Category Archives: Daily Market Update

Daily Market Update -January 5, 2015 (7:30 AM)

US markets did reasonably well yesterday, despite a 272 point loss in the DJIA, as everything is relative.

Shanghai and Europe would have probably been happy with only about a 1.5% loss, as the US cut its own loss by about 40% as the session headed toward the close.

This morning we awoke to news that losses definitely moderated in Shanghai, but our own futures looked as if they wanted to give back what little buying there was in the final hour of yesterday’s trading.

There were certainly lots of losers yesterday and they seemed to be better distributed on the first day of trading than was the case through any part of 2015.

Where there initially appeared to be some promise on the heels of a growing Saudi and Iranian conflict, the energy sector started to give up those early gains fairly quickly during yesterday’s session.

One year to the next are often so different when comparing them on the basis of the markets even as very little may change in the world.

If you’ve been holding your breath for energy prices to rebound, yesterday’s inability to do so, even in the face of what could be some really substantive news, has to be just more disappointment.

There have been so many occasions over the past 15 months that energy looked as if it could have been a bargain and you would have been wrong each of those times, unless you were very short term oriented.

Unfortunately, in 2015, that was true of lots of stocks.

Bargains may not have really been bargains and you do have to wonder at what point 2016 will turn that tide.

I took one chance yesterday with what i thought was a bargain.

It was, though, nothing more than trying to re-establish a position that had been held in succession on 4 occasions over a 5 week period in October and December, that simply looked to be back to a fair price.

Not necessarily a bargain price, but a fair one.

That may be the theme for 2016, or at least this early and unsettled part.

I’d like to have the opportunity to re-establish positions in those stocks that I’ve repeatedly owned over the last 3 to 4 months of 2015, when otherwise my opening of new positions had been very sparse.

For 2016, I wouldn’t mind repeatedly re-inventing the wheel and not looking to far a field for what could serve as an income stream.

For today  I don’t expect to be doing much, other than looking for some opportunities to roll over positions that may expire this or next week, in addition to any of those recurring opportunities in some familiar stocks.

Otherwise, it will probably be more of the same.

Most of December was spent watching the ticker and not making very many trades.

January may not be very different, but it’s far too early to tell, as there are still plenty of people who hold onto the myth of those January rallies.

You never know what myths can become real, but for now, I wouldn’t mind seeing some strength in energy and a continued irrational coupling of the market in a move higher with energy.

That would at least bring one different thing into 2016 and maybe some of those other areas that were hit so hard in 2015 could show some strength at the expense of the handful that thrived in 2015.

Daily Market Update -January 4, 2015 (Close)

They say that the first week of the New Year determines the first month and that the first month determines the outcome for the who year.

Hopefully that’s not going to be the case.

No one really expected to wake up on the first Monday of the New Year to news than Iran and Saudi Arabia were at each other’s throats even more.

If this was 2015, we might have expected that any rise in the price of oil coming from the uncertainty associated with conflict in that region, would have resulted in the US stock market moving higher.

But late last week it seemed as if some normalcy was beginning to return to that relationship and so this morning markets aren’t going up in response.

Maybe, though, they’re just not going down as low as they might ordinarily have done, given what happened overnight in the Shanghai market.

With that market down 7% on halted trading, the contagion spread to Europe this morning.

If our own futures market had followed Germany, instead of looking at a loss of 300 points, we would be about double that amount.

Germany itself was only down about 60% of what transpired in Shanghai, so maybe it is that oil spike that’s giving us some cushion as we got set to begin the day.

That seemed to work for a while, until oil inexplicably reversed course and the market went down more and more, although it did recover significantly from its nadir.

Considering that some of our own weaknesses in 2015 were related to earlier sharp declines in Shanghai, there may be very good reason for concern as the year gets underway.

With a little bit of cash and a few positions expiring this week, I wasn’t too anxious to go and chase the market in what could have been a bargain hunter’s delight.

