On the 4th Monday in April, I wrote this piece:
http://epiphanytrading.blogspot.com/search?q=options
Well, I probably should have saved myself some work on Friday morning in simply cutting and pasting that post. But in light of Friday’s market action, I want to expand two points of that post: first, I realized that there are many people who don’t understand options whatsoever so let me give a rudimentary lesson here. Days like Friday are hard to trade because big players are moving things around in a tight range. For sake of argument, let's say AIG is at 40. Let’s say you think it will go up and you want to play the options market. A call option means you think it will go up. A put option, should you think AIG is heading south is what you should purchase. Options pricing- call or put- has two components...time and value. So, the September 40 call expired Friday (all options for a particular month end on the 3rd Friday of the month). If the stock closed at 42, the September 40 call would have been worth 2. If it closed at 41, 1. If it closed at 40, 0. If it closed at 39, 0. Yet, again pretending the stock is at 40, the October 40 call (expiring the 3rd Friday of October) has a value of 4 right now. This means that if the stock closed at 44 on the 3rd Friday in October, you'd break even (but make money if it went there before that Friday as time has value as well). So, for fun, with the stock at 40, let's say the September 40 call is 25 cents and the September put is 25 cents at 3PM ET. That means options players would be pricing in a 25 cent move either way...nobody wants to lose so there is a tug of war in which the stock closes at or near 40. The second main point here is to note that things used to be very volatile on options expiration days (and still can be). But the trend in recent years (particularly in bullish channels) has been that there is an undercurrent for stocks to stay in a locked range. Thus, one gets very dangerous days such as Friday which become a scalper’s paradise. There is a gentle trend one way or another and nothing major happens. So, make sure you pay attention to the calendar each month as well as how the market has been acting in the days leading up to options expiration Friday because you likely will be able to garner clues about the type of action that particular Friday will produce.
Markets overnight were down throughout the world. Tokyo was closed, but Hong Kong was down almost 1%. European bourses are down around 1% average. Oil is down 1.5%, gold 1%, and the dollar is nicely higher. So, basically, as I noted was likely in Friday afternoon's (6:30PM anyway) video, there has been a bit of a reversal of everything that happened last week. Oftentimes, the Monday after a strong move tends to be a countertrend day as options players peel away from their positions thus this too is leading to some market weakness this morning. Look for a relatively weak day overall on low volume. It is going to be another choppy day, but the newsflow is a little heavier in microcap world so focus upon the news-centric stocks and for goodness sakes, don’t scalp on a day like this (or Friday) or you’ll likely find yourself better off having enjoyed the sunny day outside.
Watch list:
09212009Eriklist.zip
Reiterating-
Please understand that if the ideas do not get to the hoped for set-ups cited below, more often than not, one should not blindly trade the symbol next to said idea.
If the whole story is not there -
If something is good, assume either a short thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified.If something is bad, assume either a buy thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified-
Good- The following stocks have good news and/or a strong technical pattern
IOC- closed near a high on an upgrade and positive oil well buzz
HGG- closed near a high after an upgrade
SXCI- closed near a high after a share offering
NANO- closed near a high
CALI- closed on a high
ONCY- closed near a high
NCT- closed on a high
GTN- closed on a high
CLFD- closed near a high
MDRX- closed near a high after an upgrade
ZOOM- snapped back violently to close on a high
HAIN, TKLC- mentioned on “Mad Money” on Friday night
BPFH- closed near a high after the sale of a unit
AMGN- positive phase III Denosumab trial
NKTR- AZN licensed two drugs from NKTR
BCRX- got additional $77.2 million award from U.S. Department of Health and Huma Services to develop Peramivir for influenza
DCGN- discovered four new risk factors for prostate cancer
INCY- announced positive phase IIb results for INCB18424
RNN- licensing deal with TEVA
CUR- received FDA approval to commence first ALS stem cell trial
Bad-The following stocks have bad news and/or a weak technical pattern
POT- warned on earnings Friday afternoon; MOS, AGU, IPI may follow along in sympathy
DELL- acquiring PER for 30 in cash
LEN- bad earnings
Earnings:
MON SEP 21 BEFORE
LEN
MON SEP 21 AFTER
SNX
Good luck today.
Epiphany Trading, LLC
www.epiphanytrading.com
Erik R. Kolodny- Chief Markets Strategist
Brendan P. Byrne- President
Joseph R. McCandless- Managing Partner
D. Timothy Seaquist- Managing Partner
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