Category Archives: Daily Market Update

Daily Market Update – February 2, 2015 (Close)

It’s good to see January over.

Even if you outperformed the market, the likelihood is that it was still a loss for the month, so that’s not too much solace. Although it’s really important to do better than the market during downturns, most people would still rather see their assets grow, even if lagging the index.

With oil still going to be an ongoing issue, as was clearly the case late Friday afternoon, as some rumors sent oil surging and momentarily took the market with it, right now there’s not much else that’s causing markets to move.

That may change if we ever start getting some evidence that all of the money that’s not being spent on energy is being spent on other things.

So far there hasn’t been too much indication of that as Retail Sales last month were less than expected and Visa and MasterCard are both saying that people are saving more and paying down debt instead of spending their newfound cash.

It will sill be another 3 weeks until the big guns of retail, such as Macys, Kohls and Target report their earnings, although Wal-Mart reports a week earlier. By the time they all report they will have had nearly 2 months of further evidence to help form their guidance for the next quarter, even as their earnings for the previous quarter may not have had much reason to celebrate decreased energy prices.

This week started with the usually unimportant “Personal Income and Outlays Report” that could show what, if any, increased consumer spending has been going on.

It didn’t though.

Consumers aren’t spending.

So all that really leaves this week is Friday’s  Employment Situation Report, although it doesn’t seem as if there’s much reason to expect that those results could send markets much higher at this point. On the other hand, if decreased energy drilling activity is spreading, there could be a much less than expected increase in new jobs creation, which could take markets lower and maybe even interest rates even lower.

With last week being another week of virtually no upward movement, other than a very brief interlude on Thursday, the assignments that I thought were going to happen never did materialize.

That means that I’m not too likely to add much in the way of new positions this week and I was hopeful that the early morning’s mild move higher in the futures translated into something more meaningful. With a handful of positions set to expire this week I would love to see them get assigned, but would still be happy if at least I got to roll them over, as was mostly the case last week.

If making any new purchases this week they are probably going to use this week’s expiration, in order to have a better chance of generating assignments and resultant cash to help fund next week’s potential purchases.

For the morning I was prepared to be in a watching mode, but didn’t really expect to be in that mode all day, as the market went back and forth without any real commitment to one side or the other, although it did recover nicely from what had been an early triple digit loss shortly after the open, despite the positive futures.

The rally heading into the close was a nice change from what 2015 has been about so far this year, although it does play into the over-riding theme of going back and forth and having large intra-day swings. The only differences were that this time it was a good swing and that good swing was sustained into the closing bell for a change

 After the past few weeks that have seen a nearly 5% decline despite repeated efforts to rally back, I’m not willing to simply accept that this most recent decline which has taken the S&P 500 below 2000 is going to be just as easily corrected as has been the case over the past month.

Today was one of those days that did attempt to do some repair of the past week and even of today’s earlier trading, but it will take more than today.

Any rally, if it does occur, will hopefully be an opportunity to generate some income from existing positions and keep holding on until that time comes that either energy prices start showing some rebound or GDP really does start moving higher and taking markets with it.

Today turned out to be an alright day, but not the day we were looking for.

Daily Market Update – February 2, 2015 (8:15 AM)

It’s good to see January over.

Even if you outperformed the market, the likelihood is that it was still a loss for the month, so that’s not too much solace. Although it’s really important to do better than the market during downturns, most people would still rather see their assets grow, even if lagging the index.

With oil still going to be an ongoing issue, as was clearly the case late Friday afternoon, as some rumors sent oil surging and momentarily took the market with it, right now there’s not much else that’s causing markets to move.

That may change if we ever start getting some evidence that all of the money that’s not being spent on energy is being spent on other things.

So far there hasn’t been too much indication of that as Retail Sales last month were less than expected and Visa and MasterCard are both saying that people are saving more and paying down debt instead of spending their newfound cash.

It will sill be another 3 weeks until the big guns of retail, such as Macys, Kohls and Target report their earnings, although Wal-Mart reports a week earlier. By the time they all report they will have had nearly 2 months of further evidence to help form their guidance for the next quarter, even as their earnings for the previous quarter may not have had much reason to celebrate decreased energy prices.

