The stock market has experienced huge moves so far this year far greater than have been seen since the fall of 2011. There has been a lot of back forth action, but the bears seem to be gradually getting the upper hand. Yet, the indicators are mixed and it could be that the Standard & Poors 500 Index ($SPX) is just in a wide and volatile trading range.
The feature article is our annual assessment of last year’s recommendations. Not only are the results broken down in a great deal of detail, but there is some commentary on what might be changed in order to improve results and avoid past mistakes.
Our market comment is on page 7. The extreme volatility in the broad market has resulted in a number of technical signals being issued this week. As a result, we are going to recommend a trade in SPY (page 9).
There is naked put write recommendation in Gamestop (GME) on page 8.
The market has been on a rather wild ride for over a month now. With the action of the last two days, our indicators have swung back to a bullish status, for the most part.
The fact that $SPX has now risen back above its 20-day moving average and has closed above 2060 is positive. A second day's close above 2060 would be confirmation of the recovery in the $SPX chart.
Equity-only put-call ratios have rolled over to buy signals.
Investing Editor of CNBC.com John Melloy recently wrote an article for CNBC Pro exploring popular stock market correction strategies. Ryan Brennan of McMillan Analysis Corp. was quoted in the article:
'To hedge an entire portfolio, we recommend the purchase of $VIX calls that are roughly 7.5 points out of the money,' said Ryan Brennan of McMillan Analysis Corp. in an email.
Stocks stumbled into year end, with a couple of down days, the second of which was downright nasty. But was this just illiquid, year-end manipulation (as the bulls suggest) or is it something more serious? It's a little early to tell at this point, but if things don't improve quickly, then the bears have a chance to engineer a correction.
Frankly, I don’t put much credence in long-term projections, and neither should you. How many people have you seen on TV making predictions without the least amount of statistical backing? Those would better be called “guesses” or “wishful thinking.” The worst (or best, if you’re cynical) was the CNBC reporter who made sports predictions for next year.
The reversal off the December lows was sharp, powerful, and even record-setting. The chart of the Standard & Poors 500 Index ($SPX) has returned to a bullish status, now that new all-time intraday and closing highs have been registered.
In nearly 45 years of trading, I don't think I've ever seen a market as wild as the one has been this month. Let's review the entire technical picture. First of all, the chart of $SPX has not yet returned to a bullish state. $SPX would have to trade at new highs (above 2080) in order to turn the chart bullish again.
We're proud to announce the latest installment of Lawrence G. McMillan's Intensive Option Webinar series titled "The Secrets Behind McMillan's Trading Systems." This series of 6 webinars will cover each of the major systems we monitor that have been succesffully calling market turns for years. Topics include:
We have traditionally used the mBB system only with respect to the $SPX. It has worked well there, as we have had some very successful mBB signals this year: a buy signal in February, a sell signal in September, a buy signal in October, and now another sell signal recently. The only incorrect signal this year was a sell signal in June ($SPX eventually fell in late July, but no reasonable trader would have still been holding a short that was established in early June).
