1/30 Recap. Finally A Down Day....

The nonstop rise of equities in 2023 finally took a day off. The Nasdaq remains up near 10% in this month, I am up over 20% and the silliness of the past 30 days is probably nearing an end. We have a lot of earnings reports that will trickle through to other names. We have Powell speaking in a few days about the future of rates and we have a potential mess in the Middle East with Israel striking Iran over the weekend which could escalate into who knows what with oil and how that would reverberate through these inflation prints like 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and oil took off.

So, as I said last week, take it easy this week, let’s see what direction that market gives us and then we will follow the trend afterwards.

The SPY backtested the downtrend today perfectly as you can see below, it’s still over every moving average and strong for the moment. Naturally after the run we’ve had there will be sellers before this week moves forward. Nothing out of the ordinary from what I see, just looks like buyers taking a break more than anything.

The IWM remains stronger than the SPY and closed right above the 8 EMA. The MACD is rolling over slowly while still positive, small caps look like they’re about to take a break here shortly.

Oil looks very nice as you can see below with a strong close again. The tensions in the Middle East are about everything an oil bull can dream of. Any disruption to the Iranian oil production will be a boon for anyone bullish oil.

Dollar strengthened yet again and I tweeted Friday about UUP being a nice safety net into Powell speaking. The dollar always perks up when markets run into turmoil.

Today’s Unusual Options Activity & What Stood Out

One of the members in here Edwin put together a really nice spreadsheet for me so I could track all of these option flows for when you all ask. So the format has changed. So thank Edwin for the organization he took the time to create. It is nice for sure, but it significantly more time consuming to input all the data vs what I previously did so I will give it a try for now and see. I’m old school, I write all this stuff down throughout the day, and truthfully, it’s quicker and easier for me to remember it because I keep this huge journal and I keep notes in there. When you’re selling puts like me it isn’t so important to know exactly what strikes are trading as much as does a name in general have significantly bullish or bearish flows. So that’s why I don’t specifically keep track of individual trades, it’s more a mental knowledge of what is or isn’t seeing flows.