Blog: All posts by Tom Haugh

Are People Voting With Their Feet?


Good morning. Quite a week in the market last week, only to have the SPY down less than a point to close at 113.15 (.3%). If you had any positions, it certainly felt a lot different than a flat week, with the range of 112.98 (Mon.) to 119.56 (Tues.), and a huge rally Thursday in the last hour only to be followed by a large sell-off into the close on Friday. The VIX continues to be at very high levels, closing up 1.71 at 42.96 (4.1%). These levels of the VIX, compounded by a fairly pronounced skew going out, surely makes it tempting to try and maintain short premium positions in the weekly SPY options, but those positions (due to amazing intra and inter-day movement) are not for the faint of heart.

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Geithner and Zombie Banks


Good morning. The market was strong every day last week, closing up 4.8% on the week at 121.52. So far in September, historically the weakest month for the market, we have seen the market down strong 3 days, up big one, down 2, and now up 5, all for a net loss of 70 cents in the SPY. Last week’s strong market caused the VIX to drop 19.7% to 30.98, the lowest close since August 3, 2011. Why the sudden optimism, or at least the semi-disappearance of fear in the market (as defined by the VIX Index)?

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Options Are Ideal for Lowering ETF Risk


Please enjoy this Q&A article where my brother, Dan Haugh, is interviewed by Morningstar.

http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=394362


In The Dark


Good morning. Last week, in a holiday-shortened week, the market experienced heightened volatility on both an inter-day and intra-day basis and closed lower on the week. The SPY was down 1.93 to close at 115.92 (1.6%), and had a low of 114.38 on Tuesday and a high of 120.94 (5.7% spread) on Thursday, before selling off solidly on Friday. The weakness was due to several factors, mainly news from Europe suggesting (due to local election results) that the party of Angela Merkel (strong supporters of European unity and help for struggling countries) was losing support.

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A Relentless Decay


Good morning. It was a nice bounce back rally for the market last week, with the SPY up 5.33 (4.8%) to close at 117.97. Volatility still reigned, however, with the market appearing unstable all week, seemingly always in anticipation of the next piece of news to affect the market. One of the big anticipated news items was the speech on Friday by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke from the financial conference at Jackson Hole. It was in that very speech last year that he outlined some of the potential policy initiatives still on the table at that time, and shortly thereafter he announced the so-called Quantitative Easing II (QE II).

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