Category Archives: Daily Market Update

Daily Market Update – February 10, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday was another of those days that we’ve seen in 2016 where there was some strength heading into the closing that eliminated all or much of a large loss.

Most of the time, though, in 2016, that hasn’t translated itself into sustained gains. In fact, most of the time it hasn’t even translated itself into gains the next day.

Today looked as if it might end up differently, though, as the futures were trading up by triple digits as a nation turned its lonely eyes to Janet Yellen, who was to give her mandated Congressional testimony today.

She hadn’t been heard from since the FOMC raised interest rates and a lot has happened since then, including questioning whether or not there really is data to have supported that initial rate hike.

The real question was whether the dovish Yellen would re-appear this morning.

The general belief was that the re-emergence of a dovish tone would likely send stocks much higher.

The answer to that burning question was basically “yes and no.”

She basically said that the FOMC was likely to delay any rate hikes in 2016, but not abandon the possibility..

The more hawkish Yellen hasn’t helped things even as her co-Chair, Stanley Fisher has been sounding more dulcet tones.

The dovish Yellen got the DJIA up by nearly 200 points, but when the reality sunk in the day close at its low, although just shy of another triple digit day.

Still, it was in the wrong direction and the S&P 500, which had already been 1.4% in the hole finished lower, but wasn’t weighed down anywhere near as much as the DJIA, which had to contend with the burden of earnings reports.

The real surprise was that while I definitely wasn’t expecting to do much on a personal trading level and would have been ecstatic at any opportunity that could arise during the course of the day, I was thinking about new call sales.

I never thought that I might finally part with some cash and add a new position, but it happened.

Finally.

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Daily Market Update – February 10, 2016 (9:00 AM)

Yesterday was another of those days that we’ve seen in 2016 where there was some strength heading into the closing that eliminated all or much of a large loss.

Most of the time, though, in 2016, that hasn’t translated itself into sustained gains. In fact, most of the time it hasn’t even translated itself into gains the next day.

Today may be different though as the futures were trading up by triple digits as a nation turned its lonely eyes to Janet Yellen, who was to give her mandated Congressional testimony today.

She hasn’t been heard from since the FOMC raised interest rates and a lot has happened since then, including questioning whether or not there really is data to have supported that initial rate hike.

The real question is whether the dovish Yellen will re-appear this morning.

That would likely send stocks much higher if she does show up with that persona.

The more hawkish Yellen hasn’t helped things even as her co-Chair, Stanley Fisher has been sounding more dulcet tones.

So we’ll see what today may yet bring as the S&P 500 is already 1.4% in the hole to begin the week.

I’m not expecting to do much on a personal trading level, but would be ecstatic at any opportunity that could arise during the course of the day.

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Daily Market Update – February 9, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Among the recurring themes in  2016, in addition to the ones that have already been beaten to death, is the refrain that the loss wasn’t as big as it could have been.

I’ve said that many times already in 2016 and have looked at those mid-day or late day recoveries as being harbingers of some stability or even some advances to come.

Yesterday was one of those days as the DJIA was down nearly 400 points, but ended the day down only 177.

Only.

Without exception, those false recoveries have been just that.

They certainly haven’t been a harbinger of anything good to come and they have, instead served to falsify give a sense of something good ahead.

I generally like to purchase stocks when the market is in a downswing.

For most of the past 7 years those downswings have been very brief.

The typical scenario was a lower open to start the week and then a flourish to end the week nicely higher.

That went on and on for a long time.

These latest large drops haven’t seen the recovery flourishes and I haven’t had much reason to have the slightest bit of confidence about buying “on the dip,” because these haven’t been your typical dips.

A dip usually means a quick recovery ensues, but that hasn’t been the case and as a result, it hasn’t been a good idea to get sucked in by what appear to be good prices, as those prices have only gone lower and lower.

For a while much of the weakness was being obscured by the strong performance of a handful of stocks, but now, those too are beginning to give back a significant portion of their recent gains.

Yesterday I was very happy to have been able to sell some calls on some uncovered positions, as had also been the case last week.