This week does start with the usually unimportant “Personal Income and Outlays Report” that could show what, if any, increased consumer spending has been going on. Otherwise, it’s an Employment Situation week, although it doesn’t seem as if there’s much reason to expect that those results could send markets much higher at this point. On the other hand, if decreased energy drilling activity is spreading, there could be a much less than expected increase in new jobs creation, which could take markets lower and maybe even interest rates even lower.

With last week being another week of virtually no upward movement, other than a very brief interlude on Thursday, the assignments that I thought were going to happen never did materialize.

That means that I’m not too likely to add much in the way of new positions this week and am hopeful that the early morning’s mild move higher in the futures translates into something more meaningful. With a handful of positions set to expire this week I would love to see them get assigned, but would still be happy if at least I got to roll them over, as was mostly the case last week.

If making any new purchases this week they are probably going to use this week’s expiration, in order to have a better chance of generating assignments and resultant cash to help fund next week’s potential purchases.

So for this morning I’m likely to be in a watching mode. After the past few weeks that have seen a nearly 5% decline despite repeated efforts to rally back, I’m not willing to simply accept that this most recent decline which has taken the S&P 500 below 2000 is going to be just as easily corrected as has been the case over the past month.

Any rally, if it does occur, will hopefully be an opportunity to generate some income from existing positions and keep holding on until that time comes that either energy prices start showing some rebound or GDP really does start moving higher and taking markets with it.

Daily Market Update – January 30, 2015 (8:15 AM)

The Week in Review will be posted by 6:00 PM and the Weekend Update will be posted by Noon on Sunday.

The following trade outcomes are possible today:

Assignments:  none

Rollovers:  GPS, HAL

Expirations:  INTC, MET

The following were ex-dividend this week: FAST (1/28 $0.28)

The following will be ex-dividend next week: INTC (2/4 $0.24), MET (2/4 $0.35)

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

Daily Market Update – January 29, 2015 (Close)

Yesterday was another example of how the pre-opening futures, if they’re not trading with a large move, don’t have much ability to predict what will happen during the real trading session.

Today was another.

Granted that yesterday was an FOMC Statement release day, but lately that too has stopped having much in the way of predictive capability, just as the day before an FOMC has stopped being a profoundly positive day.

For some reason, the market eventually decided that the eventual FOMC Statement was negative and people were talking about how Janet Yellen’s honeymoon was now over.

I’m not certain who they’re referring to, as I don’t know if the stock market has ever had that kind of relationship with a Federal Reserve Chairman, but after a period of not moving very much after yesterday’s release, the market eventually decided something was really rotten and the sell-off really accelerated having taken the DJIA from a nearly 100 point gain at the time of the announcement to a nearly 200 point loss.

That’s volatility and after a brief respite for a day or two, it’s asserting itself again, although still far below fun levels.

While I don’t trade or buy bonds of any kind, it was also hard to not notice how the Treasury market has been reacting lately, as volatility has definitely found its way into there, as well.

While most fears are related to an increase in interest rates and wondering when that would happen, the 10 Year Treasury fell to about 1.72% and the 30 Year hit all time low rate levels.

Considering that many believe that bond traders are the smart ones in the room you would then have to wonder what the stock market is worried about, as history does show that the bond market is pretty good at predicting Federal Reserve  actions and right now they’re not seeing any kind of imminent rate hike.

This morning, maybe helped by some decent earnings from Dow Chemical and others, the market was showing a little bit of a bounce in the pre-market trading, but after the past 2 days of losses, that so far has the S&P 500 down 2.4% for the week, a little bounce isn’t very much, but it turned into much more than that by the time it was all done for the day.

Why it did so is a little bit of a mystery, but as far as mysteries go, it was a good one.

Now, there’s only 1 day to go this week, so I’m still hopeful that there will be some more opportunity to see some assignments. While I was hoping to see all positions set to expire this week, at this point I wouldn’t mind some rollovers as the alternative and looked for any opportunity to do so today, although in general the longer you can wait to do so, the better, as long as the stock price doesn’t move too strongly against you.

Again, it’s a telling sign when precious metal stocks are the ones seeing the greatest back and forth moves and accounting for so many of the trades lately. High levels of volatility in precious metals isn’t generally something that should create lots of comfort or security unless you’re over-weighted in those.

Today may have seen some earnings related trading going on as there were some big movers this morning on their news, both good and bad, but it’s probably tomorrow’s GDP that many are waiting for to either confirm or invalidate the belief that the economy will heat up thanks to falling energy prices.

