Monday, August 30, 2010

8/31 Almanac

On Tuesday, Aug. 31: Fed minutes, consumer confidence, metro-area home prices.

There are 18 days before the September options expire, 46 the October and 81 the November.

On the jump, market stats, econ reports, and the trading calendar . . .

Stats

Blue chip stocks (SPY) closed the latest regular session up 1.5% from the prior close. During the day SPY traversed 1.5% high to low in a net move down of 1.2%.

The day's extremes: Open $105.58, high $106.91, low $105.30, close $105.31.

SPY closed below the DeMark pivots. The next DeMark pivots are $104.50-$106.11.

In total, 2.4 billion shares were traded on the three major U.S. stock exchanges, 26% fewer than on the prior trading day.


Econ reports:

The Federal Open Market Committee at 2 p.m. Eastern releases minutes of its meeting three weeks ago. Occasionally a market mover, although not regularly. However, we're in a period of uncertainty about where the Fed stands in balancing inflationary and deflationary fields. So the detail available in the minutes can provide key intelligence to people who seek to divine such things.

Also, consumer confidence at 10 a.m., a monthly report from the Conference Board that asks people what they of the economy now and going forward. Hint: Think "awful" and "not much better".

An index tracking home prices in 20 metro area will be out at 9 a.m. All real estate markets are local -- no globaloney here -- so these place-specific numbers are, I think, the most interesting of all the housing measures.

Small fry: Shopping center store sales at 7:45 a.m. and a Redbook retail measure at 8:55 a.m., the Chicagoland business conditions report (Chicago PMI) at 9:45 a.m., the State Street investor confidence index at 10 a.m. and farm prices at 3 p.m. That's a lot of jellybeans in the bowl.


Trading Calendar:

By my rules, at this point in the cycle I can trade September calendar and vertical spreads. Also, November straddles and single calls or puts. Shares, of course, are good anytime.


Enjoy the weekend!

Abbreviations:

  • psar - Parabolic Stop and Reverse
  • adx - Average Directional Index
  • pps - Person's Proprietary Signal
  • ma20 - 20-day moving average
  • macd - Moving Average Convergence-Divergence
  • sto - Fast Stochastic


About the glance: The colors indicate the state of each signal.

  • trend: Determined by the 5-day moving average, green for up, red for down, yellow for sideways
  • adx: orange for above 30-up, blue for 20-down, purple for in the middle. Red is most prone to whipsaws
  • psar, pps, macd: green for bull mode, red for bear
  • sto: green for overbought, red for oversold, yellow for the neutral zone.

No comments:

Post a Comment