Abandon Hope all ye who enter here

It is May and the statistics say to expect less than 1% return on average the next two months. (The quant's computers went a little crazy this morning, or, is it just May?) In any case, July is a trade and after that stay short because its coming - big.

short, Islander

(the inscription above the gates of Hell)

"]

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye

.

Dante's Divine Comedy.

Edited by Islander, 05 May 2008 - 10:54 AM.

If the speculators open any more strangles, the indices will be flat like a pancake until June 20th! May options are a bit bearish (in billions from Friday's eqtuity and ETF OI with 13:00ET prices); %-change calls puts -5 2.40 6.34 -4 2.71 5.77 -3 3.08 5.27 -2 3.50 4.84 -1 3.98 4.50 0 4.51 4.21 1 5.11 3.98 2 5.79 3.78 3 6.53 3.61 4 7.35 3.47 5 8.21 3.34 June options are also a bit bearish than bullish in billions; -5 1.61 2.45 -4 1.76 2.29 -3 1.92 2.15 -2 2.10 2.03 -1 2.29 1.92 0 2.48 1.82 1 2.69 1.72 2 2.92 1.63 3 3.16 1.55 4 3.42 1.48 5 3.69 1.42 Total May and June again the same slight bearish bias, but the $-amounts piling up in either side are just too big; -8 2.90 11.47 -7 3.24 10.50 -6 3.61 9.60 -5 4.01 8.79 -4 4.47 8.06 -3 4.99 7.42 -2 5.59 6.87 -1 6.26 6.42 0 6.99 6.03 1 7.81 5.70 2 8.71 5.41 3 9.70 5.16 4 10.77 4.95 5 11.90 4.76 6 13.11 4.60 7 14.39 4.46 8 15.71 4.33 Quite a bit (more) money needed to move forward and quite a shock is needed to drop down!!! If the indices are going to move up, they have to pull back a bit load up the further bear fuel and let some bulls out of the bus. Any further advance into the May expiration with this config will burn the last remaining bears and it will likely be a terminal. But this configuration will not let the prices to move far in either way. We are trading a range at the moment...