I thought that I would much rather sit back and see if there was any truth to the contention that the year after a flat year is typically a good year.

You wouldn’t know that by the competing contention about the role of the first week of the year and the outcome of the rest of the year.

As the day does progressed, I was prepared to part with some money if there appeared to be some stability, and I surprised myself by doing so before the stability appeared, but I wasn’t reaching to deeply down the well for that money. I think that I was still be inclined to sit back and watch.

While in 2015 there were a number of days that large early losses were reversed during the course of the day, that’s not a typical pattern and very often a period of stability is followed by a second leg lower, so I wasn’t overly interested in testing the waters too much.

I’d rather not get caught in the second leg.

That wouldn’t be the most auspicious way to begin 2016.

While it may be a difficult first day and maybe a difficult first week, my eyes are going to be focused also on a fairly large number of positions that are set to expire next week as the January 2016 cycle comes to an end.

That coincides with the start of earnings season, so there may be lots of things to be thinking about as we try to sort out the international issues.

Daily Market Update -January 4, 2015 (9:00 AM)

They say that the first week of the New Year determines the first month and that the first month determines the outcome for the who year.

Hopefully that’s not going to be the case.

No one really expected to wake up on the first Monday of the New Year to news than Iran and Saudi Arabia were at each other’s throats even more.

If this was 2015, we might have expected that any rise in the price of oil coming from the uncertainty associated with conflict in that region, would have resulted in the US stock market moving higher.

But late last week it seemed as if some normalcy was beginning to return to that relationship and so this morning markets aren’t going up in response.

Maybe, though, they’re just not going down as low as they might ordinarily have done, given what happened overnight in the Shanghai market.

With that market down 7% on halted trading, the contagion spread to Europe this morning.

If our own futures market had followed Germany, instead of looking at a loss of 300 points, we would be about double that amount.

Germany itself was only down about 60% of what transpired in Shanghai, so maybe it is that oil spike that’s giving us some cushion as we get set to begin the day.

Considering that some of our own weaknesses in 2015 were related to earlier sharp declines in Shanghai, there may be very good reason for concern as the year gets underway.

With a little bit of cash and a few positions expiring this week, I’m not too anxious to go and chase the market in what could be a bargain hunter’s delight.

I think that I would much rather sit back and see if there’s any truth to the contention that the year after a flat year is typically a good year.

You wouldn’t know that by the competing contention about the role of the first week of the year and the outcome of the rest of the year.

As the day does progress, if there appears to be some stability, I think that I would still be inclined to sit back and watch.

While in 2015 there were a number of days that large early losses were reversed during the course of the day, that’s not a typical pattern and very often a period of stability is followed by a second leg lower.

I’d rather not get caught in the second leg.

That wouldn’t be the most auspicious way to begin 2016.

While it may be a difficult first day and maybe a difficult first week, my eyes are going to be focused also on a fairly large number of positions that are set to expire next week as the January 2016 cycle comes to an end.

That coincides with the start of earnings season, so there may be lots of things to be thinking about as we try to sort out the international issues.

Daily Market Update – December 31,  2015  (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:  WMT

Rollovers:   DOW

Expirations:  IP

The following were ex-dividend this week:  JOY (12/28 $0.01), CY (12/29 $0.11), DOW (12/29 $0.46), EMC (12/30 $0.12)

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

Have a Happy and Safe New Year.

Daily Market Update – December 30,  2015  (Close)

There is now  just 1 day left in trading for 2015 and this morning may have offered something interesting to look forward to, but the day was still a disappointment.

For more than a year the market has pretty much followed the direction of oil.

That itself has been somewhat of a departure from the natural nature of things.

Logic tells you that with the exception of its impact on the indexes, when oil goes down, most everything else should go up, even during a general economic slowdown.

What there hasn’t been, though, is that kind of general economic slowdown, even as China may be doing so.

Still, as oil has gone down, the market has followed and as oil has gone higher, the market has done the same.

