If August 1 tariffs don’t lead to a climb in volatility in the next few weeks, it will be time to rethink options bets
I’m looking for volatility’s last stand in the next few weeks. Stock market volatility, as measured by the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) just refuses to move higher. Tariff hikes? Who cares. Speculation that the President will fire the head of the...
VIX drops back to 22.53–I’m looking to replay my January volatility trade
22.53. That was the close on the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) today, Friday, May 9. It’s safe to say that stock market volatility is way down. Back on April 21, the “fear index” was at 34.21. On April 8, at the bottom of the turmoil that followed on the...
As tech sells off in a rout, where’s the fear?
Don’t think traders and Wall Street market strategists haven’t noticed: on a day when AI stocks like Nvidia (NVDA) and Broadcom (AVGO) fell 17% each, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.4%. Yes, Wall Street’s “fear gauge”—-the VIX—soared 20% the most since...
I won’t worry too much about stocks until investors stop buying on the dip
Remember all that fear talk on Tuesday after CPI headline inflation came in at a 3.1% annual rate in January versus the projected 2.9%? Well, that lasted all of a day. Stocks closed up yesterday, February 14 (Happy Valentine’s Day), and again today, February 15. The...
Amazon and Intel both soar on earnings but don’t take the wider market up with them–that’s not a good sign
You can tell a lot about market sentiment by watching how it reacts to good news from individual stocks. Yesterday, both Amazon (AMZN), a current market leader, and Intel (INTC), a former market leaders and still an important technology sector stock, both reported...
The VIX Call Options I bought on my subscription JAM.com site are up 38% since September 25–hold ’em
The VIX, the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index, climbed another 12.32% today, October 2, to 19.78. The Call Options–with a strike at 17 and an expiration on December 20–I bought on the VIX on September 25 are up 38% as of the close on October 2. (I hold...
What does the Federal Reserve have to do to slow the U.S. consumer?
This morning all the way in New York I could hear the gnashing of teeth from Jerome Powell’s office at the Federal Reserve. “What do we have to do to slow consumer spending in the Untied States?” he cried after this morning’s economic data....
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Lots of Volatility But It’s Not Tradeable
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-seventy-first YouTube Video: Lots of Volatility But It’s Not Tradeable. Want to grow your portfolio and protect it too? In the toughest investing market in 40 years? Grab my eBook, Your Best Investing Strategy for the Next 5...
Don’t forget tomorrow’s CPI inflation report
Tomorrow, May 10, brings the key CPI inflation report for April. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg are projecting that headline inflation will rise at a 5% year-over-year rate. That would match the 5% headline rate for the Consumer Price Index in March. The headline...
Is today (or maybe tomorrow?) the moment of maximum short-term fear? On my subscription JubakAM site, I’m selling one of my Call Options on the VIX fear index today
Back on March 6, I bought Call Options on the CBEO S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) at a strike of 23 for the May 17 and June 21 expirations for my Volatility Portfolio on my subscription JubakAM.com site. My logic was that at 18 or so, the VIX was trading at a...
There just isn’t a whole lot of fear in this stock market–at least in the short-term says the VIX
The so-called fear index, the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX), just isn’t very fearful right now. In spite of all the negative talk from Federal Reserve officials, Wall Street figures like JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, and various and sundry...
Economy down but stocks up? Remember that the economy doesn’t equal the stock market
This may seem perplexing: Alphabet (AKA Google) announced that it would cut 12,000 jobs just days after Microsoft (MSFT) said it would cut 10,000 jobs. And stocks, especially technology stocks, rallied. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 1.89% today and...
I expect a Santa Claus rally but after that it’s coal in the stocking for the first half of 2023
I expect investors and the stock market to behave as if Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Reserve has settled the important questions of how high (will the Fed take its benchmark Fed Funds interest rate) and how long (will the Fed continue to raise interest...
Watch my new YouTube video: “Trend of the Week Low VIX in a risky market?”
My one-hundredth-and eighteenth YouTube video “Trend of the Week: Low VIX in a risky market?” went up today. This week’s Trend of the Week asks Why, despite all the turmoil in the markets, has the CBOE Volatility Index–also known as the VIX, or...
