Wednesday 19 August 2015

Closing Brief

It was a day of rather wild swings for US equities, with the sp' -17pts @ 2079 (intra high 2096, low 2070). The two leaders - Trans/R2K, settled lower by -0.7% and -1.0% respectively. Near term outlook is for the sp'2050/40s, with Dow 17000, and that should equate to VIX 17/18s.


sp'60min



Summary

*closing hour, renewed strength... but still well below the crazy spike of 2096

Closing minutes... distinct weakness... as the rats made a run for it!
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It was one hell of a day.. with morning weakness way beyond what I thought possible ahead of opex. The bounce into early afternoon was natural.. but the hyper-spike to sp'2096 was indeed crazy.. and not sustainable.

As for tomorrow... the daily close (including US bonds) is suggestive of downside. Yet.. it is opex week, and there is threat of upside to the sp'2100 threshold.

*I hold long-VIX.. and short-AAPL (the latter is a first for me).

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more later... on the VIX