That’s really been obvious the last couple of weeks as market strength has only come when oil moved momentarily higher.

Following yesterday’s large market gain you would have understood why this morning’s futures might have been poised to give some or most of it back, as that’s been the script for most of the year.

You would have especially thought that would be the case when seeing that oil futures were sharply lower this morning.

Yet, for some reason, the S&P 500 futures were only very mildly lower..

That seems surprising.

You certainly don’t want to read too much into any single data point, but that does seem to be a fairly big departure from a year’s worth of behavior.

Does that portend for a year end rally?

Well, with only 2 days left in the year as the day began and the futures still pointing lower, there’s not too much time for much of a rally, but maybe that may mean something for 2016. There’s even less time as today came to its end, but the decline was at least not as bad as it could have been, given oil’s weakness.

Even though there’s little reason to believe that things change from one day to the next just because the calendar changes from one year to the next, they often do.

For some reason there are often very qualitative changes as the year flips over to the next one, even though nothing obvious has changed.

What I think is in store for 2016 is that earnings will finally begin to show some positive movement in both top and bottom lines and that investors will begin to reward or punish companies on those real basic elements of investing.

There’s not too much doubt that continuing low energy prices contribute to the well being of lots of companies, so maybe 2016 will be the time to demonstrate that.

Finally.

Today was again likely to be a day of watching the action and it didn’t disappoint. I would have liked to see yesterday’s momentum continue just so existing positions will be in better shape for either rollover or assignment as we head into 2016.

While those futures are just slightly lower this morning, I was hoping that maybe someone would take note of how they are disconnected for a change from energy and look at that as a positive sign to keep moving forward.

I wouldn’t have argued with them and would happily have gone along for the ride and enjoyed the view looking out the window as they did the heavy lifting still required for most of the S&P 500 left behind in 2015.

But no.

Maybe tomorrow?

Daily Market Update – December 30,  2015  (7:30 AM)

There are now  just 2 days left in trading for 2015 and this morning may offer something interesting.

For more than a year the market has pretty much followed the direction of oil.

That itself has been somewhat of a departure from the natural nature of things.

Logic tells you that with the exception of its impact on the indexes, when oil goes down, most everything else should go up, even during a general economic slowdown.

What there hasn’t been, though, is that kind of general economic slowdown, even as China may be doing so.

Still, as oil has gone down, the market has followed and as oil has gone higher, the market has done the same.

That’s really been obvious the last couple of weeks as market strength has only come when oil moved momentarily higher.

Following yesterday’s large market gain you would have understood why this morning’s futures might have been poised to give some or most of it back, as that’s been the script for most of the year.

You would have especially thought that would be the case when seeing that oil futures were sharply lower this morning.

Yet, for some reason, the S&P 500 futures were only very mildly lower..

That seems surprising.

You certainly don’t want to read too much into any single data point, but that does seem to be a fairly big departure from a year’s worth of behavior.

Does that portend for a year end rally?

Well, with only 2 days left in the year and the futures still pointing lower, there’s not too much time for much of a rally, but maybe that may mean something for 2016.

Even though there’s little reason to believe that things change from one day to the next just because the calendar changes from one year to the next, they often do.

For some reason there are often very qualitative changes as the year flips over to the next one, even though nothing obvious has changed.

What I think is in store for 2016 is that earnings will finally begin to show some positive movement in both top and bottom lines and that investors will begin to reward or punish companies on those real basic elements of investing.

There’s not too much doubt that continuing low energy prices contribute to the well being of lots of companies, so maybe 2016 will be the time to demonstrate that.

Finally.

Today is again likely to be a day of watching the action. I’d like to see yesterday’s momentum continue just so existing positions will be in better shape for either rollover or assignment as we head into 2016.

While those futures are just slightly lower this morning, maybe someone will take note of how they are disconnected for a change from energy and look at that as a positive sign to keep moving forward.

