OK. . .the range expansion that was anticipated as a result of last week's pivot study turned out to be quite BIG! and once again the range % delta is showing doubles (and triples with the IWM).
If you're following my thinking here, the coming week should show a volatility retracement in the pivots as we work off last week's action and a VIX that spiked to over 36. This doesn't imply that prices will necessarily stay within the weekly support resistance LR30 channel . . ., it does imply we'll see range contraction.
Tomorrow I'll take a look at next week's PP pivot levels in conjunction with the 3 LRs study of our little ETF basket for further clues about likely short term mean reversion targets.
Sidenote: With the banning of short selling in 799 financials this morning I thought I was going to have to revise all my systems to delete the short side, but upon a little reflection, the world has not ended for short sellers. ETFs can still be shorted and of course, those wonderful inverse 2x ETFs are still active.
I'm inclined to just buy puts or, more likely, sell calls, when trying to establish a short position, so the game is still afoot and I expect many stocks that previously had low to moderate open interest will see a significant rise in activity.
2 comments:
Excerpts from the Dow Jones Newswire article by Ian Salisbury (9-19-08 at 14:03):
"ProFunds Group [who manage SKF and SEF] put out a short statement indicating it would not create new shares of its "short" and "ultra short" financial sector ETFs. Creating new shares is essential in making sure ETFs trade at prices that reflect their underlying values....Following the announcement, UltraShort Financials ProShares ETF (SKF) traded at $93.44, about 3% above the value of its holdings, which stood at $90.70 a share....The Short Financials ProShares ETF (SEF) which allows investors to bet against financial stocks but doesn't magnify returns, traded at $63.15, about 0.3% below the value of its holdings." This appears to be quite a game changer. Even though the SKF resumed trading on Friday, do folks understand that they are now essentially trading the equivalent of a closed-end fund (at a premium), with a "locked-in" NAV of $90.70 (at least until Oct 2 when the short sale ban expires). PS: Thanks for your great blog.
mjm,
Many thanks for posting those excerpts and your right-on commentary. They will certainly have significant trickle down effects for ETF profund traders.
I'm still not sure whether the short ban is just temporary or is now permanent. Something for further research.
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