12/21 Morningline

It's Christmas week, which means somewhat lower trading volumes and a greater likelihood of false signals. On Thursday, the market closes early -- 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific. Next week is New Year's week, which will be even slower.
I'll be monitoring the indicators and my positions this week and next, but I'll be doing very little in the way of scanning for new positions. I'll be looking mainly at the high-volume etfs.

The indicators:

• Blue chips (SPY) opens at 110.76 and rising, entered bear mode at close on Dec. 8 (at 109.61)
• Fear index (VIX) 21.46 and falling, bull, Dec. 17 (22.51); a VIX bull signal is bearish for the markets
  
• Treasury long bonds (TLT) 92.06 on a 0.8% gap down, bull, Dec. 17 (93.19)
• Gold (GLD) 109.17 and going nowhere, bear, Dec. 17 (108.00)
  
• Oil (USO) 36.95 and going nowhere, bull, Dec. 16, (36.74)

Currency pairs:

• Dollars per euro (EUR/USD) 1.4307 and rising, bear, Dec. 4 (1.49)
• Yen per dollar (USD/JPY) 90.26 and rising, bear, Dec. 9 (87.86)

Oddly, the dollar is weakening with respect to the Euro and strengthening with respect to the yen.

Holdings, January expiry

• KO, iron condor (p50/-p52.5/-c57.5/c60) 57.02 and unchanging, bull, Dec. 1 (58.08)
• LVS, covered call (-c16) 15.42 and unchanging, bull, Dec. 14 (16.31)
• SBUX, bull put spread (p22.5/-p24) 23.69 and falling, bull, Dec. 18 (23.68)
  
• X, bear call spread (-c40/c41) 50.58 on a 2.7% gap up, bull, Dec. 9 (46.74)

The X position needs to be closed, as it has broken out of resistance contrary to the direction of the trade.


(Signaling by Person's proprietary signal.)