Testing the bottom 2010 trendline
The closing value of SPY is within about a dollar of the 2010 bottom trendline in the chart below. There is lots of talk about a double dip recession, but I’m betting on a bounce.
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Are we at the bottom yet?
After several sell-off days with low volume, the buyers seem to be coming back. I bought SPY at 105.22, sold 27-Aug 106 calls at 0.58. Breakeven is 104.64. Maximum profit is $1.36 per share. Livevol shows the 27-Aug 106 IV’s at 28 and the 18-Sept monthly IV for the 106 calls at 24. Right now, Livevol’s IV numbers are the only ones I believe for …
XXV Prospectus
Update: Barclays terminated XXV in April 2018. There is no replacement product. ********************************************************** XXV Prospectus: XXV: Barclays Inverse VolatilityETNs Usually getting the prospectus for a new ETF or ETN takes a Google search and a couple minutes of browsing. The prospectus for Barclays’ new XXV inverse volatility ETN proved to be a much more elusive search—it didn’t show up in the top 20 hits. …
Trading puts in an IRA account
Most IRAs will allow buying puts (assuming you get the appropriate approvals), even if you don’t own the underlying in the account. This opens up the field for speculative uses of options, in addition to the buttoned-down protective put strategies. Recently I had deep in the money puts and OTM covered calls on SPY in my IRA account. As expiration approached I …
Two summers of doing nothing
Labor day is only a few weeks away, and it is looking like the summers of 2004 and 2010 will both end up flat for SPY. Three observations: Last week’s move above 113 was interesting, it was close to bouncing off the 2004 top trendline, perhaps we will finally see some sort of recognizable pattern to the market tops in 2010. Squinting at the …
