Good week overall. It was short and sweet. Holiday weeks can be fun with options when there is low volume and big moves. SPX has finally moved back above 2750 and as long as it holds 2800 should be in the cards in the next couple of weeks. Breadth: All the typical measures I post...
Talk about chop and a very challenging week to trade options. From Monday morning through the rest of the week the option premium was elevated due to the VIX. Thus, even if you had a great trade opportunity, it often wasn’t worth the premium. Next week is a holiday week so 1) it is likely...
SPX went nowhere again last week and again we managed to be in the best trades. Remember after a great streak it’s easy to give money back. Don’t change how you normally position size and trade. Breadth: SPX stocks at 20-day highs: Towards the bottom of the range and where it usually bounces. Still hasn’t...
Fantastic week, mainly because we were in the two best momentum movers. Just goes to show that it only takes one or two good trades to really flourish. Now that monthly OPEX is over the high calls and puts on each stock will have greater impact again. Breadth: In general there is nothing really relevant...
Market has been giving some follow through which definitely makes it a better trading environment. The end of the week showed some signs of rotation out of tech so it may be something to keep an eye on next week. Breadth: SPX stocks at 20-day highs: Still can’t seem to hold over 30%, but based...
A very choppy week that ended with a bang. The tech/momentum stocks remained strong most of the week and several have broken out to new highs. We know that since February breakouts have not had follow through so if we actually get some follow through next week then we could be entering a different market...
Last week the indices were essentially flat, yet there were a couple of decent movers under the surface. Many of the momo’s also stayed within a tight range or were a tease, so that we were able to catch a couple large moves within a sea of gross action is pretty good. Breadth: Very little...
OPEX week was a bust. Very, very few opportunities last week. Nothing we can do about that except be patient. Two weeks ago we took a lot more trades cause the opportunities were there, last week we took only a few. Hopefully now that OPEX is over we can get a week (or more) of...
We are finally getting a bit more opportunity from the market, which helps bank more profits. In the bigger picture we are still in a large range, but there are signs of more follow through for now. Breadth: SPX stocks at 20-day highs: Not overbought or oversold. SPX stocks above their 20-day MA: Not much...
Great week. Even though we are still rangebound and still taking less trades while we are not trending, all of the trades last week were winners. Can’t really ask for more than that it this type of market. Breadth: Just like last week these are in no-mans land so just going to post them. We...
A no trending market is the hardest market to trade and I continue to say less is more. Barely any trades last week because the opportunities were so slim. Unless you held something through earnings there were really no large enough moves worth options. Breadth: There are no comments for any of these breadth measures...
Purchase access here Please note that open interest often changes during the week when a stock has a big move. This provides a great starting point, but it would be up to you to continue to track it throughout the week if you are trading one of these names. If it’s an earnings name, the chart will...
Still choppy, still no trend, still no follow through. Profits really need to be taken quick. Holding doesn’t work on either side right now. Breadth: SPX stocks at 20-day highs: We did finally get over 15%, but so far no follow through. As I said last week, the issue with oversold conditions that keep relieving...
Range bound and very challenging environment right now. There is absolutely no trend and no trend means brutal chop. SPX does seem to be forming a rounded bottom and with earnings coming up we are likely getting closer to some better movement and follow through. Breadth: Essentially we are not oversold or overbought and are...
The market continues to be without trend and although there is plenty of movement, option trading has to be precise and very short term at the moment. Although traders are constantly wanting volatility, it’s a double edge sword because it makes for a lot of chop and trading becomes a lot more challenging. I will...
It’s been a tough few weeks where every trade taken likely needs to be very short term and carries extra risk. There hasn’t been much follow through and knowing that and importantly understanding that should be taken into consideration when deciding if a trade is worth it. Most traders lose money in this type of...
The entire month of March up to now (and for the most part February) have been non-trending. The last two weeks have been extremely poor in terms of trading opportunities. There is tons of chop and very high premium making options very difficult to trade. That will eventually change, but no one knows when and...
Really crappy trading opportunities last week. There is nothing we can do about that except stay patient and persevere our cash because from annoying trading ranges comes lots of great opportunities. In the end the most important part of our job as traders is to be patient when opportunities are not there. If you can’t...
Fantastic week. We stayed patient throughout the week and for the first time this year traded mostly using next weeks (OPEX) options. That was a great strategy because there was tons of chop and sucking out of premium on weeklies. The weeklies stayed with were huge winners. As of now I expect to see more...