So how big a deal is the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the financial markets?
Let me start off by making something very clear–the Russian de facto invasion of Ukraine is a very big deal for the people of Ukraine, the separatists regions, and the countries of Eastern Europe. I think we’re looking at the potential for thousands of...
Markets don’t like what they hear in Fed minutes from December
Today, the Federal Reserve released its minutes from its December 15 meeting of its interest-rate setting body the Federal Open Market Committee. Investors and traders didn’t like what they thought they heard–a growing consensus on a first interest rate...
Watch my new YouTube video: Trend of the Week 10-Year Treasury Notes are Tracking Volatility
I’m starting up my videos again–this time using YouTube as a platform. My eightieth YouTube video “Trend of the Week: Ten-Year Treasury Notes are Tracking Volatility” went up today. Please watch and subscribe to my YouTube channel. And like my...
Remember that volatility creates volatility–time to look to some tax loss selling (like Nektar)
With the VIX “fear index” falling back closer to “normal” levels–it dropped to 21.89 yesterday from 31.12 on December 1–it sure feels like the extreme volatility of the end of November and early December is on the ebb. The move to...
Back to the races: S&P 500 up 2.08% this morning as Omicron fears abate
Here we go again. It’s not that we really have any more information about the Omicron Variant–we certainly don’t know what its effects will be on global economic acuity–but just as fears that the Covid-19 variant would send the world back into...
Fed, jobs report clears the deck for an end of the year market melt up
The dominoes keep tumbling and I think we’re now set up for one of those extremely volatile market melt ups through early January. First, on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve removed a big worry hanging over the stock market when it announced that it would begin...
Stocks reverse, modestly, on debt ceiling hopes
At 10 a.m. New York time this morning stocks looked they were headed to another dismal day. The Standard & Poor’s 500 had lost 1.35% at that point. And then Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said he would be willing to vote with Democrats to raise the...
Individuals buying on the dip can’t keep stocks in the green today
Retail investors sure tried. They bought $1.93 billion in stocks on Monday. But after a solidly higher open today, Tuesday, September 21, that saw the Standard & Poor’s 500 up 0.78% at 9:48 a.m., stocks drifted slowly lower for the rest of the day as a...
Call to Action: Rolling over VIX Options today
On my paid JubakAM.com site today, I recommended selling the November 17 VIX Call Options in my Volatility Portfolio and rolling that profit of 41.25% over to buy the December 22 VIX Call Options. Just so you know what I’m doing on my subscription site about...
So far it’s just a typical September slump
I found myself humming “I scare myself” this morning as the market continued its September selling. The Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks song pretty much sums up the market action this morning. We all know that stocks go down in September so we’re sending...
Solutions for my YouTube video on September/October risk–What to do? 5 Moves
Sign Up for Jim‘s Newsletter Back on September 4 I posted a video on YouTube and this site “September and October 2021 Worse Than Usual for Investors?” that argued that September, the worst performing month for the Standard & Poor’s 500 from 1950...
Stocks gain on “No surprises” speech from Powell
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell didn’t surprise Wall Street with his speech today at the (virtual) Jackson Hole central bankers conference. Instead he left the Federal Reserve on a path to begin reducing its purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed assets...
Stock market “frets” ahead of tomorrow’s Jackson Hole speech by Fed chair Powell
Investors and traders are hedging their bets–a little–ahead of tomorrow morning’s speech by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell at the central banker’s (virtual) Jackson Hole jamboree. The worry is that Powell will says something relatively...
How much of a hedge do you need–and how much can you afford
I try to use big up and (especially) down days in the stock market to stress test my portfolio. One of the things I look to learn from a high volatility down days is how the hedges that I’ve put on to protect my portfolio work under big stress. So, for example,...
Today’s trading doesn’t answer big questions posed by Amazon and Caterpillar earnings last week
I’m looking for answers to two big questions that earnings from Amazon (AMZN) and Caterpillar (CAT) left us with last week. In the case of Amazon, where the company reported a slide in revenue growth after a big bump in sales due to everybody ordering everything...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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