Despite strong bearish volume, a very weak open, another triple digit down day and more, the market was actually far less volatile than the last several days. The Dow was down more than -300 points but closed -186.59.
Part of the weak open and general bearishness today was due to an important report: Retail Sales. Bloomberg's general definition of this report explains why it is important. Retail sales measure the total receipts at stores that sell merchandise and related services to final consumers. Sales are by retail and food services stores. Data are collected from the Monthly Retail Trade Survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Essentially, retail sales cover the durables and nondurables portions of consumer spending. Consumer spending typically accounts for about two-thirds of GDP and is therefore a key element in economic growth.
With that definition, you can see why the market was weak when the news hit the tape. The consensus was for a reading of -0.1%, but came in at a terrible -0.9%, which is the worst negative reading since January 2014! Moreover, November data were revised lower from +0.7% to +0.4%.
Since December retail sales clearly includes the peak of holiday shopping, one wonders: How in the world could retail sales be so bad? And another question is clearly why lower gasoline prices didn't help retail sales data? Is the US economy radically slowing? More data is needed.
Trade well and follow the trend, not the perma-bull OR perma-bear "experts."
Behold the age of infinite moral hazard! On April 2nd, 2009 CONgress forced FASB to suspend rule 157 in favor of deceitful accounting for the TBTF banking mafia.
The markets sold off yet again, having a strong extension to the downside for most of the session. We did bounce back late in the day on profit taking, and it could be a sign for a possible rebound tomorrow. That being said, I would caution on being overly aggressive as a buyer. There wasn't the greatest of volume yesterday, but when I did see volume come into play, it was aggressive selling. There are quite a few bets placed for the markets to pullback further. So while I am looking for a bounce here soon, I am not married to the idea. We can easily slip back further and slam. This is a wild ride in the markets folks, buckle up and enjoy the roller-coaster ride.
Option exchanges are constantly looking for new ways to attract traders. There used to be very few exchanges available, but with the migration from the physical option trading floors to electronic or "virtual' floors, it seems that a new one pops up every week. Over the past few years we have seen a real emergence in currency options. Currency Options give retail traders many opportunities to limit risk and increase profit. There are two primary types of options available to retail forex traders. The most common is the traditional call/put option, which works much like the respective stock option. The other alternative is "single payment option trading" - or SPOT - which gives traders more flexibility. We have discussed traditional option trading at length so please refer to earlier submissions if you need to review. How do SPOT options work? The trader inputs a scenario (for example, "EUR/USD will break 1.3000 in 12 days"), the option scenario gets a quote from the market maker and then receives a payout if the scenario takes place. Essentially, SPOT automatically converts your option to cash when your option trade is successful, giving you a payout. There are many different types of SPOT options out there. Here are a few of the available types of SPOT set ups:
One-touch SPOT – You receive a payout if the price touches a certain level at any time before expiration.
No-touch SPOT – You receive a payout if the price doesn't touch a certain level at any point before expiration.
Digital SPOT – You receive a payout if the price is above or below a certain level at expiration.
Double one-touch SPOT – You receive a payout if the price touches one of two set levels.
Double no-touch SPOT – You receive a payout if the price doesn't touch any of the two set levels.
There are a few things that must be considered by the trader when considering trading these types of options. The big one is that these options cannot be traded after the initial transaction. There is no secondary market for these options. Just like regular options, the timing of the expiration could be problematic. You could ultimately be correct in your analysis of a set-up, but did not purchase enough time for you to ultimately be correct. Also, may of the "exchanges" that offer this type of trading are based outside of the U.S. and thus not regulated by the CFTC, NFA, SEC nor FINRA. Buyer beware.
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