With no rollover opportunities in either of these weeks, the sales on uncovered positions helps, as do the ex-dividend positions, especially with this week having 4 such positions.

Still, as yesterday’s late day recovery doesn’t offer much in the way of  confidence, the morning starts with some conflicting data.

The oil theme isn’t appearing to go according to script, as oil futures are up sharply and the stock futures are flat in early trading.

Additionally, the Nikkei lost 5.4% overnight and its bonds traded below 0% for the first time ever.

I still can’t get my head around 0% interest rates.

So fart, our own markets aren’t taking any direction from either of those inputs.

Tomorrow’s Congressional appearance byJjanet Yellen may be more of the catalyst for something, but it’s hard to know the tone or tenor she’ll take and it’s also hard to know whether investors will respond at face value or invert the words to create a paradoxical response.

Again, I don’t expect to be doing much today or probably not for the rest of the week, as we get ready for next week, which marks the expiration of the February 2016 contracts.

Still, I’d jump at any opportunity to repeat yesterday or the call sales of the previous week.

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Daily Market Update – February 8, 2016 (Close)

Last Friday was a pretty bad way to end the week, but at least you couldn’t blame it all on oil.

Instead, it was likely the feeling being promoted that the Employment Situation Report contained nothing but good news.

That good news, or at least the way it was packaged as being good news, was likely much more politically motivated than being based in reality.

But, the reality is that market investors see good news as leading to another interest rate hike, and they see that as bad news for them.

All you have to do is to look at the aftermath of the tiny 0.25% rate increase back just a couple of months ago and you would see a market that has more than just struggled.

This morning the futures were down sharply as oil was down sharply, re-establishing that association that seemed as if it might finally fade away.

The good news is that the day ended well off the lows, but the week begins with another deep hole that needs some digging out.

I had some decent hopes for this week, especially after the relatively strong showing last week.

Of course, the word “relative” is the key. While the market was down 3.1%, I out-performed by 3.1%.

The good news today is exactly the same, but again, it’s all relative.

That doesn’t say much when you consider the previously felt pain in earlier weeks.

At least there were some trading opportunities and I was hoping that this week would bring more of the same.

The week did bring more, but unless you have some hedges in your portfolio, like gold or silver, both of which had been significant under-performers lately, you didn’t see anything worthwhile.

This morning, though, didn’t give any indication that much else would be possible.

Although, there are still some big earnings reports to come this week, so you never know what could light a spark under things.

One thing that could get markets moving, and hopefully in the right direction, will be Janet Yellen’s mid-week Congressional appearance.

If she says anything regarding the likelihood of further interest rate increases in 2016 it is likely to cause a stir.

Although if she seems to suggest that the economy may not be moving strongly enough in the right direction, that may cause a stir also, once the exhilaration wears off and people realize that we’d be better off with a justified rate increase than a sluggish economy.

I didn’t plan to be doing much today and I knew that I wasn’t going to be likely to fall for the bait of dropping prices. That bait has been dangled for so long that very few are biting anymore.

Most are going to miss the early part of any move higher and I include myself in that category.

There has already been too much belief that things couldn’t sink any lower and all they’ve done, after an occasional head fake is to just sink lower.

So I’ll wait for the bottom feeders to make their case and get a little bit fatter

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Daily Market Update – February 8, 2016 (8:30 AM)

Last Friday was a pretty bad way to end the week, but at least you couldn’t blame it all on oil.

Instead, it was likely the feeling being promoted that the Employment Situation Report contained nothing but good news.

That good news, or at least the way it was packaged as being good news, was likely much more politically motivated than being based in reality.

But, the reality is that market investors see good news as leading to another interest rate hike, and they see that as bad news for them.

All you have to do is to look at the aftermath of the tiny 0.25% rate increase back just a couple of months ago and you would see a market that has more than just struggled.

This morning the futures are down sharply as oil is down sharply, re-establishing that association that seemed as if it might finally fade away.

I had some decent hopes for this week, especially after the relatively strong showing last week.

Of course, the word “relative” is the key. While the market was down 3.1%, I out-performed by 3.1%.