Because of that uncertainty, and so far there hasn’t been too much indication of what seemed to be so obvious, there was some added reason to want to jump the gun and consider rollovers today rather than waiting until tomorrow when those opportunities may end up being more remote, but it was just a good day to see some recovery from the previous two, instead.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring some more of the same.

Daily Market Update – January 29, 2015 (8:30 AM)

Yesterday was another example of how the pre-opening futures, if they’re not trading with a large move, don’t have much ability to predict what will happen during the real trading session.

Granted that yesterday was an FOMC Statement release day, but lately that too has stopped having much in the way of predictive capability, just as the day before an FOMC has stopped being a profoundly positive day.

For some reason, the market eventually decided that the eventual FOMC Statement was negative and people were talking about how Janet Yellen’s honeymoon was now over.

I’m not certain who they’re referring to, as I don’t know if the stock market has ever had that kind of relationship with a Federal Reserve Chairman, but after a period of not moving very much after yesterday’s release, the market eventually decided something was really rotten and the sell-off really accelerated having taken the DJIA from a nearly 100 point gain at the time of the announcement to a nearly 200 point loss.

That’s volatility and after a brief respite for a day or two, it’s asserting itself again, although still far below fun levels.

While I don’t trade or buy bonds of any kind, it was also hard to not notice how the Treasury market has been reacting lately, as volatility has definitely found its way into there, as well.

While most fears are related to an increase in interest rates and wondering when that would happen, the 10 Year Treasury fell to about 1.72% and the 30 Year hit all time low rate levels.

Considering that many believe that bond traders are the smart ones in the room you would then have to wonder what the stock market is worried about, as history does show that the bond market is pretty good at predicting Federal Reserve  actions and right now they’re not seeing any kind of imminent rate hike.

This morning, maybe helped by some decent earnings from Dow Chemical and others, the market is showing a little bit of a bounce in the pre-market trading, but after the past 2 days of losses, that so far has the S&P 500 down 2.4% for the week, a little bounce isn’t very much.

There are still 2 days to go this week, so I’m still hopeful that there will be some opportunity to see some assignments. While I was hoping to see all positions set to expire this week, at this point I wouldn’t mind some rollovers as the alternative and might look for any opportunity to do so today, although in general the longer you can wait to do so, the better, as long as the stock price doesn’t move too strongly against you.

Today may see some earnings related trading going on as there are some big movers this morning on their news, both good and bad, but it’s probably tomorrow’s GDP that many are waiting for to either confirm or invalidate the belief that the economy will heat up thanks to falling energy prices.

Because of that uncertainty, and so far there hasn’t been too much indication of what seemed to be so obvious, there may be added reason to want to jump the gun and consider rollovers today rather than waiting until tomorrow when those opportunities may end up being more remote.

 

 

Daily Market Update – January 28, 2015 (Close)

Yesterday wasn’t very good and it all seemed to start with some disappointing earnings numbers that showed the negative side of lower oil prices and a stronger dollar.

Then came data that not only showed less durable goods purchases than would have been expected with the economy growing and with energy price declines fueling new spending, but also revised past months downward.

This morning we started after getting some good news from Apple and Boeing. Along with their sales, revenues and profit news came no real currency news to detract from the feeling that things are looking up on the consumer end of things and with global sales of airplanes.

So this morning, while not really showing much of a bounce from yesterday’s terrible trading, is was at least pointing higher in advance of today’s FOMC Statement release.

Too bad you can’t just turn it off when it suits your needs.

With Morgan Stanley now believing that any interest rate hike from the FOMC won’t come until sometime in 2016 and with the bond market confirming that belief lately, there would be lots of angst if the FOMC were to do otherwise. However, with the latest statistics, including Retail Sales and now Durable Goods, the real surprise is that there doesn’t seem to be the upward pressure on prices that we’ve all thought was coming.

That has to raise the question of where that upward pressure is hiding and why we aren’t seeing any.

While today’s FOMC Statement probably wasn’t likely to provide too much additional information, it wasn’t very wel received after about an hour of mulling it over first.

With no help from the FOMC, Friday’s GDP data might begin to give us some idea of whether these decreasing oil prices are somehow finding their way into the economy. At the very least there’s no currency consideration to offset things. Either people have more money to spend and are spending it, they have more money and aren’t spending it or they really don’t have much more money after spending it on their cellphone, streaming and cable plans.

