Those who are familiar with our strategies concerning takeover rumors and bids know that we eschew most rumors, preferring instead to concentrate on situations in which either a) the company has announced that it is “exploring strategic alternatives” – effectively putting itself up for sale – or b) has a bid in hand, but the stock is trading higher than the bid – indicating that perhaps a higher bid is forthcoming from another party. We have written about this approach in several feature articles in the past.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The market action this week has been quite bearish and, frankly, quite out of character in terms of the indicators, but it may also be a rather severe reaction to the overbought conditions that had built up.
The S&P 500 Index ($SPX) had strong upside momentum a week ago, but ran into resistance very near the April highs.
Equity-only put-call ratios are bullish and have remained bullish even during this week's decline.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The market was extremely strong through last Thursday, and then the wheels began to fall off. The market has fallen sharply since then, and both yesterday and today, late-day declines wiped out promising rallies.
In this video recorded on June 17th at The TradersExpo Dalls, Larry McMillan discusses the predictive power of the put-call ratio indicator and predicts the rally at the end of June 2011. Larry also talks about the rare CBOE equity only put-call ratio signal and the total put-call ratio and what they mean for the market.
Click to visit Moneyshow.com and watch the video now
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The market’s still-overbought condition, coupled with some negative news regarding financial problems in Italy, resulted in a severe down day yesterday – a true “90% down day,” as it turned out. A late-day rally seemed to ease things a bit, but overnight the situation has been exacerbated, and S&P futures are down another 6 points in Globex trading (they were actually down 23 at one point, but positive inflation news out of England brought the markets back a great deal).
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The stock market continued its bullish explosion this week. $SPX broke through its previous down trend line last Friday, and has now overcome the late-May high. All that remains is a test of the post-2009 highs at 1370.
Equity-only put-call ratios turned bullish when they peaked and began to fall. These are intermediate-term buy signals.
Market breadth has been very strong during the rally. Breadth indicators remain on buy signals, but are now very overbought.
Did you miss Larry McMillan at the Traders Expo Dallas 2011? Well if you did, you're in luck because you can view a recording of Larry's "Using Option Data as a Forecasting Tool" seminar for free at Moneyshow.com. All you have to register for the site and you will gain access to Larry's talk along with videos from many of the other speakers at the event.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The week leading up to the Fourth of July holiday was a “perfect storm” of bullish activity, or at least it turned out that way. There were several technical, seasonal, and even some fundamental factors at work. There was an oversold condition, month-end window dressing, first-of-the-money seasonal factor, pre-holiday bullish seasonal patterns, and even some help from Europe (delaying the Greek credit crisis). Add it all together and it was one of the strongest weeks in recent memory.
By Lawrence G. Mcmillan
Friday wound up one of the strongest weeks in stock market history. It was a perfect storm of events, topped off by a pre-holiday, thin trading session on the first day of the month. There are now some fairly extreme overbought conditions in the breadth oscillators. However, as we’ve explained before, these are actually bullish conditions for the new upside breakout. Of course, in the very short term, the market needs to slow down a bit and regroup.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
A huge stock market rally developed this week, due to a number of factors. The S&P500 Index ($SPX) entered the week in a downtrend. Depending on how you look at things, it might still be in a downtrend (see Figure 1, blue line). But it did overcome resistance at 1300 (last week's high) and 1310, so that is a positive development.
Put-call ratios have reached extreme levels, but have stubbornly been refusing to give confirmed buy signals.
