Jokers Wild

Follow us:      Share this content:     Jokers Wild   And we thought we knew all the tricks from Big Ben's playbook. In a surprise end around, the chairistan turned the table on those expecting an announcement of the Taper's commencement. Instead it was Joker's Wild. So who was dealt a good hand in this surprise deal? According to Reuters: WINNERS: --Anyone who doubled down on gold or gold miners. The biggest mover among exchange-traded funds was the Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 3x fund, which tries to triple the daily move in the NYSE Arca GoldMiners Index. Gold had a huge day, gaining 4.2 percent, and the Arca Goldminers Index rose 9.2 percent. Well, the "Nugget" ETF went nuts, rising 27.5 percent on more than 9.6 million shares traded in the most active day of trading in its history. Meanwhile, the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF rose 8.9 percent, the most active U.S. ETF outside of the S&P 500 tracking fund. --Homebuilders. The sharp decline in U.S. Treasury securities translated to a big move for buildingstocks, particularly as housing-market data in the last couple of months has been on the soft side. Big movers included D.R. Horton Inc, up 6.9 percent, and KB Home, which rose 8.2 percent. The PHLX Housing Index gained 4.2 percent. --The euro. Speculators - largely hedge funds - called this one right, shifting from a net short position of about $6.5 billion in the euro in early July to about $2.1 billion in the most recent week, according to CFTC data. That's not as extended as a few weeks ago, but still shows that the view of the U.S. being ahead of the rest of the world wasn't a universal one. --William Shatner. The S&P 500, in its long history, has never had a stock hit $1,000 a share (no, not Berkshire Hathaway). But travel discounter Priceline.com, which features longtime actor Shatner in its commercials, saw its shares bust into four digits on Wednesday. It didn't close there, falling to $995.09, but it will probably be only a matter of time. LOSERS: --Bond investors who took the Fed at its word. Speculators had amassed a short position of about 85,000 contracts on 10-year Treasury futures in advance of the Fed meeting as of last week. That's down from the previous two weeks, when short positions ballooned to more than 100,000 contracts, but it was still a big change from the market's steady bullish stance that endured since May 2012. "FOMC smoked us. Mea culpa," wrote Mary Beth Fisher, head of U.S. interest rate strategy at Societe Generale's corporate and investment banking unit in New York. "For all of Bernanke's rationalizing, 'yeah but we never said we were really, REALLY going to taper' nonsense, there is no denying that the decision to hold off another meeting or two represents a massive shift to the dovish." --Investors looking for a freakout. Those expecting violent market reactions have had a lot to be disappointed about of late, and this decision was no exception. It wasn't for lack of trying, though: According to Schaeffer's Investment Research, the two-week period through Monday saw 3.51 calls - bets on increased volatility - purchased for every one put option. That's higher than 85 percent of the readings over the past year, according to Schaeffer's. Well, the CBOE Volatility Index lost 6.5 percent to close at 13.59 on Wednesday. Among the most popular contracts of late has been the $20 strike calls expiring in mid-October, with nearly 240,000 in existing contracts. Those options fell 20 cents to 35 cents each, a 36 percent drop as traders exited volatility bets. The one saving grace? October options expire on October 16, so there's still time. --The dollar. The greenback fell by its most in three months against a basket of currencies and effectively erased most of its gains in a year in a matter of hours, sitting at levels not seen since February. It had a notably terrible performance against the pound, which had its best day against the U.S. currency since October 15, 2009. Investors were particularly lined up against sterling as of last week, with a net short position of $3.7 billion, according to CFTC data. --Anybody who locked in a mortgage in the last two weeks. The MBA 30-year mortgage rate rose as high as 4.8 percent earlier in September and was last at 4.75 percent. By comparison, a 30-year U.S. Fannie Mae benchmark mortgage bond has seen its yield fall to 3.35 percent from 4 percent right around when mortgage rates topped out.  ---Larry Levin       In conjunction with TheStreet.com and Bar Chart, Trading Advantage Chief Market Strategist Alan Knuckman  provides a daily morning update on the global action in stock futures, gold, oil and interest rates.       Congratulations to Tariq Mahmood Congratulations to our student of the day Tariq Mahmood who made $2350 trading in the stocks classroom. It was a wild ride post the Fed announcement and Tariq, along with a number of other students, followed Charles Moon's buy signals in a number of stocks. Congratulations Tariq for catching the run up in LULU! NOTICE: Testimonials are believed to be true based on the representations of the persons providing the testimonials, but facts stated in testimonials have not been independently audited or verified. Nor has there been any attempt to determine whether any testimonials are representative of the experiences of all persons using the methods described herein or to compare the experiences of the persons giving the testimonials after the testimonials were given. The average reader should not necessarily expect the same or similar results. