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An Important Divergence (Preview)

By Lawrence G. McMillan

There is a developing divergence between Cumulative Volume Breadth (CVB) and $SPX. That is, $SPX is making new all-time highs, but CVB is not. CVB is merely the running daily total of “advancing volume minus declining volume.”

February Can Be An Ugly Month (Preview)

By Lawrence G. McMillan

February has been a big problem for the stock market in recent years. The table below shows the $SPX results for February going back to 2002.

Is $VIX “Too Low?” (Preview)

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The title of this article is a question that seems to be asked in many places recently. We have written about this in the past, and our intention in this article is not to re-hash previous discussions. Rather, in this article, we’ll document periods of time where $VIX got low and stayed low for a long while.

2023 Heating Oil – Gasoline Spread (Preview)

By Lawrence G. McMillan

We have been trading this seasonal spread annually every year since 1994, except for 1995. Last year, we were stopped out, but still with a gain.

2023 October Seasonal (Preview)

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The October Seasonal trade will take place this year. It is a very simple trade: buy “the market” at the close of trading on October 27th, and sell out your position on the close of trading on November 2nd. There are adjustments for weekends, but neither of those dates falls on a weekend this year.

Seasonally Bearish The Week After September Expiration (Preview)

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The week after September expiration (i.e., the week after the third Friday of September) is historically a very negative week for the market. In fact, last year, that week saw a 180 point decline in $SPX, the largest point decline that we have seen in the 33 years that we have been using this indicator. It was not the largest percentage drop in a week for this system (that occurred in 2011).

Interest Rates Are Having An Affect On Derivatives (Preview)

By Lawrence G. McMillan

It turns out that the increase in interest rates has gone on long enough and raised rates enough that some things regarding derivatives are occurring that haven’t been in place in quite some time – or ever, for that matter. We are going to address a couple of related topics. Newer option traders might not have seen some of these things before, since essentially interest rates have been at or near zero since 2009, until last year.

The Most Unusual $VIX “Spike Peak” Buy Signal Ever? (Preview)

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The CBOE’s Volatility Index ($VIX) gets a lot of attention from both technical analysts and the media. That was the case this week, as $VIX spiked higher – rising to 25.84 intraday on December 13th, before reversing sharply downward after the CPI number was released. It closed that day at 22.55, more than 3.00 points below its high, and that generated a $VIX “spike peak” buy signal, by our definition.

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