That doesn’t say much when you consider the previously felt pain in earlier weeks.

At least there were some trading opportunities and I was hoping that this week would bring more of the same.

This morning, though, isn’t giving any indication that might be possible or likely.

There are still some big earnings reports to come this week, so you never know what could light a spark under things.

One thing that could get markets moving, and hopefully in the right direction, will be Janet Yellen’s mid-week Congressional appearance.

If she says anything regarding the likelihood of further interest rate increases in 2016 it is likely to cause a stir.

Although if she seems to suggest that the economy may not be moving strongly enough in the right direction, that may cause a stir also, once the exhilaration wears off and people realize that we’d be better off with a justified rate increase than a sluggish economy.

I don’t plan to be doing much today and am not likely to fall for the bait of dropping prices. That bait has been dangled for so long that very few are biting anymore.

Most are going to miss the early part of any move higher and I include myself in that category.

There has already been too much belief that things couldn’t sink any lower and all they’ve done, after an occasional head fake is to just sink lower.

So I’ll wait for the bottom feeders to make their case and get a little bit fatter

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Daily Market Update – February 5, 2016 (7:30 AM)

The Week in Review will be posted by 10 PM and the Weekend Update will be posted by Noon on Sunday.

The following trade outcomes are possible today:

Assignments:   none

Rollovers:   none

Expirations:   none

The following were ex-dividend this week:   INTC (2/3 $0.26)

The following are ex-dividend next week:  BP (2/20 $0.595).

Trades, if any, will be attempted to be made prior to 3:30 PM EST

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Daily Market Update – February 4, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday looked like it was going to be just another of those terrible days where the market decided after having tried for a couple of days to break away from oil, to just keep following it lower.

It did and then it didn’t.

No, it still followed oil. That didn’t change, just the direction of oil changed and in a big way.

So too did the market change in a big way.

Closing nearly 200 points higher, or any kind of triple digit move for that matter, is no big deal in 2016.

What was a big deal was actually getting a chance to make a couple of trades.

In both cases, the opportunity to sell calls on some uncovered positions happened before the market turned higher and they were trades that I was hoping to make the day before.

What was especially good was that the premiums were still reflecting some decent volatility and I was able to use some longer term expirations and at strike prices representing some potential gain on those shares.

This morning the futures were again pointing mildly higher, just as they did yesterday.

Maybe not so coincidentally, West Texas Intermediate was doing the same thing.

While I definitely liked yesterday’s action and chance to actually do something, I was still hoping to see the market think on its own and break the association with oil.

In the meantime, I would have gladly taken another day of gains and am still anxious to see what the reaction will be to tomorrow’s Employment Situation Report.

With news of increase jobless claims, the market seemed to be put at ease, even though the broader market did rise anywhere near what the DJIA had done. Still, there was another opportunity to sell some calls today, making a even more happy as there has also been some catch up gains, after having lagged an already poor market.

With today’s reaction to the jobless claims it will really be interesting to see tomorrow’s reaction. Any kind of surprising number could lead to any kind of over-reaction, so I do have a seat belt prepared, but fingers are still crossed.

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Daily Market Update – February 4, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Yesterday looked like it was going to be just another of those terrible days where the market decided after having tried for a couple of days to break away from oil, to just keep following it lower.

It did and then it didn’t.

No, it still followed oil. That didn’t change, just the direction of oil changed and in a big way.

So too did the market change in a big way.

Closing nearly 200 points higher, or any kind of triple digit move for that matter, is no big deal in 2016.

What was a big deal was actually getting a chance to make a couple of trades.

In both cases, the opportunity to sell calls on some uncovered positions happened before the market turned higher and they were trades that I was hoping to make the day before.

What was especially good was that the premiums were still reflecting some decent volatility and I was able to use some longer term expirations and at strike prices representing some potential gain on those shares.

This morning the futures are again pointing mildly higher, just as they did yesterday.

Maybe not so coincidentally, West Texas Intermediate is doing the same thing.

