Victor Mora

Quick Take On The Markets & Watchlist

Victor Mora — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:08:46 +0000

SPY QQQ IWM 5-11-13

The S&P 500 (SPY) was up 1.26% this week while the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) were up 1.29% and 2.18% respectively. The markets keep getting higher, with or without you.

Sectors 5-11-13

This week was another rotation out of safe sectors to riskier sectors. [...]

Markets Keep Exploding And Options Watchlist

Victor Mora — Sun, 05 May 2013 16:39:42 +0000

SPY QQQ IWM 5-5-13

The markets were up a reasonable amount this week and broke-out to higher prices on Friday: S&P 500 (SPY) +1.98%, Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) +3.67%, Russell 2000 (IWM) +2.00%. Let’s take a look at what sectors led in order to see if the move higher looks healthy or not. Generally, [...]

Reader Question: Butterflies and Implied Volatility Skew

Victor Mora — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:09:58 +0000

Great blog! I have been trading butterflies lately on individual stock names and trying to learn about them. I’m fairly new to options and love the added dimension of volatility. You mention in your blog that skew is important for flies since you’re short the body and long the wings. So a flat skew would [...]

What Led The Market This Week? (And Watchlist)

Victor Mora — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 23:04:53 +0000

SPY QQQ IWM 4-26-13

As seen above, the markets were very resilient this week. With the swift movements this market is making, it’s probably best to remain nimble and keep position sizes small. Let’s take a look at what sectors led the market in order to gauge overall sentiment.

Sector [...]

Defensive Sectors Leading The Market & Watchlist

Victor Mora — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:11:03 +0000

SPY QQQ IWM 4-21-13

The S&P 500 was down -2.09% this week while the Nasdaq 100 was down -2.65% and the Russell 2000 -3.24%. Also, volatility started to pick-up, raising concerns for this run. Let’s see what held up well and what sold off for a better indication of the overall health of [...]

Breaking Down This Week’s Winners & Watchlist For Next Week

Victor Mora — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:17:52 +0000

SPY QQQ IWM

The S&P 500 was up 2.14% this week and has made new all-time highs. Let’s take a look at what sectors led the markets higher:

Sector Performance

Energy, financials, and health care led higher while utilities, tech, and consumer staples were relatively weak [...]

What Sectors Are Leading The Market?

Victor Mora — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:24:40 +0000

J.C. Parets over at All Star Charts breaks down the U.S. stock market by underlying sectors in order to see what is leading the market higher or lower. With this information, we can see if there is a rotation in or out of defensive sectors. Parets asks a very important question:

Who is [...]

Market Strength and My Watchlist

Victor Mora — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:08:51 +0000

SPY QQQ IWM Daily Price Chart

The markets have been very strong over the last quarter as seen in the daily price charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 represented by respective their ETFs, SPY, QQQ, and IWM. All three indexes look to be headed higher as they consolidate through [...]

Implied Volatility Skew and What It Tells Us

Victor Mora — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 23:00:21 +0000

SurlyTrader has an excellent post on the current S&P 500 (SPX) implied volatility skew. Essentially, he tells us that the current implied volatility skew levels are near highs. What does that mean? He made the following statement on April 4, 2011 and makes it again:

Of course there is no one perfect predictor [...]

An Interesting Take on Selling Implied Volatility Here

Victor Mora — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:46:05 +0000

Steve Place over at InvestingWithOptions has a very interesting take on implied volatility and these current levels. In fact, he believes that it is possible to indeed sell implied volatility right here and gives two potential trade ideas. Below is an excerpt from the post:

“The VIX is a BUY” the headline screams. And [...]