With the market pointing tentatively higher in the morning it would have been nice to see some opportunity to sell some calls or roll over something other than the Gold Miners ETF, which has been a regular trade lately, as precious metals have taken on some life, as they go about a step and a half forward for every step backward, but that’s a very profitable path to take.

But that wasn’t meant to be, although I did think about doing some more trades in that very same Gold Miners ETF.

At least there was a chance to raise some cash and close the Blackstone position as it reports earnings tomorrow morning. The pure impetus for doing so was the fact that while it was currently $3 in the money and with a bit more than 3 weeks until option expiration, there was really no benefit to keep holding it going into earnings. There was certainly no upside if shares went higher and only potentially a downside.

What helped was that the options market was willing to close the trade at only a few cents cost below the strike. In essence, the time value was only $0.04 for 3 weeks. Think of what you could otherwise do with the money freed up from closing the position and putting it to use over the next 3 weeks.

Too bad there was nothing else to do today.

With a few positions set to expire this week I wouldn’t have minded if the market made some recovery from yesterday’s loss and would have actually liked to see all 4 remaining positions get assigned this week so that some more cash can be piled up, as there isn’t too much doubt that the market is taking on a very different tone and has become directionless.

That seems a lot less likely after the late day’s sell-off, yet another in a string of outside the ordinary kind of trading days in 2015.

Next to having more positions covered, during that kind of directionless and unpredictable trading and sentiment, my favorite position is to have cash to spend, or at least have the option of spending it, as may look warranted.

Today was likely to be a  probably be a day of watching, so at least in that regard I wasn’t too disappointed. While I was still open to making a new position purchase it’s probably not too likely for the rest of the week as there are still too many unknowns in even the last 2 days left of trading that could take stocks in either direction and in a big way.

Just loike today, when there really wasn’t anything well out of the ordinary and yet you see what can happen to stocks and bonds.

Although I wasn’t really expecting too much movement to come from the FOMC news today, the GDP may yet be the wild card. Sooner or later the thesis that had everyone optimistic about plunging oil prices has to either be validated or repudiated.

I’m still hoping to see it validated and the market embracing it as good news.

We could use some

 

 

Daily Market Update – January 28, 2015 (8:45 AM)

Yesterday wasn’t very good and it all seemed to start with some disappointing earnings numbers that showed the negative side of lower oil prices and a stronger dollar.

Then came data that not only showed less durable goods purchases than would have been expected with the economy growing and with energy price declines fueling new spending, but also revised past months downward.

This morning we start after getting some good news from Apple and Boeing. Along with their sales, revenues and profit news came no real currency news to detract from the feeling that things are looking up on the consumer end of things and with global sales of airplanes.

So this morning, while not really showing much of a bounce from yesterday’s terrible trading, is at least pointing higher in advance of today’s FOMC Statement release.

With Morgan Stanley now believing that any interest rate hike from the FOMC won’t come until sometime in 2016 and with the bond market confirming that belief lately, there would be lots of angst if the FOMC were to do otherwise. However, with the latest statistics, including Retail Sales and now Durable Goods, the real surprise is that there doesn’t seem to be the upward pressure on prices that we’ve all thought was coming.

That has to raise the question of where that upward pressure is hiding and why we aren’t seeing any.

While today’s FOMC Statement probably won’t provide too much additional information, Friday’s GDP data should begin to give us some idea of whether these decreasing oil prices are somehow findingtheir way into the economy. At the very least there’s no currency consideration to offset things. Either people have more money to spend and are spending it, they have more money and aren’t spending it or they really don’t have much more money after spending it on their cellphone, streaming and cable plans.

With the market pointing tentatively higher this morning it would be nice to see some opportunity to sell some calls or roll over something other than the Gold Miners ETF, which has been a regular trade lately, as precious metals have taken on some life, as they go about a step and a half forward for every step backward, but that’s a very profitable path to take.

With a few positions set to expire this week I wouldn’t mind if the market made some recovery from yesterday’s loss and would actually like to see all 4 remaining positions get assigned this week so that some more cash can be piled up, as there isn’t too much doubt that the market is taking on a very different tone and has become directionless.

Next to having more positions covered, during that kind of directionless trading and sentiment, my favorite position is to have cash to spend, or at least have the option of spending it, as may look warranted.

Today will probably be a day of watching. While I’m still open to making a new position purchase it’s probably not too likely for the rest of the week as there are still too many unknowns in just the last 2 1/2 days left of trading that could take stocks in either direction and in a big way.