I wouldn’t argue with them and would happily go along for the ride and enjoy the view looking out the window as they do the heavy lifting still required for most of the S&P 500 left behind in 2015.

Daily Market Update – December 29,  2015  (Close)

There are now  just 2 days left in trading for 2015 and it’s no easier to tell by the numbers that we weren’t still in 2014.

Yesterday the market did a reasonable job at not digging the hole any deeper and even though it ended the day a little more in the red, it left itself still within easy reach of a breakven for the year.

This morning’s futures indicated a decent move higher, but it’s still all so illusory, even though the market did end up with a really nice gain today to leave the S&P 500 up 1% for the year.

Mind you it was up 1.1% on the day.

The market’s gains this year have been so concentrated. I don’t recall ever having seen a year when the indexes didn’t do at least some justice to what was going on within them.

Although 2011 finished at dead flat for the year, it was a year of 2 halves, where the second half completely erased the first half’s gains. You wouldn’t have known that by only looking at the year end data, but at least in 2011 everything was treated equally.

That wasn’t remotely the situation this year. The performances are so incredibly skewed, but it’s really hard to imagine that such a skew could continue, although there’s also little in the air to believe that energy and materials are ready for some kind of a meaningful rebound, either.

So as the next few days seek to put the year in the red or the black column, most everyone knows that it was decidedly in the red.

With a purchase yesterday to replace the same shares lost to assignment last week, I wouldn’t mind continuing to be able to do the same, over and over again, in 2016.

The very best of a covered option strategy is when you can do that over and over again thing with a relatively small number of stocks going in and out of rotation in your portfolio.

By and large, that’s been the case for the past 3 months as the new positions have been relatively few and the individual stocks themselves have been even fewer.

On the one hand, that can be pretty boring, but on the other hand, it can be very exhilarating and I’m the kind who finds it to be the latter.

In this case it was a re-purchase to capture a nice dividend and if assigned at the end of the week, I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to do it all over again.

With futures up nicely this morning, I’d b happy to go along for the ride and take whatever opportunity may come out of the year end buying, if it can be sustained.

That’s a big if, because this year hasn’t really been known for much in the way of consistency.

With only a couple of positions set to expire this week, at least there were a number of ex-dividend positions to generate some cash, but I don’t expect to be spending anything else this week, at least not for a weekly option, at this point.

I might consider draining cash reserves a little, but would likely look at next week or totally bypass the option cycle’s end and head into the February 2016 option cycle.

For today it was just as expected. I sat and watched, while hoping that some would alert get triggered or some Hail Mary trade would get executed.

Sounds like tomorrow may be the same.

Daily Market Update – December 29,  2015  (8:00 AM)

There are now  just 3 days left in trading for 2015 and it’s no easier to tell by the numbers that we weren’t still in 2014.

Yesterday the market did a reasonable job at not digging the hole any deeper and even though it ended the day a little more in the red, it left itself still within easy reach of a breakven for the year.

This morning’s futures indicate a decent move higher, but it’s still all so illusory.

The market’s gains this year have been so concentrated. I don’t recall ever having seen a year when the indexes didn’t do at least some justice to what was going on within them.

Although 2011 finished at dead flat for the year, it was a year of 2 halves, where the second half completely erased the first half’s gains. You wouldn’t have known that by only looking at the year end data, but at least in 2011 everything was treated equally.

That wasn’t remotely the situation this year. The performances are so incredibly skewed, but it’s really hard to imagine that such a skew could continue, although there’s also little in the air to believe that energy and materials are ready for some kind of a meaningful rebound, either.

So as the next few days seek to put the year in the red or the black column, most everyone knows that it was decidedly in the red.

With a purchase yesterday to replace the same shares lost to assignment last week, I wouldn’t mind continuing to be able to do the same, over and over again, in 2016.

The very best of a covered option strategy is when you can do that over and over again thing with a relatively small number of stocks going in and out of rotation in your portfolio.

By and large, that’s been the case for the past 3 months as the new positions have been relatively few and the individual stocks themselves have been even fewer.

