Ferdinand or Raging Bull??

Those of you that have been reading my posts for the Aqumin blog I thank you for your patience as I have been contributing to the TheStreet.com's Option Profits lately.  Those posts are mostly option oriented picks for TheStreets' subscribers (but do show up in Yahoo Finance now and again on Wednesday's after the close).  For my posts at Aqumin I am going to stick to the broad volatility trends I watch daily using AlphaVision for Bloomberg.  I'll be sharing my observations with you weekly.

There has been so much takeover action (is Bain Capital really buying Gymboree?) that I thought a broad gauge of volatility in the S&P 500 was a good idea.  I am not talking about the VIX, but the short term underlying (HV10) volatility of the stocks themselves.  In the AlphaVision Landscape below the big green spikes on top of the landscape are stocks up the most for the last week with the greatest change in HV10.  You can think of these stocks as rallying with gusto (more Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull) and the red stocks show declining HV10 (more like Ferdinand in your kid's books).

I highlighted both King Pharmaceuticals Inc (KG) and Adobe Systems (ADBE) for context in the green spikes.  The simple take away here is that HV10 is trending down for most of the S&P500 (but stocks have been mostly up) which in general is a better time to write calls against existing stock positions (the red ones).

If you are looking for up and out short term, write the green spikes (too late for KG though, Pfizer beat you to it).  Of note to me as well is the general lackluster performance of the GICS Financials in the back left corners.  Not one big green spike.  Just how long will they remain the Ferdinand's of the equity market?  Tune in next week....

Andrew Giovinazzi

For AlphaVision for Bloomberg subscribers please click the 1 Week Momentum BLP view to see this in Real Time (chose the S&P 500 Universe) and navigate to the names in your portfolio.  If you are not an AlphaVision for Bloomberg Subscriber please follow the download link here:  Download AV for Bloomberg

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