Financial, Real Estate, Stock Markets Trends and Current Affairs

Morning trading update from Eurocalypse...

It has been a hectic time laced with a very violent market. It’s been easy to get burnt both by being bullish or bearish. A very unusual situation wherein unless armed with superior research, deft trading skills, innovative strategies and a lot of luck, your basically damned if you do and damned if you don’t. This is why option strategies are so comfortable. You have a natural stop.  The recent BoomBustBlog subscriber content had some predefined targets and the good thingis to stick to them, even when the market is overshooting the target.Regarding the broad equity indexes, the call was to target the 2010 lows…

For the CAC40, it was around 3250-3300. Well, we’ve been quite wrong because we went more than 10% down from that going thru 3000 at one stage. But I wrote as well, that any significant move under that, would be an overshoot, and by taking profits at our target, we'd be the few ones able to take a short term bet on a squeeze. We are now sitting at 3240. Where from here? Well the market bounced where it should after surpassing the 3300. 3000 was the end of June/beginning of July 2009 lows. Given the speed of the move, and that nothing has changed (were all f*cked, but anyone reading BBB or ZH knew that before the move....), I dont see any fresh reasons, apart from momentum (which is enough in itself) to go much lower. The meaning of that, is that although we are in a bear market, selling without trying to time the market now, can be very painful given how far we are from the break and how the short term bottom COULD look after a bounce like a real bottom and prompt everyone for cover...

Click to enlarge...

20110816_-_CAC_Daily

I see no fundamental reason for a big bounce now, but in this volatile market, even an ephemeral 3450 doesnt seem impossible eventhough we already had a good
bounce. There seems to be a divergence on the daily chart ( on stochastics, MACD, RSI) and the short term pain trade could be higher prices. The ADX is very strong, and indicates as well the possibility of a further technical correction to the move. With implied vol high, fresh buying of options will probably not make money. I advise to keep some remaining gamma options and play with the delta hedge and try to take advantage of high vol and skew to position for FLY or broken flies bearish trades. I even advised buying some OTM vega calls at the lows, because they were too cheap even I had no conviction on a real bounce. Well theyve been repriced nicely thanks to the skew effect + the rally from the lows! Anyone who followed that advice should take profits cause im not sure vol will be bid and market upside is limited from here. Tech levels: if for a ST trade, be neutral at this level (3250) and opportunistic. A move towards 3450 should be faded.

20110816_-_CAC_Weekly

On the downside, last week lows COULD hold, even if it looks ugly when we revisit them... or could very well crash... but I wouldnt give more than 50% to that, so the right thing to do is trying to play the long side below 3000 with call or call spreads to limit the downsidethus for short term trading, I advise playing a volatile new range, 3000-3450, selling implied vols, selling the skew, and waiting a bit before setting up earnestly for the probable next move. Keep your mind open, as usual.

Reggie's Comments:

CNBC reports France, Germany Ruling Out Euro Bonds to Fix Debt Crisis and the S&P 500 resumes is slow downward descent. This is simply momentum trader reaction to what is essentially a foregone conclusion. Anyone who truly condones Eurobonds is essentially asking the more responsible states to willingly accept the risks and costs of funding what could potentially become a black hole with very limited upside in return. As I said in my interview with Property EU, the EU suffers from too many chiefs and not enough Indians! In order to justify a unified, common funding vehicle (or common currency for that matter, here's to you Euro) you will need a unified common, budgetary mechanism, common financial authority, and common government. Unitl then, you will simply have too many bosses telling to few capital Euros what to do. For those who are wondering why I included the article below, stay tuned to the subscription documents coming out over the next two weeks. A stagflationary environment, excess supply and a broken bankings system that not only won't lend but has signficant CRE debt rollovers coming up - and concentrated primarily in the banks of two nations (I'll let you guess who, one of whichi will be the subject of a bank run in 3...2...1...) all add up to a virtual Pan-European real estate collapse.

The French Government Creates A Bank Run? Here I Prove A Run On A French Bank Is Justified And Likely

Reggie Middleton Featured in Property EU, one of Europes leading real estate publicatios

Those who wish to download the full article in PDF format can do so here: Reggie Middleton on Stagflation, Sovereign Debt and the Potential for bank Failure at the ING ACADEMY-v2.

The related European commercial real estate video...