Although I’m not really expecting too much movement to come from the FOMC news today, the GDP may be the wild card. Sooner or later the thesis that had everyone optimistic about plunging oil prices has to either be validated or repudiated.

I’m still hoping to see it validated and the market embracing it as good news..

Daily Market Update – January 27, 2015 (Close)

Most mornings the pre-open futures don’t really mean too much as far as predicting how the day’s trading will go.

The late Mark Haines of CNBC used to say that all the time and always wondered why people got so excited about those numbers.

Certainly, the past week has been testament to just how irrelevant those early trading actions can be in predicting where the rest of the day will go as for most of those days the early indications were quickly reversed within the first hour of trading.

The exception to that general rule is when the pre-open futures moves very strongly in either direction and that was the story that was developing this morning and remained the story all throughout the day.

The main driver for the large drop was the bad earnings that came from DJIA components Microsoft, Caterpillar and United Technologies. That was already worth about 80 points of the 200 point early drop and represented both oil and currency factors and they were taking other innocent victims down along with them.

Somehow, even though the dollar has been gaining strength for a while, it seems strange that people whose job is to factor in all of the tangibles when coming up with earnings estimates somehow overlooked the impact of currency rates.

About another 50% of the pre-open loss was then added with the release of the “Durable Goods” data and the large downward revisions to the previous month. The powerful combination of disappointing earnings from imporatnt DJIA components and a sense that the economy wasn’t doing those sort of things that a robust and growing economy has to do was enough to see to it that the opening market followed the lead of the futures.

Heading into that opening bell there was plenty of reason to believe that the morning’s early indications would have some legs as the market was getting ready to begin trading for the day.

Lately, and for no good reason at all, the day before an FOMC Statement release day has been one that has seen some strong moves higher, in a show of investor confidence that the FOMC would continue being accommodative and that no substantive changes were going to get in the way of the market continuing to move higher.

That could easily have been the case today, but those earnings earnings disappointments and the very large moves seen in some key DJIA components going across sectors gave plenty of reason for the market to begin reclaiming gains this morning, despite would could be waiting ahead in terms of employment growth, wage growth and more discretionary income.

So today, as expected, ended up being a day of just watching and hoping for some kind of a bright spot.

The only thing is that briught spot never came, other than yet another chance to rollover some of the Dold mining ETF as precious metals also continue to ramp up their volatility and unpredictability.

Although most everyone loves the idea of buying stocks on weakness, there’s a limit to what kind of weakness most are willing to test and when. That’s true for individual stocks just as it is for the broader market.

I certainly like buying after declines in particular stocks when there is defined news and it seems to be overdone, but drops like the one that was developing this morning that aren’t very well defined aren’t very enticing. It’s hard to know what’s over done and what isn’t, so it may be best to stay away from the lures that keep popping up and they certainly did so today.

How often can you get a 10% discount on Microsoft and Caterpillar? Not often, but if the rest of the market is going to get infected over currency and growth related earnings, just as Microsoft and Caterpillar took the market lower, the market can then go and take Microsoft and Caterpillar lower, as well.

With expectations for a more sustained large drop in markets being validated with the sudden increase in large falls and rises and the lack of any upward momentum, it seems premature to want to jump in when a large decline characterizes the day. That’s especially true when even considering the pre-open futures decline the market would be barely 3% below its recent high.

Is that over done?

Time will tell and today it didn‘t give any indication that it was over done..

Just as the historically massive snowstorm that was supposed to hit New York City hasn’t really materialized as such, maybe this morning’s decline and the very dour guidances provided by a number of important companies won’t materialize either, but for now you have to believe that they will.

The difference is that the latter will take longer to figure out, but it’s the initial news that really gets our attention and we were all listening this morning.and will do the same again tomorrow.

Daily Market Update – January 27, 2015 (8:45 AM)

Most mornings the pre-open futures don’t really mean too much as far as predicting how the day’s trading will go.

The late Mark Haines of CNBC used to say that all the time and always wondered why people got so excited about those numbers.

Certainly, the past week has been testament to just how irrelevant those early trading actions can be in predicting where the rest of the day will go as for most of those days the early indications were quickly reversed within the first hour of trading.

The exception to that general rule is when the pre-open futures moves very strongly in either direction and that is the story that’s developing this morning.

