Tuesday, August 3, 2010

8/4 Almanac

On Wednesday, Aug. 4: Employment preview.

There are 17 days before the August options expire, 45 the September and 73 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 0.5% from the prior close. During the day SPY traversed 0.8% high to low in a net move down of 0.2%.

The day's extremes: Open $112.48, high $112.77, low $111.85, close $112.22.

SPY closed within the DeMark pivots after trading below them. The next DeMark pivots are $111.58-$112.50.

In total, 2.8 billion shares were traded on the three major U.S. stock exchanges, 7% fewer than on the prior trading day.


Econ reports:

Earthquakes have aftershocks. The monthly employment report from the government has preshocks.

One of those preshocks comes on Wednesday, with the ADP employment report at 8:15 a.m. Eastern. This is a survey from the giant payroll processing company's records. It's not as complete as Friday's government report, but its an early indicator, and the markets sometimes react.


Personal income and outlays will be released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. This report can move markets, and arguably now more than ever. It tracks the portion of income that Americans are spending, and derives from that the rate at which people are saving.

Less followed is the Challenger job-cut report, out at 7:30 a.m., which tracks layoffs based on state labor department info.

Also on Wednesday: Petroleum inventories at 10:30 a.m., a Treasury refunding announcement at 9 a.m., the MBA purchase applications at 7 a.m., and a speech by Treasury secretary Tim Geithner at 4 p.m.

A full day.


Trading Calendar:

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


Good trading!













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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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