It doesn’t get much more choppy and challenging than last week. One thing we can take notice of is that throughout all that crazy chop the open interest worked really well. For SPY the Wednesday high calls completely rejected price and then on Friday’s expiration the high puts held the first time and upon the...
We went into last week knowing we would likely get some back and fill and chop. That information helped us to be patient and not chase in the beginning of the week. We didn’t trade much and we didn’t have grand slams, but we had a few small winners and in last weeks kind of...
Last week was great. We didn’t make too many trades, but we had some real monster winners in some of the ones we did take. Typically the week after OPEX tends to be slower so lets keep that in mind with regard to how much we want to trade next week. Breadth: SPX stocks at...
The market finally corrected with a decent washout along with it. After a market that has gone straight up for over a year that was probably a disaster for most peoples accounts; luckily we managed well by keeping our exposure very minimal while breadth kept signaling overbought. Now with plenty of cash from the money...
Finally after over a month of me showing that we were in overbought territory the market has solidly pulled back from that. I mentioned for weeks that overbought was not a reason to short, but information to keep in the back of our minds so we never got overly long. We did get hurt on...
Insane strength in the market and new highs. Still there is some chop during the week so it’s not the case that everything is going straight up and entries and exists as we see still matter. We were able to take advantage last week though very short term trades. It seemed to work the best...
Despite the market being at highs, things have no doubt slowed down, which is why our trading has slowed down. Our activity needs to be in sync with the overall activity in the market environment and given how things have become overbought we may again see a slower market next week. However, because earnings are...
Another great week – 2018 starting off with a bang :-). Breadth: SPX stocks at 20-day highs: Finally I have to expand this chart out 2 years because we surpassed 2017 levels. Clearly we are overbought. That means that either a pause (a sideways consolidation to work off overbought conditions) or pullback is on the...
Awesome week! Moving on to next week. Breadth: SPX stocks at 20-day highs: Last week this measure was oversold. Currently, it’s as high as it has been since 2017. As you can see on this 2 year chart that it can go higher, but either way the market is at or very close to a...
New year! New beginnings! Let’s make 2018 the best yet! Breadth: SPX stocks at 20-day highs: On this short term measure the market is actually oversold. It can stay down at these levels for about a week if things are really weak, but we are likely to get a decent bounce at some point over...
Happy Holiday’s! Let’s get right into next week! If you have not yet subscribed to my weekly freebie you can do so below to get next weeks trade sent to your mailbox Monday morning (Tuesday this week). Last week I outlined a trade for AAPL which did work if you took profits quickly and before […]
Last week was insanely slow and I don’t see why next week will be much different. The year is basically over for large firms and thus it will be a few small players and algos most of next week. That doesn’t mean there will be no trading opportunities, but they might be very hard to...
Back to closing at all time highs in SPX which will likely lead to more new highs next week. Also, a lot of charts, especially in momentum names look much better. There is only two trading weeks left and we are coming into what is usually a very strong time of the year. Breadth: SPX...
Last week was not a very friendly trading environment for short term traders like ourselves. However, we took very few trades and did fairly well overall. Can’t ask for more than that during such a week. Let’s get into next week. Breadth: SPX stocks at 20-day highs: Last week we got to short term oversold...
The market finally got a bit of volatility last week, but still ended on a fairly bullish note that needs to be confirmed next week. I mentioned last week that I was expecting rotation and although I didn’t get in as early as I would have liked we did navigate last week pretty well and...
Last week was short but ended up being a great week for us. SPX back at all time highs and closed over 2600. Typically that would lead to continuation so we will likely see higher highs next week. Breadth: The SPX measures are not overbought or oversold and thus unhelpful to us in the short...
I went into the week saying I thought we would likely get a few very rangebound slow days and then maybe a couple good ones. Turned out we only got one real good day and luckily we were in from the beginning with the gap up. Overall though things are still really choppy within a...
Very choppy week and SPX didn’t close at all time highs for first time in a several weeks. I mentioned last week that round numbers (i.e. 2600) are very hard to get through the first time so it should be no surprise that we weren’t able to keep going once we made a new high....
What a great week with some monster winners in there. We still are in the midst of earnings season, though the bulk of the momentum stocks have already reported. SPX once again is at all time highs and likely to make a higher high again in the next couple of weeks. Breadth: SPX stocks at...