On the one hand, that can be pretty boring, but on the other hand, it can be very exhilirating and I’m the kind who finds it to be the latter.

In this case it was a re-purchase to capture a nice dividend and if assigned at the end of the week, I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to do it all over again.

With futures up nicely this morning, I’d b happy to go along for the ride and take whatever opportunity may come out of the year end buying, if it can be sustained.

That’s a big if, because this year hasn’t really been known for much in the way of consistency.

With only a couple of positions set to expire this week, at least there were a number of ex-dividend positions to generate some cash, but I don’t expect to be spending anything else this week, at least not for a weekly option, at this point.

I might consider draining cash reserves a little, but would likely look at next week or totally bypass the option cycle’s end and head into the February 2016 option cycle.

For today it’s likely to be more sitting and watching and hopingf that some alert gets triggered or some Hail Mary trade gets executed.

Daily Market Update – December 28,  2015  (Close)

There are now  just 3 days left in trading for 2015 and it would be hard to tell by the numbers that we weren’t still in 2014.

The path, though, wasn’t so quiet and there was very little redeeming about the way the year transpired, as a handful of really well performing positions have essentially prevented markets from having a really bad year.

That’s just the nature of an index and the more narrow it is the easier it is to mask an overall trend.

With 2015 coming to an end much of the strength seen in the year, even among those that didn’t perform all that well, was based on manipulating EPS data, by the record amount of share buybacks through the year.

While there’s still money allocated to those buybacks, historically companies aren’t the best in their timing and use of shareholder money.

While you would prefer to buy things that are bargain priced, they prefer to buy their own shares as they are on the upswing.

That doesn’t necessarily make sense, but as they say, “it is what it is.”

Also, there’s no requirement that they actually spend the money that they said was being allocated to those share buybacks, so that impetus may be going away or at least becoming less of a factor until something gets lit under the market.

Still, the past does indicate that the year following a flat year, such as ours is headed toward, tends to be a good year.

I’m more inclined to believe that an improving economy is what will move 2016 forward and investors will reward themselves on the basis of real growth at the top line that translates into real EPS growth data.

This week, with some assignments from last week, I did have some cash in hand to look for a spending opportunity or two.

It has been an unusually slow three weeks in that regard and I would have loved to find a bargain, since it is my own money that’s at stake and I do care about the price that I pay.

With only 2 expiring positions this week, I wouldn’t have minded adding some names to that list, but with only 4 days of premium as markets are closed in celebration of New Years, there’s a little less reason to look at adding to that list. There may be better reason to look at the following week or perhaps the week after the end of the January 2016 option cycle, which may already have too many names on its list.

With the futures pointing to a moderately weaker open, having shown some improvement from earlier in the session, I I  preferred to wait and see what tone the market takes on before thinking about spending any of that money.

The market’s early weakness didn’t get any worse as the day progressed and actually recovered reasonably well.

Although I had some reluctance to part with cash, I did and continued the theme of the past couple of months and just bought back something that was just assigned.

In the most pure sense, a covered option strategy doesn’t get better than that, unless there’s also a dividend involved.

But with that purchase out of the way and now with just 3 days remaining in 2015, we’re now just a little bit deeper in the hole.

At this point I wouldn’t mind seeing some of 2015’s theatrics take a break and just let us start 2016 without too much overhang from another of those strong up or down weeks to further confuse us about what’s really going on in the economy or in the minds of investors.

For the rest of the week I expect to be fairly passive as I think most investors may be, as well.

Daily Market Update – December 28,  2015  (8:30 AM)

There are just 4 days left in trading for 2015 and it would be hard to tell by the numbers that we weren’t still in 2014.

The path, though, wasn’t so quiet and there was very little redeeming about the way the year transpired, as a handful of really well performing positions have essentially prevented markets from having a really bad year.

That’s just the nature of an index and the more narrow it is the easier it is to mask an overall trend.