The main driver for the large drop was the bad earnings that came from DJIA components Microsoft, Caterpillar and United Technologies. That was already worth about 80 points of the 200 point early drop and represented both oil and currency factors and they were taking other innocent victimes down along with them.

About another 50% was then added to the loss with the release of the “Durable Goods” data and the large downward revisions to the previous month, so there’s reason to believe that this morning’s early indications will have some legs as the market gets set to begin its trading for the day.

Lately, and for no good reason at all, the day before an FOMC Statement release day has been one that has seen some strong moves higher, in a show of investor confidence that the FOMC would continue being accommodative and that no substantive changes were going to get in the way of the market continuing to move higher.

That may still be the case but the very disappointing earnings and the very large moves seen in some key DJIA components going across sectors gives plenty of reason for the market to begin reclaiming gains this morning, despite would should be waiting ahead in terms of employment growth, wage growth and more discretionary income.

So today will likely end up being a day of just watching and hoping for some kind of a bright spot.

Although most everyone loves the idea of buying stocks on weakness, there;s a limit to what kind of weakness most are willing to test and when. That’s true for individual stocks just as it is for the broader market.

I certainly like buying after declines in particular stocks when there is defined news and it seems to be overdone, but drops like the one that is developing this morning aren’t very well defined and it’s hard to know what’s over done and what isn’t.

With expectations for a more sustained large drop in markets being validated with the sudden increase in large falls and rises and the lack of any upward momentum, it seems premature to want to jump in when a large decline characterizes the day. That’s especially true when even considering the pre-open futures decline the market would be barely 3% below its recent high.

Is that over done?

Time will tell this morning.

Just as the historically massive snowstorm that was supposed to hit New York City hasn’t really materialized as such, maybe this morning’s decline and the very dour guidances provided by a number of important companies won’t materialize either.

The difference is that the latter will take longer to figure out, but it’s the initial news that really gets our attention and we’re all listening this morning.

.

Daily Market Update – January 26, 2015 (Close)

The morning, although appearing to be ready to get off to a lower start was far better than the overnight futures were indicating, after the larger than expected victory of the opposition party in Greece’s election.

After last week’s trading though, the pre-open futures should have meant nothing for the way the rest of the day would go, as 3 of the 4 trading days last week had very significant turnarounds from the early numbers in less than an hour after the opening bell.

Today was no different, except that there was no decisive character to the day, despite the turnaround from the early losses, as the market just meandered around the unchanged line for most of the day.

While the Greek election results may be a big story, even despite the ECB actions of last week that temporarily lifted the markets, the European economy may largely become irrelevant for us, other than the fact that it helps to prop up the strength of the US dollar.

For now, as opposed to a couple of years ago when the very existence of the EU was being threatened by a possible chain reaction of defaults among some members along its southern frontier, it doesn’t seem as if anyone is really worried about the spread of market contagion to our shores.

As with most things our crystal ball is always very cloudy and even the obvious is often far from assured, so we just wait and watch things unfold as the stronger states in the European Union figure out how to deal with the weaker ones and see their joint currency get devalued in the process, which may be the best solution to get the cycle moving back in their favor again.

This week, after the Greek news, there is actually very little scheduled economic news, but what there is could be of real importance.

The 2 big events are the FOMC Statement release and another set of GDP figures.

The latter may give us an idea of whether the logical increase in consumer spending that we all believed would come from the severely declining energy prices has actually started to happen yet. After the surprise of the Retail Sales report f a couple of weeks ago that showed no such increase, but was widely questioned by many, the GDP report could let us know whether the economy is heating up.

It’s that heating up that could be the cause of the FOMC beginning the process of raising interest rates, as we all have come to expect will happen sooner rather than later.

Those interest rates, especially in the past 2 weeks have been really volatile.

That combination of increasing interest rates, devaluation of the Euro and the ECB pumping lots of liquidity into their bond markets shouldn’t be good for US equity markets, but that’s also an example of trying to apply logic.

This week, with a little replenishment of cash, I was looking forward to spending some of it on new positions. However, because there are only 3 positions set to expire this week, despite all 3 being in a position to be assigned, thereby creating new funds for the following week, the likelihood is that I’ll be looking first at new positions with options to expire this week.

As it turned out, today started exactly like last week did, except that I didn’t add shares of Best Buy again, but did find reason to go the Intel and MetLife route again, at slightly lower prices than last week. It has been a long time since being able to do that and it felt good. Hopefully, it will continue feeling good about this time on Friday, too.