The start to the week was very uninspiring and difficult to trade, but the end turned out to be great. It was a good reminder of why it’s important to be patient when trading. Better to take swings when the market environment is friendly to traders. Of course that’s easier said than done, but I...
Last week was not a friendly environment for short term traders. There were a couple rug pulls mixed in with a ton of sideways action that kills short term option buyers. As traders there is nothing we can do about that except know that the market isn’t trending and be less active and careful to...
As crazy as it may seem the uptrend continues unfazed for now. Last week I said we would likely see a lot of sideways action. I didn’t mean for that to be literal, but with SPX it pretty much was. I do think we will begin to move outside of that tight range next week...
We are currently in such a strong market that SPY was able to push over high strike calls and continue higher Wednesday and Friday. There is no doubt SPX could use some consolidation, but it doesn’t mean that it will and it also doesn’t mean stocks by themselves can’t continue to be strong and rally....
The market made new highs last week and based on Friday’s closed is very likely to see higher highs next week. A new quarter begins Monday and we are mostly flat so we will go with the flow based on where money is moving. Breadth: For the most part the breadth doesn’t give us any...
Doesn’t get much more choppy than last week. Lots of stocks had intra-day moves, but for the most part none of the stocks we like to trade had much follow through. If next week is similar than we need to keep things very short term. Last week traded mostly weeklies which was the right strategy...
A gap up Monday morning that never looked back. I will be the first to admit I wasn’t expecting that, but despite the open interest and any concerns I had, we did not try fighting SPX. It’s possible some of the move last week can be attributed to OPEX (quad witching in particular which can...
After the rally right before Labor Day the market was looking much stronger. The fact that it dropped last week back under 2470 raises some red flags despite that it is still just in a range. Next week is OPEX, which tends have a bullish bias, so I’m not necessarily going into next week thinking...
For it being the last week of August a whole lot took place and seems I missed out on some of the fun. In my post last week I said I wouldn’t trust any move up until that 2429 SPX gap was filled and that if breadth wasn’t terrible when it was filled it was...
Last week I wrote that the most likely scenario would be a very rangebound market, which ended up being exactly how it played out. Chop chop all week long. Given that next week is the last week of August and right before Labor Day weekend there will likely be a continuation of very choppy days....
I said last weekend that I didn’t think the lows were in yet and even though I didn’t anticipate a gap up Monday, I did have enough sense (with the help from our open interest graphs) to not chase things. Instead we were patient and looked more for short set-ups which worked out well. At...
Please note that open interest often changes during the week when a stock has a big move. This provides a great starting point, but it would be up to you to continue to track it throughout the week if you are trading one of these names. If it’s an earnings name, the chart will be updated the […]
Last weekend I discussed being very careful getting long even if there was a large rally where everything looked good. Looking back that advice was probably the best thing I did all week. It’s bad enough when you lose money being positioned wrong, but what I have found over the years is when positioned wrong...
Once again SPX closed pretty much at the exact spot it closed the Friday before. Lots of chop the last couple weeks without many good plays. Breakouts aren’t holding well, good earnings are being sold, bad earnings are being hammered and we are left with very few good looking plays. At some point one side...
Even with a ton of companies reporting, the FOMC, and the late week flush, SPX closed at the exact same level it did last Friday. Whether Thursday was a one day event or we will we see more selling is yet to be determined. I do not think SPX has topped, but I also don’t...
Last week SPX closed higher, something we knew was very likely. We also knew going into the week that SPY would likely struggle keeping over 247 and indeed it did. Interestingly SPY closed right under 247 and higher than what would have been the best pin. This is a sign of strength as well as...
Last week was great, which we knew was a possibility based on the SPY open interest and now I can finally once again say SPX closed at all time highs. Furthermore, although the IWM hasn’t seemed to move much, it also closed at an all time high. Bottom line is that new highs are bullish...
This is second week in a row that bears had some action, but in the end we ended up back in the same range. Although the market has been showing cracks, the bulls continue to fight back making it very difficult to short (which is why I’ve been mostly patient when things sell off and don’t jump...
SPY Open Interest Range for Mon, Wed & Quarter End Expiration
Last week here we had three expirations that didn’t give much in the way of a “best pin,” but did offer information about where there would be high put support and/or call resistance. I mentioned the high puts at 276 for Friday’s expiration and said that upon a first touch or break of that it […]
Share this:
Read More →
Read More →