While I definitely liked yesterday’s action and chance to actually do something, I’d still like to see the market think on its own and break the association with oil.

In the meantime, I would take another day of gains and am anxious to see what the reaction will be to tomorrow’s Employment Situation Report.

Any kind of surprising number could lead to any kind of over-reaction, so I do have a seat belt prepared, but fingers are still crossed.

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Daily Market Update – February 3, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday was just another of those terrible days where the market decided after having tried for a couple of days to break away from oil, to just keep following it lower.

After 3 consecutive days of gains and looking as if maybe the market would finally make that break, yesterday it was back to the same old and tiresome association.

This morning’s futures had a very small bounce in it, but still far off from atoning for yesterday’s loss.

It’s hard to remember when we last had any really good news, other than perhaps the short term embrace of the FOMC’s decision to raise rates back nearly 2 months ago.

Ever since the very early part of December it has really been a straight line downward, with an occasional blip higher that has almost always been very quickly erased.

Since having reached a recovery high in that early part of December from the previous high in August 2015, the market is now down another 9% or so and 2016 is shaping up to be one that can’t wait for 2017 to finally arrive.

Going on the third week of not having made any trades, the only regret that I have is having made some trades to open new positions.

Every time it looked as if it might be safe to come out and test the waters, it’s been a foolish thing to do.

I’ve gotten to the point of trying to wait for some sense of stability and was hoping that yesterday could have been a continuation of the previous 3 trading days, but now it’s back to square one.

While I like volatility, I’d like it much more if I could be doing some trading at the same time, especially selling new calls on existing positions or rolling positions over.

That just hasn’t been the case, so there is no advantage to the volatility.

For now, stability is far more important and any moves higher would be much better if coming in smaller increments, rather than 300 or 400 point gains, which only lead to 300 or 400 point losses.

The same may possibly be said about today’s late day 183 point gain, which happened after an earlier in the day 100 point loss.

So what happened to turn things around?

You guess it.

Oil.

I thought that today would likely be another day of watching, although I was hoping that there would be some opportunity to make a call sale or two, as I was trying to get done yesterday and couldn’t get a bid at prices I thought were fair.

Today, I got those prices and was actually ecstatic about making a couple of trades.

Who knows, maybe there’s more ahead.

That would be nice, but hoping for nice things has been disappointing now for the longest of times.

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Daily Market Update – February 3, 2016 (9:00 AM)

Yesterday was just another of those terrible days where the market decided after having tried for a couple of days to break away from oil, to just keep following it lower.

After 3 consecutive days of gains and looking as if maybe the market would finally make that break, yesterday it was back to the same old and tiresome association.

This morning’s futures has a very small bounce in it, but still far off from atoning for yesterday’s loss.

It’s hard to remember when we last had any really good news, other than perhaps the short term embrace of the FOMC’s decision to raise rates back nearly 2 months ago.

Ever since the very early part of December it has really been a straight line downward, with an occasional blip higher that has almost always been very quickly erased.

Since having reached a recovery high in that early part of December from the previous high in August 2015, the market is now down another 9% or so and 2016 is shaping up to be one that can’t wait for 2017 to finally arrive.

Going on the third week of not having made any trades, the only regret that i have is having made some trades to open new positions.

Every time it looked as if it might be safe to come out and test the waters, it’s been a foolish thing to do.

I’ve gotten to the point of trying to wait for some sense of stability and was hoping that yesterday could have been a continuation of the previous 3 trading days, but now it’s back to square one.

While I like volatility, I’d like it much more if I could be doing some trading at the same time, especially selling new calls on existing positions or rolling positions over.

That just hasn’t been the case, so there is no advantage to the volatility.

For now, stability is far more important and any moves higher would be much better if coming in smaller increments, rather than 300 or 400 point gains, which only lead to 300 or 400 point losses.

Today will likely be another day of watching, although there may be some opportunity to make a call sale or two, as I was trying to get that done yesterday and couldn’t get a bid at prices I thought were fair.

Maybe today, if the market can continue and then add onto the bounce that the futures are indicating.

