Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Replay Today's Market Activity in the S&P 500

Price Pct. Moves For The S&P 500 On Nov 30, 2010


Click the link below to follow todays market activity. The whole day is compressed into 58 seconds.




Aqumin's AlphaVision Landscape is arranged in the Aqumin Market Replay as follows:


Height: Price Pct Change in Real Time (On top of the horizon is up, On bottom is down)
Color: Price Pct Change in Real Time (Green up, Red down)
Order: Market Cap (bigger market caps are in the lower left corners)


Notice Info Tech never recovered today from a very ugly opening.


For more information on 3D visualization of financial data go to www.aqumin.com or email me at:
andrew.giovinazzi@aqumin.com




Andrew Giovinazzi
EVP Business Development, AQUMIN LLC

RF Implied Volatility coming in

Take a look at the January options in RF, large volume and Implied Volatility down -1.1v.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

This Cloud Stock is Smoking...

A weekly analysis of what is going on in the S&P 500 seems like a good idea for the Aqumin blog.  Everyone follows the VIX (CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index) but some of the underlying forces that make up the names in the S&P 500 are also worth noting.  My AlphaVision landscape helps break the underlying volatility action into digestible chunks.

Cloud w chart-small Three things I like to look at are: where the stock has been (1 Week Total Return), how the stock has moved (HV60) and where the market thinks the volatility is going (IV30).  This is one combination of data I use to find opportunities when I write columns for the TheStreet.com's OptionsProfits and it is something AlphaVision does uniquely well.  Take a look at the IV30 less HV60 landscape above.

Tall and Green means the stocks are up for the week and the IV30 is trading at a premium to the HV60.  In many cases, there is a lot of green because of the smoother nature of HV60 and is a big reason behind why fund managers write calls successfully.  What I look for is degree.  How much "really green" and in what sectors?  This gives me an idea of what paper's expectations are for the sectors and whether I recommend calls to write.

The big red spike can't help but get your attention. That is Salesforce.com (CRM).  The giant move on earnings and the subsequent violent up moves has pushed the IV30 below the HV60 and in general is against trend for the S&P 500.  This at least looks like a warning not to sell options in CRM.  This cloud stock is smoking, and I will heed the warning.

For more information on AlphaVision visit us at www.aqumin.com.

Enjoy the Holiday!

Andrew Giovinazzi

For AV for Bloomberg users, just click in the View Library to interact with this view live (IV30 outpacing HV60 with 1 Week Total Return). If you are not an AlphaVision for Bloomberg Subscriber please follow the download link here:  Download AV for Bloomberg

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Dead Cat Bounce

Now the EU is going to see what is under the lid of the Irish Banks. I hope they find more than a couple of cases of Guinness (although with all the bad debt that might be a plus). While that might have been part of the reason for the selloff yesterday the market was pretty even in selling everything except a couple of retail stocks. More than a couple of times I have used selloffs as buying opportunities but this time I want to use it to find a value somewhere else.

I am going to take a widely used volatility metric, the difference of IV30 (30 Day Implied) to HV60 (60 Day Moving Average of the underlying) and map it across Aqumin's (www.aqumin.com) AlphaVision Landscape.

Dead Cat

Everything where IV30 is a premium to HV60 is in green (with dark green being over a 10pt difference for reference) with both metrics close to even in white and IV30 at a discount to HV60 in red.  The height of each building is 1 Week Total Return (inverse scale) to catch yesterday's smack.  Notice how the vast majority of the landscape is green with only a few red buildings.  This is because the HV60 will produce, in general, a less "bumpy" volatility number because of the greater sample size.  You should expect that in normal conditions.  Both Cisco (CSCO) and Aegean Marine Petroleum Network (ANW) stand out as having the HV60 far exceeding the IV30 which is an indicator of a market shock (the "tallness" being a severe down move).  You can contrast that to Puda Coal (PUDA) which also had a significant down move but the market is not pricing the IV30 at such a discount (the skinny white building in the back corner of the sector).

For CSCO and ANW, the forward looking volatility number IV30 appears to be discounting any future move as big as what has happened (relatively cheap IV30 versus the move) but for PUDA, IV30 is keeping pace with HV60, expecting more of the same underlying movement as came before.  This PUDA cat has plenty of bounce left in it.

Andrew Giovinazzi

For AV for Bloomberg users, just click in the View Library to interact with this view live (IV30 outpacing HV60 with 1 Week Total Return). If you are not an AlphaVision for Bloomberg Subscriber please follow the download link here:  Download AV for Bloomberg

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Moving Trains and Falling Knives...

Anyone who has traded or invested knows that you don't want to get in the way of a moving train.  Ride the train, yes, but stay out of the way on the other side.  I just got off of my own ride for my posts on the TheStreet.com's Options Profits, winning 19 of 20 in retail option picks.  It was bound to end but that does not mean I like it.

Fortunately, I have Aqumin's AlphaVision Landscape to find new opportunities to take a closer look at.  It is like an alert system you never have to reset to see market currents.  Just click a View and see what is happening in that space in time across the names you are interested in.  AlphaVision effortlessly creates visual alerts in the nooks and crannies of the equity markets.

11-10-2010 9-46-10 AM Take a look above at the S&P 500 yesterday at EOD.  My eyes were immediately drawn to the giant spike in the back of the landscape.  The tall red spike means Dean Foods (DF) got smoked on the day and the dark red color means that the name is lagging behind the entire S&P 500 for the month.  A falling knife if there ever was one.  Most likely that would come up on a typical alert, if you could set for both.  But what you also see is 1 month total return and 1 day total return at once, for 500 names instantly per Industry Sub Group (Bloomberg).  This is like looking at 500 rows and two columns on a spreadsheet already divided up by Sub Group in one shot.  On a down/strange day it is easy to see what has been on a tear.  The move in context generates a new idea.  One last thing to note is the run up in implied volatility prior to earnings in the old school chart on the lower right, pretty lucky bet there.

Back to DF now... It is not a name I will jump out and recommend but put into an AV watch list for future reference.  As I flip through my View Library looking for more anomalies, DF will pop in context with all the other names I follow.  Maybe the Falling Knife will regain the earnings power (milk is a commodity after all, aren't those going up?) it enjoyed in 2007 (it was a $40 stock then) but I will keep watching until my landscapes tell me to look harder.

Andrew Giovinazzi

For AV for Bloomberg users, just click 1 Day vs 1 Month Total Return in the View Library to interact with this view live. If you are not an AlphaVision for Bloomberg Subscriber please follow the download link here:  Download AV for Bloomberg

Monday, November 1, 2010

Unloved Technology 3x

Each week I write Option picks for TheStreet.com Options Profits.  Follow the link below to see my post and learn more about the landscape shown below.

Unloved Technology 3X

11-1-2010 4-02-32 PM

Andrew Giovinazzi