About 25 years ago a character debuted on Saturday Night Live and the recurring joke was to try and guess the character’s gender.
The sketches typically had red herrings and lots of mis-direction and the question of Pat’s gender was never answered.
Never a terribly popular character, someone had the fiscally irresponsible idea of making a feature film and Pat was never heard from again.
The guessing stopped.
Fast forward to 2016 and think of Pat as an FOMC member.
Over the past 2 months or so there has probably been lots of mis-direction coming from Federal Reserve Governors, perhaps as they floated trial balloons to see how interest rate action or inaction would be received by the stock market.
The health of the stock market is not really part of their mandate, but since so much of the nation’s wealth is very closely aligned with those markets, it may only be logical that the FOMC should at least have some passing interest in its health.
Who would have guessed 6 months ago when the first interest rate hike occurred that we would be at a point where that has thus far been the only one?
Who would have thought that in the transpiring 6 months nothing would have validated the December 2015 interest rate increase and that nothing but conflicting economic data would be forthcoming?
Who would have thought that the most voluble interest rate hawk among the voting members of the FOMC would this week downplay the possibility of recurring interest rate increases in what time remains in 2016?
Who would have thought that Janet Yellen would alternate between her dovish and hawkish sides and come to a point of simultaneously taking both sides?
That’s hardly the sort of thing that inspires confidence in markets.
This past week was one that if you had tried to guess what was to come next or what was to influence markets, you would have been very disappointed with your abilities.
It was a week with increasing focus on the upcoming vote by British citizens as to whether remain in the European Union. It was a week of some large moves in European stock markets and lots of disagreement not only regarding the vote’s outcome, but whether either of those outcomes would mean.
England’s bookmakers seem to have an opinion at variance with polls, but it’s anyone’s guess what the outcome will be and what the reaction will be.
It was also a week of alternating moves in our own markets as traders just grasped for direction and meaning.
On our own shores there was focus, although far less following the truly disappointing Employment Situation Report of a few weeks ago, on the FOMC Statement release and Chairman Yellen’s subsequent press conference.
With the expectation that there would be no change in interest rates, it looked as if stocks were going to re-establish its ties to oil and for one day, at least it closely followed oil’s intra-day moves higher and lower.
But that relationship clearly disappeared in the latter half of the week as some very big moves in oil’s price saw nothing in kind in stocks and sometimes saw the glimpses of rationale behavior as oil and stocks moved in opposite directions.
Then, if you would have guessed that Janet Yellen would move markets in either direction in a big way, as she has usually been able to accomplish during her press conferences, you would have been well off the mark.
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While her obfuscation found some favor the previous week, this time around no one knew what to make of trying to have it both ways.
In fact the market was virtually unchanged during the period of the press conference, including the time taken to offer the prepared statement.
As with Pat, even if you were mildly intrigued, it may have taken a lot more than that to make some kind of a meaningful commitment or to take any kind of risk.
What the market did know was that the minute that press conference was done, it was time to sell stocks.
From another brief moment of rational thought, as good as low interest rates may be, there has to be the realization that such rates reflect mediocrity and a moribund economy. Certainly no one wants the US economy to emulate that of Japan and news that German interest rates dipped into negative territory may have sent a message that the same could then happen anywhere.
Who would have guessed?
As usual, the week’s potential stock selections are classified as being in the Traditional, Double Dip Dividend, Momentum or “PEE” categories.
For the most part, despite the uncertainty surrounding the market again this week, I’m more willing to accept risk than has been the case for much of the past year.
To a large degree that’s related to the additional increment of premium being seen in some positions as volatility has been rising.
Even if broader market volatility is going to be short lived, some individual sectors and individual positions have a likelihood of continuing to offer higher premiums due to their baseline volatility and anything additional that may come from market uncertainty.
I am considering more positions this week than I have for much of 2016 and most of those are being considered through the sale of put options, rather than outright buy/write transactions.
With the exception of Dow Chemical (DOW), which has an upcoming ex-dividend date the following week, I’m considering the sale of puts for eBay (EBAY), PayPal (PYPL), Seagate Technology (STX), Under Armour (UA) and United Continental (UAL).
WIth the exception of Seagate Technology, the others in that put sales group do not offer a dividend, so the sale of puts doesn’t have to take into consideration that possibility of subsidizing someone else for the collection of that dividend.
The list this week is fairly varied, other than for the historical connection between eBay and PayPal.
