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Try it Again Tuesday – What Will it Take to Move the Markets Higher?

If it's Tuesday, we must be at the week's highs .   Obviously, we're still bearish and the news we've been discussing this morning in Member Chat certainly hasn't changed my opinion on that.   Back on August 7th (first Tuesday of last month) , I said we were about $700Bn in stimulus short of what we need to support S&P 1,400 and we knew we would have to wait a month to see how much we got from Draghi and Bernanke but, so far, and with Ben already out of the way, we have zero .   At $10Bn per S&P point that puts our fair value all the way down to 1,330 but keep in mind that the $500Bn we did get only lasts for 6 months so more like 1,310 at this point without a proper commitment by the ECB or Fed this week.  Even 1,310 would be up 50 from the June lows and it would represent a neat 2/3 retracement of the rally since then.  Our $25,000 Portfolio has, if anything, gotten more bearish as we dragged along the top but another thing we've done each Tuesday has been to take aggressive bullish positions to cover ourselves IN CASE someone actually does put up the cash needed to goose the markets over our breakout levels ( see Friday's post for current positions in the virtual Portfolio and our levels ).   On Tuesday, August 14th , our trade ideas were as follows :   2 FAS Oct $105/115 bull call spread at $2, selling 1 BBY 2014 $18 puts for $3.25 for net .75, now $1.80 – up 140% (trade stopped at 150%) - 2014 SHLD $32.50 puts sold for $7.50, now $6 – up 20%  6 EWJ Jan $9 calls at .53, selling 1 BBY 2014 $18 put at $3.25 for a net .07 credit, still net $2.60 credit – down 3,800% (trade stopped at up 1,000%)   …

If it's Tuesday, we must be at the week's highs.  

Obviously, we're still bearish and the news we've been discussing this morning in Member Chat certainly hasn't changed my opinion on that.  Back on August 7th (first Tuesday of last month), I said we were about $700Bn in stimulus short of what we need to support S&P 1,400 and we knew we would have to wait a month to see how much we got from Draghi and Bernanke but, so far, and with Ben already out of the way, we have zero.  

At $10Bn per S&P point that puts our fair value all the way down to 1,330 but keep in mind that the $500Bn we did get only lasts for 6 months so more like 1,310 at this point without a proper commitment by the ECB or Fed this week.  Even 1,310 would be up 50 from the June lows and it would represent a neat 2/3 retracement of the rally since then.  Our $25,000 Portfolio has, if anything, gotten more bearish as we dragged along the top but another thing we've done each Tuesday has been to take aggressive bullish positions to cover ourselves IN CASE someone actually does put up the cash needed to goose the markets over our breakout levels (see Friday's post for current positions in the virtual Portfolio and our levels).  

On Tuesday, August 14th, our trade ideas were as follows:  

  • 2 FAS Oct $105/115 bull call spread at $2, selling 1 BBY 2014 $18 puts for $3.25 for net .75, now $1.80 – up 140% (trade stopped at 150%) -
  • 2014 SHLD $32.50 puts sold for $7.50, now $6 – up 20% 
  • 6 EWJ Jan $9 calls at .53, selling 1 BBY 2014 $18 put at $3.25 for a net .07 credit, still net $2.60 credit – down 3,800% (trade stopped at up 1,000%)  


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