That would be nice, but hoping for nice things has been disappointing now for the longest of times.

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Daily Market Update – February 2, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday was a pretty nice day on a couple of levels.

Making a trade of any sort was not among those levels, though.

What was nice was that there was actually a small gain on the day and that represented a nice comeback from a sharp decline early in the trading.

What was especially good, however, is that while oil prices were plunging yet again, they didn’t take the market along for the ride.

Even that early decline in the indexes wasn’t anywhere near where it could have been, given oil’s descent and the way the market had been reacting to those kind of declines for the past few months.

So I did get at least one day of the stability that I had been hoping for, but there’s still not enough to really have much in the way of confidence when it comes to putting new money on the line.

But that was yesterday.

This morning the futures were again weak and the day just got worse and worse as oil went lower and lower.

Now, with 3 days left for the week, there’s not much in the way of direction until Friday’s Employment Situation Report is released.

Based on last week’s reaction to the weak GDP, there’s reason to believe that the market would be happy with weak Employment numbers maybe in the hope that then the FOMC wouldn’t go ahead and increase the interest rate any time soon.

Ultimately, that can’t be a recipe for success going forward, but it may be all that the market can really hope for, as earnings by Facebook and Google aren’t going to make up for weak earnings numbers coming from just about everything else and those oil company earnings are very sobering.

Right now, there isn’t really a single sector of the market that is performing well or can inspire any kind of confidence. What started out as less bleak this morning became very bleak in the snap of the finger.

No matter how good Facebook and Google may be, they just don’t reflect anything in the economy, at all. Today brought that lesson home.

This morning’s early futures performance was likely to lead to yet another day of just watching and waiting for some kind of a sign that a bottom is developing and maybe then being prepared to dip a toe. The way the day developed there was still no reason to think that it was yet safe to do anything.

Now we just sit and await Friday and scratch our heads trying to figure out just what investors want.

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Daily Market Update – February 2, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Yesterday was a pretty nice day on a couple of levels.

Making a trade of any sort was not among those levels, though.

What was nice was that there was actually a small gain on the day and that represented a nice comeback from a sharp decline early in the trading.

What was especially good, however, is that while oil prices were plunging yet again, they didn’t take the market along for the ride.

Even that early decline in the indexes wasn’t anywhere near where it could have been, given oil’s descent and the way the market had been reacting to those kind of declines for the past few months.

So I did get at least one day of the stability that I had been hoping for, but there’s still not enough to really have much in the way of confidence when it comes to putting new money on the line.

This morning the futures are again weak and there may not be much in the way of direction until Friday’s Employment Situation Report is released.

Based on last week’s reaction to the weak GDP, there’s reason to believe that the market would be happy with weak Employment numbers maybe in the hope that then the FOMC wouldn’t go ahead and increase the interest rate any time soon.

Ultimately, that can’t be a recipe for success going forward, but it may be all that the market can really hope for, as earnings by Facebook and Google aren’t going to make up for weak earnings numbers coming from just about everything else.

Right now, there isn’t really a single sector of the market that is performing well or can inspire any kind of confidence.

No matter how good Facebook and Google may be, they just don’t reflect anything in the economy, at all.

This morning’s early futures performance is likely to lead to yet another day of just watching and waiting for some kind of a sign that a bottom is developing and maybe then being prepared to dip a toe.

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Daily Market Update – February 1, 2016 (Close)

There’s no doubt that the finish to last week was a nice one, but you do have to question the reasons for the market’s gain.

Sometimes following a big loss the market just has some sort of reflexive rebound. We’ve been having some of those over the past two months, but most of those have been pretty anemic.

The other reason that the market has gone higher on some rare occasions has been because oil prices moved higher.

That’s not a very good reason to move higher and at some point the market will realize that it may be a reason to move lower.

But it seems that the reason the market may have moved higher on Thursday and Friday was related to news of weakening global economies.

Why else would the Bank of Japan lower their interest rate to below zero?

In your wildest dreams did you ever imagine that you would get paid to borrow money?

But in addition to that came news that the GDP in the United States grew at what could also only be called an anemic pace.