I haven’t owned eBay since it spun off its PayPal growth engine, but it has been trading precisely the way it did when PayPal was still part of its holdings. That is, it traded in a fairly narrow and predictable range, while occasionally being punctuated with price spikes at earnings. Those spikes created a decent option premium for a stock that over the longer term of the past 4 or 5 years prior to the spin off basically traded sideways.
What is interesting about eBay this week is that there is some speculation than in the event of a withdrawal from the European Union by Great Britain, it is among those stocks that stands to lose in the process.
That process, however, is being treated as if it is going to be an instantaneous one, rather than one being drawn out over years.
If I could hold onto eBay shares and serially sell calls or able to serially roll over puts, I’d be more than happy to watch that process play out over several years.
That is if it ever even gets to that.
I’ve never owned PayPal, but it is now well past that 12 months since its offering, that is usually the amount of time that I wait before considering a position.
It too has been recently trading in a range and in the longer term has been doing so ever since the initial euphoria wore off.
I think that a near term position in PayPal does carry greater risks than with eBay, as the next support level below $36 is almost 10% lower. However, the premiums available for the sale of options can mitigate some of that risk, even as financial instruments as a whole are under pressure.
I expect that pressure to be abating fairly soon as we become less convinced of a rise in interest rates and instead end up wondering who would have guessed that they would have begun an insidious climb over the summer.
I do own and suffer with that ownership, shares of United Continental. It’s certainly a bad idea to base an investment on the proposal that shares couldn’t possibly go any lower.
The size of the recent moves lately in those shares have my interest more than the recent sustained decline which came as it looked as if those shares might reclaim their 1 year high level.
Up until the latter half of April, United Continental and oil prices were very closely and directly aligned in 2016, despite the fact that the greatest increase in the price of oil came during the period before April.
Who would have guessed that increasing oil prices would be associated with increased share prices of United Continental? That relationship, though has reverted to its more normal pattern and I believe that despite the traditional summer time impact on energy prices, increasing supply will be of benefit to United Continental.
With the Brazil Olympics being one of one controversy after another, there’s probably not too much doubt that the companies that have lots at stake during the Olympics games are easily identifiable.
I still marvel at the resiliency of Under Armour when questions were raised as to whether its swimsuit design may have cost American swimmers their expected medals. They handled the situation perfectly and the world and investors quickly moved on.
Of course, one challenge may not have to wait until Brazilian festivities begin and may instead occur before trading begins on Monday.
On Monday morning we will all know whether the Under Armour wearing Stephen Curry or the Nike (NKE) wearing LeBron James will be celebrating.
In the event of a Cleveland victory in the basketball championship finals, if Under Armour takes a drop in share price, I would be very interested in selling puts into the weakness and as with eBay or PayPal, that is a position that I wouldn’t necessarily mind keeping open if it is amenable to serial rollover.
I’ve also been suffering with shares of Seagate Technology, but as far as I know it doesn’t have too much riding on a basketball game’s outcome.
What I do like about it now is that it seems to have developed some support at its current price level and that put premium is very attractive, even as that dividend yield is very frightening.
Seagate Technology and others in the storage and memory business have been written off before as being nothing more than commodities and at some point that may become an accurate description of the business, as well as prospects for growth.
Unless Elon Musk comes up with a way to carry physical hard drives up to the cloud in one of his SpaceX vehicles, the future may not shine too brightly for physical storage. But from my actuary’s perspective, a few weeks of ownership may not be overly risky, relative to the reward.
Finally, Dow Chemical is ex-dividend next week and if participating with it next week, my preference would be to buy shares and sell calls.
I already have 2 lots of shares and have been happily collecting the dividend and rolling over call options, while watching the premiums accumulate, even as shares go nowhere.
At some point, the convoluted deal with DuPont (DD) will become reality or it will be killed off by regulators.
As with Pfizer (PFE) several months earlier, I think the current price has already given back any premium that the market placed on the proposed transaction. For that reason, I think that there is little downside to adding shares of Dow Chemical at this time.
The option premium doesn’t reflect too much volatility, but the return for the sale of an at the money option is at levels that I used to see during periods of greater market volatility.
I look at that as a bonus, when considering the times we are in and the limited company specific downside potential as the summer unfolds and we await decisions.
Traditional Stocks: Dow Chemical, eBay
Momentum Stocks: PayPal, Seagate Technology, Under Armour, United Continental
Double-Dip Dividend: none
Premiums Enhanced by Earnings: none
Remember, these are just guidelines for the coming week. The above selections may become actionable – most often coupling a share purchase with call option sales or the sale of covered put contracts – in adjustment to and consideration of market movements. The overriding objective is to create a healthy income stream for the week, with reduction of trading risk.
