If you missed my presentation at the MetaStock Stock & Option Traders Conference on November 11, 2025, the full replay is now available.
In this session, I break down the current state of the market through the lens of his most trusted option-based indicators — including volatility bands, put-call ratios, breadth oscillators, and more. It’s a timely, practical look at what’s driving price action right now, and what these indicators are suggesting as we head into year-end.
For over a week now, strong selloffs have been followed fairly quickly by strong rallies. This is the type of action that occurs in a trading range environment, and we might well be in one of those for a while now.
There is resistance at 6900 (the all-time highs). Furthermore, support emerged at 6630 (last Friday's lows) to go along with the stronger support level in the 6500-6550 area. Today's low (so far) was 6646, which would reinforce that general area 6630-6646 as support.
Recently, there have been some articles in the media – both print and social – about box spreads and how people are using them to get reduced-cost loans. Some of these articles lacked full information and others seem to miss the point completely, so we thought we’d explain how this whole thing works.
We’re going to look at two things here. First, there was recently a period of five trading days in which both $VIX and $SPX were up each day. That has never happened before. Is it significant, or might it be?Second, we have been seeing implied volatility trading significantly higher than realized volatility. That is a subject that we’ve addressed in the past, but we are going to update that analysis to incorporate current conditions.
Last week, something unusual happened — both the S&P 500 ($SPX) and the CBOE Volatility Index ($VIX) rose every single trading day. It’s a rare alignment, and one that tends to grab the attention of volatility watchers. Historically, $SPX and $VIX move in opposite directions about 75% of the time, so a full week of synchronized gains stands out.
Join Larry McMillan as he discusses the current state of the stock market on September 23, 2025.
Intuit ($INTU) has been flashing some notable signals recently. A weighted put-call ratio buy signal was issued, although the ratio chart itself has not yet visibly turned over (chart below). In addition, a daily McMillan Volatility Band (MVB) buy signal was generated on September 5th (chart above).
A week ago, $SPX had made new all-time highs and was flying high on the back of the Fed seemingly turning more dovish (i.e., willing to lower interest rates). But then September began, and the media was full of articles about how it's the worst month (which is true) and traders should beware. So the first trading day of September (last Tuesday) resulted in a sharp intraday loss. However, $SPX rebounded later that day, and since then $SPX has ploddingly moved higher and is now at new all-time highs once again.
Oracle Corp. ($ORCL) just flashed a notable technical shift this morning: a weekly MVB Sell Signal — its first since January 2025 (chart above). The stock also recently issued a weighted Put-Call Ratio Sell Signal (below), meaning several of our intermediate-term indicators are now pointing in the same bearish direction. When these signals align, the probability of further downside increases.
