There is a brief window over the next couple of weeks where the market could be vulnerable, before bullish end-of-the-year seasonal patterns come into play. Our short-term market opinion is bearish (page 5), which fits within this scenario.
Meanwhile, the feature article addresses several of the seasonally bullish patterns, the most prominent of which we call the Post-Thanksgiving Seasonal trade. A recommendation is made for that system, on page 3.
Note that there are three weeks between newsletters, since there are five Thursdays in October. The next issue will be published on Thursday, November 12th, and of course there will be Hotline updates for the intervening weeks.
Everyone knows that stocks can gap by huge amounts on earnings reports. Who in their right mind would want to sell such straddles? We touched on this subject in the last issue, but have since had time to complete a more rigorous study. It turns out that, at times, these straddles can be sold.
We have been having a good amount of success with our event-driven straddles this year – especially with the pre-earnings straddle buys. We have refined that technique through several modifications since we first began by buying the Qualcomm (QCOM) straddle back in late January. I feel that we have a very workable strategy now, but there is one “hole” in it, which we will address in this article.
There are several seasonal trades that we use in the fall of the year – primarily the “October seasonal,” the “Post-Thanksgiving Trade.” and the “Heating Oil – Unleaded Gas Seasonal.” There are some others, too, that we don’t usually trade, such as the “January Effect” (which actually occurs in December), the “Santa Claus Rally,” and other trades surrounding Thanksgiving. As noted, we don’t usually trade the latter three specifically, but we have incorporated them into first set of systems that we do trade.
One of the great things about trading is also one of the worst things – the market can spring things on you that you never saw coming. Even if you were bearish, you certainly didn’t expect this kind of reaction (or if you did, I submit you’ve been bearish for a long time). In volatility trading, surprises can occur as well – and they have done so this time, as well.
This is an article about Apple, but in a more general sense it is an article about whether the “modified Bollinger Band” system can be applied to stock charts.
We have been operating an event-driven straddle buying strategy in advance of earnings for several months now, with mostly favorable results. However, this week something happened that we haven’t seen before: the straddles increased greatly in value before the earnings were announced.
With this issue, we attempted to return to the normal publishing schedule – the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month. However, due to some scheduling issues, the full newsletter was not available until Sunday, July 26th, although the Hotline was published on time on Friday, July 24th.
The CBOE has listed $VIX weekly futures – their third attempt at a weekly volatility product that might compete with VXX weekly options. Trading began on July 23rd.
It is estimated that options on the new $VIX weekly futures will begin trading in three or four weeks, although that isn’t set in stone. Certain details have to worked out with the OCC, such a margin requirements. Typically, in the past, those things have taken three or four weeks.
