Counting with Doug: Financing a trip to Lake Tahoe solely with blackjack winnings?

Market Recap

The death cross was a little late to the party

The violent trading of the past three weeks has finally triggered the infamous death cross on the SPX Friday: Death (and golden crosses), where the 50-day moving average cross over each other, are by definition trailing indicators. But how badly trailing are they? Simon Maierhofer has done some nice research on this at Yahoo Finance. […]

Volatility starts costing as debt ceiling fears linger

With the debt ceiling deadline looking like it will linger in the news right up to August 2nd, VIX has popped up to 19.25 and trading in the volatility index is drawing increased interest. The highest open interest in August VIX calls is in the 25 strike (186K contracts), closely followed by the 30 strike […]

Half the year is in the bag — how are we doing?

Last year, the run-in to the Independence Day weekend proved to be the low point of the year. This time it’s different, of course, with the markets making a big run over the last four days of the second quarter: So let’s simplify things: The S&P is now up 4.9% for the year so far […]

VIX is once again under 20

With the markets popping today: the VIX is right where I like it — back under 20 again! It will be interesting to see if the S&P can crack through the overhead resistance at 1300, and if so, how easy it is to do it.

Another week that wasn’t?

The last bar on this weekly chart just about sums it up: Or does it? While the markets barely moved on a weekly basis once again, there sure was a lot of action for the action junkies this week. A nice big fake-out to the upside on Tuesday, and then more or less a continual […]

June expiration caps the week that wasn’t

Quadruple witching day for June 2011 brought the S & P 500 right to 1271, which was exactly where it closed last Friday too. In between, a big Tuesday, a super slamdown Wednesday, a touch of the 200 day moving averages Thursday (and a temporary erasure of the year’s gains), but the fact remains that […]

It did not go unnoticed . . .

It certainly did not go unnoticed here that just a few hours after the June VIX expiration, VIX finally popped above 20: Now, the call spread I put on back in April just needed VIX to hit 20 once before June 15th to really pay off. Of course, the index only hit that level right […]

Big Ben disappoints in speaking role . . .

The markets held on to moderate gains for most of the day today, until it was clear that Big Ben had no fairy dust to distribute this time, and that the American economy really is in the crapper. Then it was right back to yesterday’s lows: VIX fell to 18.07, though, and was trading in […]

Most of the year’s gains gone . . .

Don’t look now, but after today’s session, most of the 2011 gains have been wiped out: The S & P 500 is now up only about 2.2%. The VIX closed today at 18.46. I still would dearly love to see it pop above 20, if only for a few minutes!

Summer trading starts with a wipeout

If you were looking for the typical first day of the new month bump up in the markets, you sure didn’t find it today! Summer trading started off with a winter-like wipe-out that extended straight from bell to bell. Today is a good example of why confirmation is important, as yesterday’s close above the important […]

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