Looking for a correction
I bought SPY 113 April puts this morning at 1.89 when SPY was trading at about 114.65. I think the next major market move will be a downswing.
Mainstream
The basics: what you can do in different account types, general strategies, suggestions, and things to avoid.
Trading range, break-out, or double dip–some patience required
I have been not so patiently waiting for the market to pick a direction. I have been surprised at the strength of the rebound from the lows a month ago–we are less than a point away from SPY setting 15 month highs. My gut is still telling me we are in a trading range similar to 2004 and 1999 after big bull run-ups, …
Dividend capture strategies—three approaches to skip
The dividend capture approaches that I describe below do work some of the time. My experience is that they expose the investor to excessive risk relative to the payoff–or they don’t pay off often enough. Buy and hold dividend paying stocks If you love the stock, this is a fine strategy, but then it really isn’t a dividend capture strategy. The dividend is just a …
S&P500–going for another date/price match between 2004 and 2010?
The surprising date / value / normalized volume correlation on the S&P 500 between 2004 and 2010 continues, with the 3rd of March SPY closings only differing by 3%. If 2010 continues to track 2004 then we should see an ongoing ramp in trading volume, with a 30 day moving average of around 300 million shares per day on SPY, compared to the current run rate …
Monitoring the yield curve–a slow motion train wreck
I continue to scan for ways to profit on what I believe will be the inevitable rise of interest rates in the future. I think the classic 30 to 40% weighting in bonds that financial advisers propose for balanced risk, moderate growth portfolios is going to be a big loser in the next couple of years. This Bloomberg webpage has a daily graphical update …
