Pull the trigger with confidence.

There is a weird phenomenon that has cropped up in the options markets over the past couple of years.  And even weirder is that this weird new phenomenon is flipping itself around.

The CBOE Put/Call Volume Ratio compares the numbers of put options and call options traded each day.  A high reading means that comparatively more puts are getting traded, as options traders are convinced that prices are going to go down.  Usually a high Put/Call Ratio reading is a sign of a short term bottom,... Read More

The stock market in 2023 has been tracking the Annual Seasonal Pattern (ASP) really closely, that is until a late October 2023 extra dip in stock prices that was not on the ASP's program.  Since that dip, stock prices have been rallying hard to get back on track.  But why did that dip happen?

Blame Californians.  I wrote here back on July 21, 2023 about how the IRS had changed the tax filing and payment deadlines for most of California, because of flooding rains in January on previously... Read More

T-Bond prices fell on Nov. 9, 2023, on news of an auction of $24 billion in new 30-year T-Bonds that did not go very well.  The setup for this drop was already there, based on the recent run up in bond prices, which has also affected the corporate bond market.

FINRA publishes data for each trading day on how many corporate bonds went up or down (Advances and Declines).  They separate out the data into Investment Grade, High Yield, and Convertible Securities.  This week's chart above shows a... Read More

There is growing speculation that the Securities and Exchanged Commission (SEC) of the U.S. federal government is close to approving one or more spot Bitcoin ETFs to begin trading.  That speculation has driven up Bitcoin prices to the highest level in more than a year.  It has also driven up total open interest in Bitcoin futures. 

Bitcoin has been around as a cryptocurrency since January 2009, but Bitcoin futures contracts have only been trading since December 2017.  And they did not make... Read More

Two weeks ago, I wrote here about the McClellan Oscillator leaving a "simple" structure above zero, which said that the bulls were not (yet) in charge.  The major averages since then have pushed to a lower low, even as seasonality says that the uptrend is supposed to be starting again now.  But as prices have made lower lows, the NYSE's McClellan A-D Oscillator is making a bullish divergence, which says that the energy is going out of the decline.

The McClellan Oscillator can be thought of... Read More

Back on Sep. 7, 2023, I wrote about a "fishhook" structure that had formed in the Price Oscillator of the SP500.  A fishhook occurs when a Price Oscillator or Summation Index plot makes a temporary reversal attempt and then restarts the prior trend again.  A fishhook represents a failure of the forces of reversal, and it opens the door to the prior trend resuming itself with renewed vigor.

The granddaddy of them all was the fishhook structure that formed in late September 1987, featured in... Read More

As we are looking for when the normal seasonal low is going to arrive, what we want to see is either a juicy oversold condition that one can buy into, or a confirmation of a new uptrend getting started.  Or both.  We did not get as juicy of an oversold condition as I would have liked, but the stock market started up anyway, and even took the NYSE's McClellan A-D Oscillator up above its zero neutral level.

But now the Oscillator has fallen back down through zero as of Friday, Oct. 13, 2023,... Read More

We are just about to wrap up the 3rd year of the current presidential term, and head into the 4th year, also known as election year.  For the purposes of tabulating these years, I start them at the beginning of November instead of January, because the presidential and mid-term elections occur at the beginning of November, and their effect is felt immediately on the stock market rather than after inauguration.

The 3rd year has a long history of being an up year nearly every time.  We have to... Read More