Monday's Option Alerts

Since we last left off, investors have pared down their holdings. The green pastures have been neatly trimmed down to price supports in the SPY, while the DIAs are still trying to bloom underneath the the weight of the March and April highs. Volume though relatively heavy the past two sessions, hasn't matched up to the enthusiastic bids found on the way up.

The VIX has barely budged, and has given the 10-Day moving average the opportunity to play catch up. This action has our volatility index not looking as stretched as it has during the past two weeks. I'll say it again because I think it's worth repeating, especially since we have seen some very nice percentage retracements in many products, and that is: risk to reward has been skewed in favor of trading the market action with some exceptional value, courtesy of the "implieds". Straddles, strangles, gamma trading your favorite product, and possibly outright option positions, in the context of a well defined stop loss methodology, continue to rule the day.

Points of Significance:

Abnormal Options Volume -- This list includes both percentage movers that are normally associated with an increase in options activity, as well as stocks that have unusually high activity and / or technical situations, reflecting increased speculation of a potential price move.

Stocks With Spikes in Implied Volatility -- Stocks with Increases and Decreases in implied volatility compared to previous day. Candidates are then screened qualitatively. These lists represent those issues that carry a blend of liquidity and/or technical setups that might deserve further notice. 

Spike Up

Spike Down

Please use stops on every trade!