By Lawrence G. McMillan
As traders and investors express more of an appetite for derivative products, the research departments at the exchanges (primarily the CBOE) and at various creators of ETFs (Proshares, First Trust, Rydex, etc.) have been busily designing new products. In this article, we're going to look at a few that have recently been announced. There are probably many more, but these are receiving a certain amount of new publicity at this time.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
For quite some time now (perhaps since last November), we have been pointing out how the voracious appetite for volatility protection has had the effect of distorting the term structure of the $VIX futures. Recently, though, this activity has branched out in a way that is only rarely seen in the markets: in short, large institutional traders are both buying stocks and buying volatility ETNs (thus, by inference, they are buying $VIX futures).
By Lawrence G. McMillan
In a continuation of the irregular series, explaining our analytical techniques, we are going to discuss how we interpret put-call ratio charts. This series began two issues ago with an article on naked put selling. Future articles in this series will encompass other aspects of position selection: calendar spreads, volatility skew-based trades, ratio spreads, and so forth.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
This article will describe some of the methodology that we use to select recommendations for this newsletter. Several subscribers have asked questions regarding how we go about this, so we’ll attempt to answer them by describing the processes that we use to recommend naked puts. In future issues, well address volatility skew positions, and even put-call ratio based trades.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
MORRISTOWN, N.J. (MarketWatch) — Three week ago, we wrote that strong buy signals were in place . For the most part, those buy signals remain in place today. Therefore we continue to look for higher prices ahead.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
With so many volatility derivatives and products available for trading now, a debate has arisen as to what is influencing their pricing. Is it actual volatility expectations, or is it supply and demand – or possibly something else altogether? It is important to understand these relationships for several reasons, the most obvious of whish is that it can help one to construct theoretically profitable trades.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
These days, there are more and more volatility indices and futures than ever. One can observe the same sorts of things about them that we do with $VIX futures – in particular, the futures premium and the term structure. We thought it would be an interesting exercise to see how these other markets’ futures constructs compare to that of $VIX. The $VIX construct, for a long time (see chart, page 12) has been that of large futures premiums and a steep upward slope to the term structure.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
Bond ETF’s (IEF and TLT) are both making all-time highs (in price). Stock volume patterns are very strong. This is the point that all the stock market bulls (especially on CNBC) seem to miss: yes, government bonds are yielding small interest rates, but if you own them, they are rising in price as the yield falls. In the last year, IEF (the Barclays 7 year - 10 year bond ETF) is up 15% in price, and TLT (the 20-year bond ETF) is up 35%!!! So what if they only yield 1.6% and 2.7%, respectively?
By Lawrence G. McMillan
Is this current market decline the harbinger of a new bearish market phase, or just a pause in the general bull market that was launched in March, 2009, with a couple of healthy bumps along the way? One answer to that question can be observed in the behavior of the $VIX futures. The stock market’s decline in the past two weeks has caused the $VIX derivatives to lose some of the bullishness that they have been displaying since last November. Not only have the futures lost premium, but the term structure has begun to flatten as well.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The total put-call ratio includes all the volume that takes place on listed index and equity option markets (not futures). Most of the time it’s not of great interest, although we did publish a system utilizing it in extremely bearish markets. That system was designed to capture large moves, and its signals usually result in at least a 100-point gain in $SPX. The last signal of that sort was a successful one, with a buy issued last September 12th. The 100-point target was achieved on November 3rd.
