unless I misread this thread but many of you folks seem to like the downside ? I think too early - more pain on the upside to come - I still buy the dips
NDX is above my 1420 key level and the SPX is .91 cents away from 1142 with 15 minutes to go. Stay tuned!
That was so fast. I just blew 10 of those SMH out for a bit over a half. SMH just flew there. Book em while you have em..... Taking the rest home and looking to snag a few puts on the close.
SMH goes green and the NDX finishes well above 1420. SPX closes a tad below 1142.00 but the March S&P bounces off the 50 day MA at 1136.00 today. Is the Asset-Allocator finished? That is the question!
P... thought you said recently that semis would lead the market lower... and that you expected something like a 30% markdown in said stocks (if I recall your post... but you know which one I am talking about)....... in the next few weeks. Have you changed your mind... if so, why? regards, Ice
good analysis W on key areas... so far. let's see what triple witch brings... my concern to the short side has been the large O/I on MNX in 140 puts and calls. Thought it may attract the index near said level. I look at stuff like that, been doing it for years (O/I on options). Sometimes it works better than others. All I know is to expect the unexpected during triple witching seasons. This one ought to be wild. Wouldn't surprise me if we moved up 70 points or down 50 more (NDX)..... from here. Expect the unexpected often works for me.... and usually when I try to figure too much out... create expectations... it's usually detrimental to positions, and I begin to act too impatiently. :eek: Of course I'm doing options strategies a lot in my accounts, and as we get nearer to expiry one has to decide just when to ring cash register... scale in or out... repair, etc. wonder if PG will have a decent impact tomorrow... regards I
I haven't changed my tune one bit. I'm just trading SMH common against the puts I have. Think it's called gamma trading or something like that. I'm not much of a vocab guy. Since my puts are struck at 40, now that we're under, I essentially have a few million dollar short position. I bought like 20 SMH so I didn't even hedge out a full mil of that short position. So, on the dips, I'm buying common stock and blowing em out on the pops. On the good pops, I reverse short, but I'm only swinging 20-50 SMH against a much bigger option position. It's risk free longing (only reduces my puts upside) and the gamma is in my favor anyway. I was short common going into today and traded on the long and short side. Took only 8 smh home long. I'm playing it both ways but clearly to the short side. By scalping against the puts, I basically pay for my premiums. I got a few months worth of prem in these so I need to score a lot of nickles and dimes. Today was a good step in that direction in my closed SMH profits. Once these get further in the money, they will trade much more like common stock. Say we drop to 34, my AUG 40's will be worth about 6-7 or something like that. Rather than playing common against them, I'd instead sell the APR 32.5 for maybe 2 bux if the VIX is high enough. On the way down, I'd slowly sell so maybe against 10 AUG's I'd sell APR and do it every dime or so down. If I get too much APR short, then I start hedging out another contract. If APR goes out worthless, I have essentially paid for my AUG and I get to play those for another month. Does this make sense? SMH is sweet. You can send off 50 market and the worst you get dicked is like a dime in a really fast market or like 3c in a normal market.Thing has a buck and change daily range to boot.
makes sense... thanks for the reply. So you see SMH breaking below 37-38 in next 2 months, and possible returning to last sept/oct. lows? p.s. that (34) would be the intial measuring objective on the 'possible' H &S on SMH... no? One more thing... today's SMH volume looks to be the highest in the past year. What do you make of that?