets the excess of the easy money being fed to the Wall Street banks by the Fed is flowing into the higher yielding ‘risk trades’ like junk bonds and equities. In the absence of a strongly directive fiscal policy and honest price discovery this is what happens when monetary stimulus is applied without a broader policy support. It is hard for real economic proposals to compete with a Ponzi scheme that insiders control and that has a de facto sanction and subsidy from the governing authority. And this then is the basis for Obama’s failure most likely sourced in his Wall Street friendly advisors, Summers and Geithner, and his own natural tendency to ‘go along to get along’ and sacrifice principle to expediency. This potential strength, the ability to find and form a consensus, can become a tragic flaw when carried to excess.
The NDX is a more obvious example of this reflationary risk trade.
NDX
Peter D – Confessions of the PSW Strangler
by phil - February 3rd, 2010 4:49 am
Peter D has a long-running and very successful system of selling premiums on a regular basis that's well worth learning.
Investors selling a short strangle are expecting the underlying stock to not move much in either direction. The strategy is accomplished by selling a call option at a higher price than the current stock or ETF price and by selling a put option at a lower price than the current stock or ETF price. Both of the options will have the same expiration month. The investor in a short strangle benefits from the underlying moving within the spread between the call strike and the put strike.
There are two reasons we like this strategy a lot at PSW:
1) It's boring! Unless the market is MUCH more volatile than normal, taking sensible, NON-GREEDY, out-of-the-money short option positions is a fairly market-neutral way to place our bets. While the risk/reward ratio may seem inverted, statistically it's a winning play over time.
2) It's perfect for our "be the house, not the sucker" philosophy of trading. We are always looking to SELL volatility. The idea behind this trade is that front-month volatility is relatively expensive compared to historical long-term volatility and we take advantage of selling a very high cumulative volatility over the course of the year.
We recently ran a collection of comments following through on some trades over time and quite a while ago Sage wrote an article relating about using short strangles on longer-term stock plays, which provides some additional ideas on how to apply this strategy. Peter has been kind enough to provide us with a definitive guide to help set you on the road to a successful career as a strangler. The following is a collection of posts (make sure you use the links) on Short Strangles and the Crazy plays on the indices (SPX, RUT, NDX, etc.):
1- The Crazy play consists of a Short Strangle and a protective long put vertical. These plays are mainly for Virtual Portfolio Margin accounts, with balance greater than $125,000, preferably over $200k as the margin can swing wildly.
2- Very rough comparison among Short Strangle, Iron Condor, Buy/Write and straight stock purchase. Note the rolling tips in the second to last paragraph.
3- VIX, the effects of.
4- Possible…