Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Options Expiration Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed down again – most markets lost at least 1%. Europe is currently down across the board – there are several 1 and 2% losers. Futures here in the States point towards another moderate gap down open for the cash market. This comes off a day the market closed as bad as I’ve ever seen.
From the S&P 1500, only 17 stocks advanced while 1482 declined – 99% decliners is as extreme as you can get. Only 6 stocks closed in the upper 20% of their intraday range while 1079 (72%) closed in the bottom 20% – that’s extreme broad-based selling. And right now only 39 stocks are above their 10-day MA – it’s as broad-based as you can get for so few stocks to be holding up.
Here’s a chart that has 5 panes. The top pane is the number of S&P 1500 stocks above their 10-day MA, the second pane is the number above their 20-day, then 30-day, then 40-day, and finally the number above their 200-day. On a short and intermediate term basis (the first 4 panes), the market is as negative as it’s been since the March 2009 low. If it’s going to bounce it better happen soon because if the charts stay down here for any length of time, it would suggest a downtrend is underway.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings Reports
this week’s Economic Numbers
0 thoughts on “Before the Open (May 21)”
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Jason, which way you draw those charts? By which soft or trading platform?
(I see no tool to get same charts as you have, only some customer-programmed platform can do it, as far as I understand)
Alex…I created that chart with StockFinder software…
http://www.worden.com/Products/StockFinder
What’s a, ‘Cash Market’? Investopedia wasn’t clear and how do you calculate the Cash Market open? Do you take the S&P futures at 4:30 pm EST and subtract it from it’s price at 9am?
The cash market is the stock market…the NYSE and Nasdaq. This compares to the futures market.
There is a way to calculate what the cash market open should be but it’s useless because not all stocks trade at the opening bell. 85% of the S&P trades at the NYSE and many of those stocks don’t trade until 5 seconds after the open…or 10 sec…or sometimes 30. That’s why candlestick charts for the S&P are useless – the opening tick doesn’t reflect the open of all 500 stocks.
So the Cash Market is everything but the futures market? Would that include bonds or just equities?
Just equities…I could very easily say ‘stock market’ instead of ‘cash market.’
when will options expire today:at the end of trading or before?thank you.
It varies…some options already expired. Otherwise they don’t technically expire until tomorrow and many won’t be settle until Monday. For the purpose of trading, you should exit today unless they are to expire worthless in which case do nothing, and they’ll eventually be removed from your account.