The feature article this week lays out three of the seasonal patterns that we trade or observe in October and November. More will follow later in the year, and they will be the subject of another article at that time. The October Seasonal trade won’t be operative this year unless there is a larger pullback than the modest one we had last week.
It's almost that time of year once again for one of our most successful seasonal trades: the Heating Oil – Gasoline futures spread. This trade has had a steller track record over the years and has been followed closely in The Option Strategist Newsletter.
Of course, the title of this article is also the title of a song that refers to the Christmas Holiday season. Although, I prefer the Staples commercials in which the parents are dancing around while singing the song as the children return to school in September.
The feature article goes into some depth as to what an overbought condition actually means. In most cases, a severely overbought market does not generate a sell signal right away (and neither does a severely oversold market generate a buy signal immediately). The most overbought and oversold dates in history are included in the article.
One of our signature sayings is “Overbought does not mean ‘sell’.” But what does it mean? In this article we’re going to explore the most common overbought condition that occurs in our indicators – those of the breadth oscillators.
This week’s feature article is a continuation of the one in the last issue. Here, we describe option strategies that are similar to owning stock, or are at least a way to reduce time value exposure, while still retaining some leverage in a speculative position.
What first appeared to be an oversold rally gathered so much steam that it has negated our previously bearish outlook (see indicator review, page 6).
The common perception among option traders is that option buying is the “best” approach to a speculative situation because of the great leverage that the calls or puts provide. But in many cases, ranging from extremely short-term holding periods to ones of more moderate length, where limited stock moves are likely, one may be better served by trading the underlying entity than by buying options.
The feature article deals with two indicators that we have occasionally referenced. They are long- to intermediate-term indicators and both are either on a sell signal or on the verge of one. The studies involving these indicators were much more complicated than normal systems because of the longer-term nature of the holding period.
Two indicators that we have only briefly discussed in the past are now at an overbought state. Since each has merit, it was decided that a study should be done on the data to see if there was some usefulness other than just yet another overbought indicator. Sometimes when one looks at data in just the right way, a new thought for an indicator will jump into one’s head, and that’s pretty much how these came about.