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. No person was compensated for providing a testimonial.     OPTIONS: Volatility Commentary ---Michael Shorr Bank profits were at record levels last quarter with the next round of earnings to start again in October. Low interest rates remain and the free money policy doesn't look to come to an end anytime soon. Banks as a group have been big winners and have led the market higher over the last year. The XLF financial ETF at $20 is still below the $22 halfway recovery point of the 2007 peak at $38 to the 2009 $6 extreme lows. Much more upside exists for this sector as the recovery continues. JP Morgan Chase has been a stock in the news for many of the wrong reasons. The price action is much more optimistic as the $50 pivot looks to be strong support to buy against. An upside breakout of the four month trading range that has topped out at $56 targets a move to $62 and 17% above the current price. Instead of buying long shares, a stock substitution strategy limits risk to the premium paid with unlimited upside profit potential. Less capital is required and the risk is less in dollar terms than buying shares outright.     FOREX: Currency Spotlight ---Charlie Lewis As the dust from the latest fed pronouncements settles,the currency markets speak loud and clear: all majors skyrocketed after the announcement,in recognition that,at the very least,we can count on a continuing flow of U.S.Dollars,until Bennie and his friends has put everyone to work,and inflation is North of 2%. For us,the highlight is that we can now get on with day to day market movement without the injection of news driven price dislocations.     STOCKS: Watch List ---Charles Moon With the highly anticipated tapering not happening this month or in the near foreseeable future, the markets jumped from the lows as the Dow and S&P 500 closing at record highs. As we finally have definitive guidance to when tapering should take place, this can be a sustained uptrend leading into next year. While there could be resistance at the all time highs, this has not offered up much resistance this year. We still need to be cautious in the short term as the markets can still be on edge over who will take over Fed chair. Ben Bernanke had deflected questions about his leave during the Q&A session today, which can cause more rampant speculation on who will be taking over and when. If we are poised to open up once again, that will be a great sign for the trend progression to the upside. Watch the pre-market action tomorrow to get a glimpse on how trading could be early on, and if the markets can withstand any aggressive selling, it maybe the time to hold for sustained profits. Watching the market behavior will be very important, and even more so by playing accordingly to the action. With the markets at record highs, what is the true limit to buying and holding here you may ask? Well we approached these all time highs driven by the backing of QE before, and all we did was continie to create new highs. I would expect more of the same here in the intermediate term. While I don't expect a huge frenzy of buying, I do suspect that buyers won't face the same difficulties it has of late from sellers. As long as we don't experience a big correction in the markets, you should be looking to buy as opposed to sell in these markets. That does not mean there won't be opportunities to sell, just that buying opportunities will outnumber the shorts. As long as the SPX stays above 1700.00, I will feel very comfortable being a buyer in this market. Conditions can remain choppy with spurts of volatility mixed in, but the trend should continue higher. Open Position: FB Stocks to Watch: INTC AAPL GOOG IBM AMZN BIDU LNKD FB TSLA GRPN CTXS CSCO NTAP JBL BAC PRU WFC GS JPM MS NFLX WDC DIS CROX STZ NKE UA LULU CHKP JNPR POT GMCR VZ T HOG MON YUM MCD LOW HD LEN TOL V MA AXP DFS LVS MGM       FUTURES: Technical Data      ES 1698.25 / 1694.75  POC… 1698.00  YM 15477 / 15461  NQ 3187.00 / 3175.50     NOTES FROM THE PIT Click here to read     COMMODITIES: Play of the Day ---Patrick Assalone   Crude Oil continues to be volatile and there have been ample trading opportunities in these highly concentrated areas of volume. Based on our educational methodology, we are looking for reversal signals in the two High Volume Areas from 106.68 to 108.04 and down below at 105.40 to 106.41. Click here to watch video   is a leading investment education firm that empowers traders to achieve and surpass their financial goals. More than 50,000 students have used Larry Levin's proven techniques for powerful results.   IMPORTANT NOTICE: Futures and Options trading has large potential rewards, but also large potential risk. You must be aware of the risks and be willing to accept them in order to invest in the futures and options markets. Don't trade with money you can't afford to lose. Nothing in our website shall be deemed a solicitation or an offer to Buy/Sell futures and/or options. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those discussed on our site. Also, the past performance of any trading methodology is not necessarily indicative of future results. Trading Advantage LLC provides only training and educational information. 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