With 2015 coming to an end much of the strength seen in the year, even among those that didn’t perform all that well, was based on manipulating EPS data, by the record amount of share buybacks through the year.

While there’s still money allocated to those buybacks, historically companies aren’t the best in their timing and use of shareholder money.

While you would prefer to buy things that are bargain priced, they prefer to buy their own shares as they are on the upswing.

That doesn’t necessarily make sense, but as they say, “it is what it is.”

Also, there’s no requirement that they actually spend the money that they said was being allocated to those share buybacks, so that impetus may be going away or at least becoming less of a factor until something gets lit under the market.

Still, the past does indicate that the year following a flat year, such as ours is headed toward, tends to be a good year.

I’m more inclined to believe that an improving economy is what will move 2016 forward and investors will reward themselves on the basis of real growth at the top line that translates into real EPS growth data.

This week, with some assignments from last week, I do have some cash in hand to look for a spending opportunity or two.

It has been an unusually slow three weeks in that regard and I would love to find a bargain, since it is my own money that’s at stake.

With only 2 expiring positions this week, I wouldn’t mind adding some names to that list, but with only 4 days of premium as markets are closed in celebration of New Years, there’s a little less reason to look at adding to that list. There may be better reason to look at the following week or perhaps the week after the end of the January 2016 option cycle, which may already have too many names on its list.

With the futures pointing to a moderately weaker open, having shown some improvement from earlier in the session, I think that I would prefer to see what tone the market takes on before thinking about spending any of that money.

At this point I wouldn’t mind seeing some of 2015’s theatrics take a break and just let us start 2016 without too much overhang from another of those strong up or down weeks to further confuse us about what’s really going on in the economy or in the minds of investors.

Daily Market Update – December 24,  2015  (8:15 AM)

The Week in Review will be posted by 6 PM and the Weekend Update will be posted by Noon on Sunday.

The following trade outcomes are possible today:

Assignments:  COH, DOW

Rollovers:   none

Expirations:  M

The following were ex-dividend this week:  none

The following will be ex-dividend next week:  JOY (12/28 $0.29), CY (12/29 $0.11), DOW (12/29 $0.46), EMC (12/23 $0.12)

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

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

Daily Market Update – December 23,  2015  (Close)

With yesterday adding to a string of triple day moves and again sending the market higher, we were in easy grabbing distance of being able to end the year unchanged.

That actually happened in 2011 when the S&P 500 really had no change at all for the year.

As we got set to begin the morning that index was slightly less than 1% below the breakeven point and as the past 7 days of trading easily showed, that 1% can be erased or magnified in an instant.

Today was just further proof as the S&P 500 is now a whisker over that breakeven point.

This morning’s futures looked as if they may want to continue that streak and also continue in taking the market higher and they did.

There is still some more economic news to come this week before the market closes for a Christmas break.

We still have some home sales data to come and some jobs numbers and if yesterday’s GDP data shows, the market really wants something that’s neither too strong nor too disappointingly weak.

Somewhere right down the middle, somewhere right in line with expectations would give the market a feeling that perhaps the singular increase in interest rates thus far can remain singular.

Now with just 1 days remaining on the week, it’s really unlikely that I’ll be adding any new positions on, at least not any that are also expiring this week.

With next week also being a 4 day trading week, today may be an opportunity to open new positions and attempt to get 6 days of premium in the process.

More than that, though, I’d like to continue having the opportunity to either rollover whatever may be possible, particularly if I get a greater sense of security that some of the remaining positions may end up being assigned.

I certainly wouldn’t mind having some more cash in hand as 2016 gets underway.

So, the expectation was for more patient sitting around today and not too much action and I wasn’t too disappointed, especially being able to sell some more calls on another uncovered position and seeing some decent catch up advances in some beaten down stocks.

With no ex-dividend positions this week I was happy to get the weekly income from whatever source I can, even if it means going for a longer term expiration when selling those calls into price strength, as was the case with Ford yesterday and Hewlett Packard Enterprises today.

