BEARS IN MY STREAM

Despite the upswing off the open, the mood has gone pretty dark. Sentiment across my indicators is convinced we’re heading lower here.

Zoom out and look at the way this is shaping up…

This is the range for the new year.

The good news, is that if this contains price for the near term, the year will be slower in terms of speed. Meaning, the highs and lows of last year were twice as fast as what we’ll see this year. Quiet is good. I hate speed.

I’m not loving this action today either. This was a responsive buy, but it lacks conviction. Would like to see things drift lower this afternoon and see if the response is stronger on a second attempt down.

Stalking $SINA, $MA, $AZO, $AAL

Just getting back to my desk, I see shares of $MTCH are up almost 4%.

This was a trade we’ve been stalking in After Hours with Option Addict since last week.

Anyone catch it?

Earlier in 2014, I read a data point that suggested a massive wave of retail investors that arrived on the scene in China. There was a week in which 7-8 million brokerage accounts were opened. This was in March or April if I recall…right at the point that the Shanghai made its second wave higher from its 2014 lows.

The renewed interest in stock market speculation cleared the casino floors. While the Shanghai was at lows 2 years ago, $WYNN, $MPEL and $LVS were at their highs.

With all the talk of Chinese investors fleeing the scene, this may present an opportunity for the Casinos, providing investors are leaving the bucket shops for Macau.

I’m seeing retail names flooding my screen here mid-day.

Engulfing patterns are showing up in the following stocks:

$EXPR

$KSS

$COH

$FINL

$GPS

$AEO

$ANF

$FIVE

$URBN

Something to keep an eye on. Fast market moves like this usually spark rotation among sectors/groups. This is the one that stands out the most this morning.

OA

Our After Hours with Option Addict theme coming into this week was oil, again.

Several days ago, we positioned for the 3 day pop in oil. I bought oil futures and some $COP calls. Last week we bought up $COP again, and I moved into $UCO calls over the weekend in lieu of my /CL long.

Looking over the analogue, this should start a two week move in oil, if time and price continue to stay in alignment. Oil prices are trying to break a multi-week range here today.

As for our discussion on “global inflection points” the first response seems pretty significant. I’ll follow up on this later.

OA

It’s in the books. Farewell 2015.

I’ll be the first to say I actually enjoyed this year much more than 2014. Rather than playing from behind all year like I did in 2014, this year had several good pockets of strength, easier market analysis to predict, but yet still some wicked smack downs.

I wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year. 2016 will be amazing.

My predictions are coming out next week. Party hard and enjoy the weekend.

OA