To quote our Head Technical Analyst at All Star Charts, Steve Strazza: "Bullish setups are hard to come by these days."
Yeah.
But, for those willing to venture into the choppy waters, recent market action has provided us with some nearby risk management levels that give us the opportunity to act quickly if we're wrong, limiting our losses while giving us multiples of potential profit (as measured against the risk).
And today's idea comes from the only sector to show YTD gains this year.
Bonds form the largest money market in the world. The world of fundamental analysis has a lot of data, but when it comes to technical analysis, we narrow down the factors that matter. Basically, Interest rates are to the bond market what the price is to the stock market. This post will look into this topic and examine the present opportunities.
It's been a minute since we've put some delta-neutral credit spreads on. And while VIX is off its highest levels of the year, there is still plenty of elevated premium in pockets.
The team here at All Star Charts has been monitoring the elevated options premiums in the Consumer Discretionary space. The $XLY ETF has been persistently hanging around the top of our implied volatility lists for the last couple of months. We talked about it yesterday during the @allstarcharts live twitter spaces chat.
And I like having a few delta-neutral trades on to provide some portfolio balance against my bullish and bearish directional bets in individual stock names. So $XLY is providing us a good opportunity to collect some income.
Key Takeaway: Risks to the economy are rising, though a recession is not a foregone conclusion at this point. Barring a dramatic and unlikely abatement in inflation pressures, the path of least resistance for interest rates is higher than the market is accounting for at this point. Rally attempts have been volatile but, so far at least, short-lived and as longer-term trends turn lower, many investors are dealing with an unfamiliar (and uncomfortable) environment. While moods have soured, positions are little changed. Overall these are the conditions under which bear markets can die and bull markets be re-born. The evidence at this point does not suggest that turn is at hand.
We play with the cards we are dealt. There is nothing else we can do. We cannot employ willpower to create market conditions into being the way we'd prefer them to be. They are what they are, it is what it is. So we work with what we've got.
And what we've got right now are a bunch of badly beaten up stocks. Many still off 60%+ from their recent highs.
Dumpster diving isn't my favorite way to find new ideas to trade. But my man Strazza enjoys the exercise from time to time and recently, he's uncovered some notable insider buying and unusual options activity in some former highflyers, most notably Zoom $ZM.
But first, let's survey the damage. This probably isn't new to many of you, but look how far ZM has fallen from its recent perch atop Momentum Mountain:
Back on February 2nd, we initiated a long-term bullish bet in Chevron $CVX January 2024 150-strike calls. You can read all about our thinking at the time here. In short, we were of the belief that a big breakout in the energy sector was appearing likely.
As you can see from this updated chart, our bet proved to be prescient. We've already taken back our original risk capital in this trade when we sold half of our position on March 2 at double what we originally paid. That has given us the super power to continue holding the remaining half position until now, achieving more gains.
If you joined JC and the guys on our live twitter spaces session today, towards the end you heard me venting my current frustration in finding good opportunities to make directional bets in either direction right now. It's tough sticking our neck out here.
But of course, as options traders, we are not limited to just directional bets. We can attempt to pull profits from sideways markets as well. And when volatility is still elevated in most areas, there are plenty of places to look to sell premium. And the best place to do that is in an instrument that we feel is likely to continue trading in a sideways range for a period of time.
Today's idea is one such ETF that has been mired in a nice juicy range for nearly a year now.
From a directional standpoint, there currently aren't any stock ideas on the board that are getting me excited to get involved in either direction. Bear markets can do that.
However, from an options premium selling point of view, there are some good opportunities out there. But best to stick with instruments that are showing signs of at least some near-term support and resistance.
One such instrument is in the interest rates space.
The Outperformers is our newest scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for major moves.
The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.
The team at All Star Charts lately has been talking about how a lot of stocks are displaying declining moving averages and share prices continue to trade below these downward-sloping moving averages. There is nothing bullish about that.
What it means is there is likely an avalanche of overhead supply in most areas of the stock market right now and therefore many rallies will be met with more and more people trying to unload their positions. This is a tough environment to be a bull in.
There is always money to be made in bear markets, but it requires a different skillset, steel nerves, and quick decisions. And whereas in bull markets, we love to put on bullish positions that have 6-9 months to play out so that we can let the underlying trends grind their way higher, in bear markets we like to take more shorter-termed positions because we need to take profits quicker. Bear market rallies are notorious for stopping out even the best of short positions.
With all this in mind, today's trade is in one of those names that have been in a persistent downtrend, and is trading below significant moving averages.