With the continuing uncertainty in the market, if the volatility starts to rise again and can inch up toward the 28 level or so, there may be much more reason to consider locking in some longer term premiums as was the case with a number of positions that expired last week. Those had options sold upon them using longer terms, the last time volatility spiked.

I’ll be watching, but I’m not expecting too much for the rest of the week other than the hoped for rollovers and an assignment or two.

Daily Market Update – December 23,  2015  (7:30 AM)

With yesterday adding to a string of tripe day moves and again sending the market higher, we’re in easy grabbing distance of being able to end the year unchanged.

That actually happened in 2011 when the S&P 500 really had no change at all for the year.

As we get set to begin the morning that index was slightly less than 1% below the breakeven point and if the past 7 days of trading easily shows, that 1% can be erased or magnified in an instant.

This morning’s futures look as if they may want to continue that streak and also continue in taking the market higher.

There is still some more economic news to come this week before the market closes for a Christmas break.

We still have some home sales data to come and some jobs numbers and if yesterday’s GDP data shows, the market really wants something that’s neither too strong nor too disappointingly weak.

Somewhere right down the middle, somewhere right in line with expectations would give the market a feeling that perhaps the singular increase in interest rates thus far can remain singular.

Now with just 2 days remaining on the week, it’s really unlikely that I’ll be adding any new positions on, at least not any that are also expiring this week.

With next week also being a 4 day trading week, today may be an opportunity to open new positions and attempt to get 6 days of premium in the process.

More than that, though, I’d like to continue having the opportunity to either rollover whatever may be possible, particularly if I get a greater sense of security that some of the remaining positions may end up being assigned.

I certainly wouldn’t mind having some more cash in hand as 2016 gets underway.

So, the expectation is for more patient sitting around today and not too much action.

However, if the market does spike in the early minutes of trading, i may want to try and capitalize on that, especially if there are any calls that can be sold on some uncovered positions.

With no ex-dividend positions this week I’d like to get the weekly income from whatever source I can, even if it means going for a longer term expiration when selling those calls into price strength, as was the case with Ford yesterday.

With the continuing uncertainty in the market, if the volatility starts to rise again and can inch up toward the 28 level or so, there may be much more reason to consider locking in some longer term premiums as was the case with a number of positions that expired last week. Those had options sold upon them using longer terms, the last time volatility spiked.

I’ll be watching, but I’m not expecting too much for the rest of the week other than the hoped for rollovers and an assignment or two.

Daily Market Update – December 22,  2015  (Close)

Yesterday looked as if it might be just the remedy for what ailed us during the latter half of the previous week.

The market did its best, however, to squander the early gains, but somehow was able to turn things around and ended the day with the same kind of gains that were being telegraphed early in the sessions trading.

Today the futures were more tentative as we awaited the GDP release before trading begins.

A strong number would have been an interesting test of how the market really felt about the interest rate increase announced last week.

The issue at hand is that Janet Yellen indicated that the FOMC was not in a “one and done” mode and that subsequent interest rate increases were likely in 2016.

You can only assume that if that’s going to be the case that there would be some good economic news regarding expansion of the economy to account for those increases.

However, given how badly traders reacted through the vast majority of 2015 to the idea of a rate increase, you really have to wonder how quick they would be to embrace any really strong economic news related to underlying growth.

We didn’t really get to find that out today, as the GDP was slightly less than expected, but the market rallied in a big way, really taking off after the first 2 hours of trading, with no other news or events to offer guidance.

This may have been like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

The economic news was just right. Not too expansive and not pointing at a slowdown.

Just right, but that could mean we are back in the “bad news is good news” kind of mentality, with the thinking going that if the economy isn’t expanding all too quickly then the FOMC won’t be so quick to raise rates yet again.

Everyone still thinks that we’re in the Gerald Ford – Jimmy Carter era when the predominant effort to battle inflation was to wear buttons with the acronym “W.I.N.”