The market looks as if it had gotten back to the belief that a weak economy would mean that the Federal Reserve would be pumping away in support of the economy and then indirectly support of stocks and to the detriment of bonds.

Good theory, but the Federal Reserve may not have quite the same ammunition it had when it first started in its efforts to save markets and the economy about 8 years ago.

This Friday brings the Employment Situation Report and it will be very interesting to see if there are downward adjustments, especially after last month’s blow away number.

In the current frame of mind the market looks as if it would embrace any bad news, just like it had done for much of the last few years.

For the briefest of times it looked as if we were finally growing up and were going to revel in good news, but that may no longer be the case.

This week may be the third successive week with no personal trades.

I’m not hoping for that to be the case, but as there is some weakness in the futures to start the week, I’m not very excited about jumping aboard after the large gains that came to end the previous week.

I was in a frame of mind to not mind seeing some flatness today. Although the day did finish flat, it looked as if it might be yet another sell-off as oil started to plunge again.

But there was a nice recovery in the market, maybe further signaling that the price of oil and the stock market are going to go back to a more normal kind of co-existence.

I hope the flatness continues tomorrow, but is listless all through the day and not just on a net basis  I’d much rather see that than another in a series of large declines or even large gains

I’m not looking for deeper discounts on share price, but rather some reason to believe that a bottom is at least in the formation process.

The gains of Thursday and Friday were a little too much and too fast for very much comfort, so today was just another in that recently familiar stance of just watching.

That may change soon if there’s any evidence of stability, even for just a few days or so.

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Daily Market Update – February 1, 2016 (9:00 AM)

There’s no doubt that the finish to last week was a nice one, but you do have to question the reasons for the market’s gain.

Sometimes following a big loss the market just has some sort of reflexive rebound. We’ve been having some of those over the past two months, but most of those have been pretty anemic.

The other reason that the market has gone higher on some rare occasions has been because oil prices moved higher.

That’s not a very good reason to move higher and at some point the market will realize that it may be a reason to move lower.

But it seems that the reason the market may have moved higher on Thursday and Friday was related to news of weakening global economies.

Why else would the Bank of Japan lower their interest rate to below zero?

In your wildest dreams did you ever imagine that you would get paid to borrow money?

But in addition to that came news that the GDP in the United States grew at what could also only be called an anemic pace.

The market looks as if it had gotten back to the belief that a weak economy would mean that the Federal Reserve would be pumping away in support of the economy and then indirectly support of stocks and to the detriment of bonds.

Good theory, but the Federal Reserve may not have quite the same ammunition it had when it first started in its efforts to save markets and the economy about 8 years ago.

This Friday brings the Employment Situation Report and it will be very interesting to see if there are downward adjustments, especially after last month’s blow away number.

In the current frame of mind the market looks as if it would embrace any bad news, just like it had done for much of the last few years.

For the briefest of times it looked as if we were finally growing up and were going to revel in good news, but that may no longer be the case.

This week may be the third successive week with no personal trades.

I’m not hoping for that to be the case, but as there is some weakness in the futures to start the week, I’m not very excited about jumping aboard after the large gains that came to end the previous week.

I wouldn’t mind seeing some flatness today and maybe tomorrow, as well. I’d much rather see that than another in a series of large declines.

I’m not looking for deeper discounts on share price, but rather some reason to believe that a bottom is at least in the formation process.

The gains of Thursday and Friday were a little too much and too fast for very much comfort, so today may be another in that recently familiar stance of just watching.

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Daily Market Update – January 29, 2016 (7:30 AM)

The Week in Review will be posted by 10 PM and the Weekend Update will be posted by Noon on Sunday.

The following trade outcomes are possible today:

Assignments:   none

Rollovers:   none

Expirations:   none

The following were ex-dividend this week: F (1/27 $0.15), FAST (1/27 $0.30), MS (1/27 $0.15), KMI  (1/28 $0.125)

The following will be ex-dividend next week: INTC (2/3 $0.26)

Trades, if any, will be attempted to be made prior to 3:30 PM EST

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