Friday December 20, 2008 Navivest

Oil prices continue to fall, with the current price for crude oil for January 2009 delivery now trading at $35.23, down $0.99. The price was over $45 a couple days ago.

We continue to see an erosion in the price and rightfully so, on concerns that there will be lowered demand as a result of the weakening global economy. However, we are looking for a short-term bounce in the price of oil and this will send oil-related stocks higher.

Yesterday we recommended that subscribers to the Navivest Equity Trader buy shares of Anadarko Petroleum (APC). At 1.10 PM today, the stock is up $1.35 or 3.69%, not bad for one day gains.

Despite those gains, we are still looking for more moves to the upside, when oil prices do rebound. On that basis, Anadarko Petroleum is still a buy. We also like Apache (APA) $74.74 +$4.93

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Friday December 12, 2008 Navivest

Unless the stock market chooses to ignore calamitous economic news as it did last week, we are looking for stocks to continue yesterday’s slide and trend lower today.

We have a somewhat active economic calendar and on the slate today, are Producer Price Index numbers from the Department of Labor, which measures the price of manufactured goods at the producer level, Retail Sales numbers from The Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau, which will give us further insight into the deteriorating state of the U.S. consumer’s finances and Business Inventories from The Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau.

These should all serve to send stocks lower today. Unfortunately, we will be getting most of the news before the stock market opens, so if you are not already short the market, you might be missing out on some of the gains.

To the extent that we are looking for

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Monday December 8, 2008 Navivest

We are offering a free two week trial to our subscription based services, The Options Capitalist, which is for options traders looking for above average stock market returns and The Navivest Equity Trader, which is a stocks based service for traders and investors looking for profitable trading ideas.

For more info on both services and to start your free two week trial, click here.

Tags: Investment Newsletter  

 

These days, you can’t escape the public outcry: traders want their VIX spike, and they want it now.

Not too long ago, the vicissitudes of the VIX used to be the privy of a fairly limited group of options traders - those that had ears to hear, as it were. Now, if you hear or read phrases like “bear market,” “20% decline,” and “market bottom,” odds are that the phrase “VIX spike” isn’t far behind. Nevermind whether the increased VIX coverage is appropriate or accurate or remotely helpful. Thanks, CNBC!

The net effect of the VIX’s coming of age is that everybody and his brother now “knows” that we won’t have a short-term tradeable market bottom until the VIX spikes up into the 30 range. Well, that claim may have held true in the recent past, but it …

On Friday, Rebecca Darst said options traders are looking at chips. What reason(s) did she cite?

Here’s the video.  It seems to me like she mentions Infineon’s (IFX) guidance cut, a recent Barron’s article and TI’s (TXN - Annual Report) lukewarm share price. In other words, all of the above.

Infineon doesn’t show up on my screens and Texas Instruments ranks pretty neutrally. I personally think the semiconductor industry should do well, and own the Semiconductor HOLDRs (SMH) and Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM.PK) - though the latter position is a little stub spun out from the SMH when the company was delisted.

 

 

 

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

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The CBOE announced Tuesday that they’re going to license the methodology used to derive the VIX to other global exchanges: “The Indian exchange, the NSE in India, recently took up a license from us,” CBOE Chief Executive William Brodsky said at the Reuters Exchanges and Trading summit in Chicago. “This is a new and growing source of revenue for us as well.” The move would eventually help Indian investors understand and trade volatility as an asset in the U.S. market. “It’s something that helps solidify our brand and get more attention to the products,” Brodsky said. “So people understanding volatility in India, they’re certainly going to want to trade volatility in the U.S. and that will rebound to us.” Brodsky said he plans to attend the annual general assembly of the International Option Market Association this week where he already has people lined up who are interested in CBOE’s volatility products. [link]...