Whip Inflation, Now.

That didn’t seem to work, but since then the Federal reserve has been pretty on top of things and you can be reasonably assured that Janet Yellen is going to do everything to keep inflation under control, short of strangling the economy.

With no new positions opened yesterday and with only 2 days of premium now remaining this week, I don’t think that I’ll be spending too much money, unless looking at the next week’s options, which also will reflect four days worth of premium.

Instead, I was hoping that the market would add on to yesterday’s late day gains and do what it could to erase last week’s losses.

As we opened today the futures were flat ahead of the GDP release and the S&P 500 was still down nearly 2% for the year with just a handful of trading days left to go.

By today’s close we were down only 1%.

Today’s reaction to the GDP release could spell the trading remaining in 2015, unless retail sales come up with some big surprises as the Christmas shopping season is coming to its own end.

Unlike the past 2 years when retailers blamed unusually cold and snowy weather around the country for their woes, this year it may end up being complaints regarding the unusually warm weather to put a damper on retail sales figures.

Hopefully, a resurging consumer may be able to offset the weather, particularly if all of those new jobs and higher wages are going to come into play and energy prices continue to remain so low.

So today was, as expected, another quiet day of sitting back and hoping for some opportunity to sell calls into strength or at least be in some better position to see assignments or rollovers heading into the final week of the year.

The difference was that instead of just hoping, there was actually some opportunity.

With that good news, there’s reason to hope again tomorrow.

Daily Market Update – December 22,  2015  (8:00 AM)

Yesterday looked as if it might be just the remedy for what ailed us during the latter half of the previous week.

The market did its best, however, to squander the early gains, but somehow was able to turn things around and ended the day with the same kind of gains that were being telegraphed early in the sessions trading.

Today the futures are more tentative as we await the GDP release before trading begins.

A strong number would be an interesting test of how the market really feels about the interest rate increase announced last week.

The issue at hand is that Janet Yellen indicated that the FOMC was not in a “one and done” mode and that subsequent interest rate increases were likely in 2016.

You can only assume that if that’s going to be the case that there would be some good economic news regarding expansion of the economy to account for those increases.

However, given how badly traders reacted through the vast majority of 2015 to the idea of a rate increase, you really have to wonder how quick they would be to embrace any really strong economic news related to underlying growth.

We may be back in the “bad news is good news” kind of mentality, with the thinking going that if the economy isn’t expanding all too quickly then the FOMC won’t be so quick to raise rates yet again.

Everyone still thinks that we’re in the Gerald Ford – Jimmy Carter era when the predominant effort to battle inflation was to wear buttons with the acronym “W.I.N.”

Whip Inflation, Now.

That didn’t seem to work, but since then the Federal reserve has been pretty on top of things and you can be reasonably assured that Janet Yellen is going to do everything to keep inflation under control, short of strangling the economy.

With no new positions opened yesterday and with only 3 days of premium remaining this week, I don’t think that I’ll be spending too much money, unless looking at the next week’s options, which also will reflect four days worth of premium.

Instead, I’d much rather add the market add on to yesterday’s late day gains and do what it can to erase last week’s losses.

As we open today the futures are flat ahead of the GDP release and the S&P 500 is still down nearly 2% for the year with just a handful of trading days left to go.

Today’s reaction to the GDP release could spell the trading remaining in 2015, unless retail sales come up with some big surprises as the Christmas shopping season is coming to its own end.

Unlike the past 2 years when retailers blamed unusually cold and snowy weather around the country for their woes, this year it may end up being complaints regarding the unusually warm weather to put a damper on retail sales figures.

Hopefully, a resurging consumer may be able to offset the weather, particularly if all of those new jobs and higher wages are going to come into play and energy prices continue to remain so low.

So today will likely be another quiet day of sitting back and just hoping for some opportunity to see calls into strength or at least be in some better position to see assignments or rollovers heading into the final week of the year.