Wednesday, July 21, 2010

7/22 Almanac

On Thursday, July 22: Existing home sales, jobless claims.

There are 30 days before the August options expire, 58 the September and 86 the October.

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


Stats

Blue chip stocks (SPY) closed the latest regular session down 1.3% from the prior close. During the day SPY traversed 2.2% high to low in a net move down of 1.8%.

Friday's extremes: Open $109.04, high $109.07, low $105.63, close $107.07.

SPY closed below the DeMark pivots. The next DeMark pivots are $105.63-$108.07.

In total, 3.4 billion shares were traded on the three major U.S. stock exchanges, 11% more than on the prior trading day.


Econ reports:

The existing home sales report, out at 10 a.m. Eastern, tops off this week's housing trifecta. The housing market index was reported Monday, and housing starts on Tuesday.

The existing home sales tracks resales of homes. I've always thought the name was odd. I mean, existing homes as opposed to sales of imaginary homes? ("OK. Visualize. Imagine a house. Add a fourth bedroom. Add a tennis court. Now pay me a lot of money. The imaginary house is yours!")

The weekly jobless claims, always a potential market mover these days, will be reported at 8:30 a.m., and natural gas inventories -- big for the energy sector -- at 10:30 a.m.

Lesser reports: The leading indicators at 10 a.m. (one of my favorites, but it rare elicits a market response) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency house price index at 10 a.m..

Also, the ever popular, always ignored Fed balance sheet and money supply at 4:30 p.m.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will be on the Hill again, to wrap up his twice a year report to Congress.


Trading Calendar:

By my rules, at this point in the cycle I can trade August calendar, vertical, diagonal and butterfly spreads, iron condors and covered calls. Also, September straddles and October single calls or puts. Shares, of course, are good anytime.


Good trading!







The Great Reflation: How Investors Can Profit From the New World of Money
OK. The credit bubble burst. Housing, burst. Shockwaves reverberated. Markets collapsed. What lies ahead as we remerge from the wreckage.



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.

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