After a brief buying spree, very brief and not much f a spree, I’m content to just watch, as long as that’s watching things move higher,

As has frustratingly been the case for far too long, this week, again my preference is to be able to sell calls on existing positions in order to generate the cash stream for the week and hopefully there will be some good news coming on Wednesday from the FOMC and then again on Friday.

More importantly, if there is good news coming, we won’t revert back to that annoying “good news is bad news” kind of thinking that has been happily absent for a while.

Daily Market Update – January 26, 2015 (8:30 AM)

The morning, although appearing to be ready to get off to a lower start is far better than the overnight futures were indicating, after the larger than expected victory of the opposition party in Greece’s election.

After last week’s trading though, the pre-open futures may mean nothing for the way the rest of the day goes, as 3 of the 4 trading days last week had very significant turnarounds from the early numbers in less than an hour after the opening bell.

While the Greek election results may be a big story, even despite the ECB actions of last week that temporarily lifted the markets, the European economy may largely become irrelevant for us, other than the fact that it helps to prop up the strength of the US dollar.

For now, as opposed to a couple of years ago when the very existence of the EU was being threatened by a possible chain reaction of defaults among some members along its southern frontier, it doesn’t seem as if anyone is really worried about the spread of market contagion to our shores.

As with most things our crystal ball is always very cloudy and even the obvious is often far from assured, so we just wait and watch things unfold as the stronger states in the European Union figure out how to deal with the weaker ones and see their joint currency get devalued in the process, which may be the best solution to get the cycle moving back in their favor again.

This week, after the Greek news, there is actually very little scheduled economic news, but what there is could be of real importance.

The 2 big events are the FOMC Statement release and another set of GDP figures.

The latter may give us an idea of whether the logical increase in consumer spending that we all believed would come from the severely declining energy prices has actually started to happen yet. After the surprise of the Retail Sales report f a couple of weeks ago that showed no such increase, but was widely questioned by many, the GDP report could let us know whether the economy is heating up.

It’s that heating up that could be the cause of the FOMC beginning the process of raising interest rates, as we all have come to expect will happen sooner rather than later.

Those interest rates, especially in the past 2 weeks have been really volatile.

That combination of increasing interest rates, devaluation of the Euro and the ECB pumping lots of liquidity into their bond markets shouldn’t be good for US equity markets, but that’s also an example of trying to apply logic.

This week, with a little replenishment of cash, I’m looking forward to spending some of it on new positions. However, because there are only 3 positions set to expire this week, despite all 3 being in a position to be assigned, thereby creating new funds for the following week, the likelihood is that I’ll be looking first at new positions with options to expire this week.

As has frustratingly been the case for far too long, this week, again my preference is to be able to sell calls on existing positions in order to generate the cash stream for the week and hopefully there will be some good news coming on Wednesday from the FOMC and then again on Friday.

More importantly, if there is good news coming, we won’t revert back to that annoying “good news is bad news” kind of thinking that has been happily absent for a while.

Daily Market Update – January 23, 2015 (8:00 AM)

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

The following trade outcomes are possible today:

Assignments: INTC, MET

Rollovers:  BBY

Expirations:  BAC, EMC

There were no ex-dividend positions this week.

FAST will be ex-dividend next week (1/28 $0.28)

The following positions will be reporting earnings next week:

COH (1/27), FCX (1/27), LXK (1/27), EMC (1/28), LVS (1/28), BX (1/29), DOW (1/29), MAT (1/29), PBR (1/30)

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

Daily Market Update – January 22, 2015 (Close)

All eyes were on this morning’s announcement from the European Central Bank regarding an initiation of its version of Quantitative Easing.

Over the past few months as all eyes had previously been focused on the ECM in expectation of the very same announcement, there had been nothing but disappointment, as Mario Draghi, the President of the ECB talked a great game and occasionally spoke with a John Wayne like swagger and confidence, but delivered on none of it.

This morning, although this has been said before, had the appearances of being different.

The reason it was being given some greater likeliness of finally really be different was because of a credible leak yesterday that gave details of the monthly size of the ECB bond buybacks. The figures suggested seemed to be right along the lines of what many believed it needed to be and was received warmly, although with nowhere near the enthusiasm of previous  well placed source leaks or educated guesses regarding the FOMC’s upcoming actions, from the Wall Street Journal’s Jon Hilsenrath.

