In a perfect world, the Federal Reserve Committee would prefer to sit in the background and not wield any influence, but after the 2008 global financial collapse, they needed to intervene. That action created a dilemma: Do they go deep with an aggressive policy or wait and see how things would shake out? The latter…
DetailsAs the sun sets on 2014, we need to spend a little time reflecting on the market action, charts, patterns and technicals. After all, it is time frames that are most important, and a completed calendar year is an ideal moment to evaluate previous trends and see if they will continue or change. As I…
DetailsI wrote about the CBOE Skew Index a couple of months ago and talked about how it had become a fantastic predictor of correction market moves in 2014. To review, the skew index is a compilation of bets placed on out of the money options, mostly puts. These bets are looking for a big move south…
DetailsI talk about many different money-making strategies regularly, and among this is selling option premium. This is one of the best and simplest ways to earn income, it can also allow you to get into a stock position at a lower price. Next week offers a particularly good chance to get some positions working, as…
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During our last options insights webinar of the year, I ran through an end of year market analysis for options traders. I talked about: the current market behavior and massive move up in stocks over the past couple of days the affect of low crude oil prices on options trading the basic process of trading…
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As long as there is this ridiculous linkage between the S&P 500 Index and the price of crude oil, Jim Cramer of Mad Money on CNBC is going to try to explain the relationship between the two. What better way to predict the direction of these two elements than to consult the charts? Cramer and…
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The last Fed meeting of 2014 will conclude today, Fed Chair Yellen will hold a press conference following their policy decision, and the committee will provide an update of economic projections (the last update came after the September meeting). We should not expect much change from the last statement, as the economy continues to move…
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Today I presented a special options insights webinar covering all of the options trading strategies in one of my eBooks, “Yes, You Do Have Options.”If you are new to options trading, this webinar is for you! It’s a great educational session that covered many aspects of trading (options, stocks and commodities), techniques for trading options,…
DetailsThis week, the Fed is holding a two day meeting, their last of 2014, during which they will announce an updated Federal Reserve policy. The committee will release economic projections for the economy, followed by a press conference with Fed Chair Janet Yellen. Having studied the moves of the Fed for years, I do not…
DetailsThe markets have been unusually active since Thanksgiving. During the last five days, we saw the worst price action for markets in a few years: The Dow Industrials dropped nearly 800 points from the high it set on Monday morning The SPX 500 fell a staggering 3.7%, also off of an all-time high The Russell…
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