Yesterday’s leak may have been what was responsible for the market’s decisive turnaround shortly after the opening bell.

This morning, ahead of the expected announcement the futures were just mildly higher, so it remained to be seen what effect, if any and in what size the reaction might be and, of course, for how long that reaction would last.

About an hour before the official announcement came word that European interest rates would remain unchanged and even though that was not a surprise it gave a small bump to the futures.

Later, when Draghi spoke, not only confirming that action was going to begin, he indicated that the size of the monthly European bond buyback would be 20% larger than thought and would last longer than anyone thought and in fact would be open-ended, lasting until at least September 2016.

The initial response was ebullient in the futures market, but did calm down a little.

In fact, shortly after the opening bell the market actually turned negative, but somewhere along the line, about 45 minutes after the open, the market took off, having really embraced the news.

While the news may be beneficial for European stock markets in the longer term, there’s really no reason to think that it will be the kind of news or provide the kind of fuel needed to send US markets higher for anything much more than a day or so, but it was certainly good to see, even if it is short lived.

The real impetus for further increases could still be upcoming earnings, although thus far, they haven’t been very impressive, although we really haven’t heard anything yet from those businesses that would reasonably be expected to benefit from a severe drop in energy prices.

Interestingly, in an interview yesterday, the CEO of Dow Chemical, which has small oil holdings as part of a Kuwaiti partnership and has seen its shares drop sharply in concert with oil prices, said that the net result of energy price declines was very good for Dow Chemical, because it is a far greater user of energy than it is a producer of energy. That’s something that hasn’t really been factored in yet and Dow Chemical reports its earnings next week.

As with many companies, the earnings may be of interest, but it’s the future guidance that may hold the key.

Hopefully this morning’s ECB announcement will bring some happy news to the US markets as that would be a good way to bring a shortened trading week to its end.

With a few positions set to expire tomorrow, I’d like to see them positioned to either be assigned or rolled over and a couple of good days in succession would really help.

So, Mario, we wanted to know “What’s it going to be?” and this time you didn’t disappoint, but what have you done for us lately?

Daily Market Update – January 22, 2015 (7:30 AM)

All eyes are on this morning’s announcement from the European Central Bank regarding an initiation of its version of Quantitative Easing.

Over the past few months as all eyes had previously been focused on the ECM in expectation of the very same announcement, there had been nothing but disappointment, as Mario Draghi, the President of the ECB talked a great game and occasionally spoke with a John Wayne like swagger and confidence, but delivered on none of it.

This morning, although this has been said before, may be different.

The reason it may finally really be different is because of a credible leak yesterday that gave details of the monthly size of the ECB bond buybacks. The figures suggested seemed to be right along the lines of what many believed it needed to be and was received warmly, although with nowhere near the enthusiasm of previous  well placed source leaks or educated guesses regarding the FOMC‘s upcoming actions, from the Wall Street Journal’s Jon Hilsenrath.

Yesterday’s leak may have been what was responsible for the market’s decisive turnaround shortly after the opening bell.

This morning, ahead of the expected announcement the futures are just mildly higher, so it remains to be seen what effect, if any and in what size the reaction might be and, of course, for how long that recation will last.

While the news may be beneficial for European stock markets in the longer term, there’s really no reason to think that it will be the kind of news or provide the kind of fuel needed to send US markets higher for anything much more than a day or so.

The real impetus could still be upcoming earnings, although thus far, they haven’t been very impressive, although we really haven’t heard anything yet from those businesses that would reasonably be expected to benefit from a severe drop in energy prices.

Interestingly, in an interview yesterday, the CEO of Dow Chemical, which has small oil holdings as part of a Kuwaiti partnership and has seen its shares drop sharply in concert with oil prices, said that the net result of energy price declines was very good for Dow Chemical, because it is a far greater user of energy than it is a producer of energy. That’s something that hasn’t really been factored in yet and Dow Chemical reorts its earnings next week.

As with many companies, the earnings may be of interest, but it’s the future guidance that may hold the key.

Hopefully this morning’s ECB announcement will bring some happy news to the US markets as that would be a good way to bring a shortened trading week to its end.

With a few positions set to expire tomorrow, I’d like to see them positioned to either be assigned or rolled over and a couple of good days in succession would really help.

So, Mario? What’s it going to be?