In this episode, host Jermal Chandler welcomes Kevin Davitt from NASDAQ to discuss his journey in finance and the evolution of trading tools that empower retail investors. They explore the current trends in the NASDAQ 100 (NDX), the importance of strategic sizing, and the implications of high dispersion in today's market. Tune in for valuable insights into navigating the complexities of modern trading and the ongoing transformations within the financial landscape.
In this episode of From Theory to Practice, Jim Schultz discusses recent earnings trades, particularly focusing on Netflix (NFLX) and upcoming earnings for Tesla (TSLA) and IBM (IBM). He highlights a successful long put spread on Netflix that yielded a profit, emphasizing the effectiveness of at-the-money vertical spreads for earnings plays. Schultz also shares his bullish outlook on Tesla, planning to use an expected move butterfly strategy. For IBM, he opts for an out-of-the-money put spread for a downside bet. The market remains volatile, impacting various assets, including gold and silver.
Why do technical price levels matter more in FX markets than equities? Plus, an all-around glimpse into the third consecutive day of weakness in rare earth metals, nuclear energy names, and quantum computing stocks.
Hosts Nick and Tony navigated a difficult What's Your Assumption session where liquidity issues dominated, forcing passes on 4 of 10 viewer suggestions due to excessively wide markets. The executed trades included a UPS November-December 80/82 put diagonal for $4.50 (stock at five-year lows ahead of October 28th earnings), VST November 165 puts at $5 (stock down from 220 to 185 on six-day slide), and an SLV 43-40 1x3 put ratio spread at 24-cent credit capitalizing on 69 IV rank after Nick had closed a prior 42-47 strangle yesterday. The session featured extensive discussion about market quality, with CME showing $2.65 bid/$5.10 ask spreads deemed "untradeable" and GH (despite viewer Ron's pre-IPO success) having $4-wide markets. They advised viewer Joe against his zero-day SPX scalping strategy involving flipping between put and call spreads, calling it "eat like a bird, poop like an elephant" and suggesting micro E-mini futures instead. The Intel diagonal trade was postponed until after tomorrow's earnings, with Nick emphasizing the importance of longer duration (November 21st vs November 7th) to avoid getting "vaporized" by non-moves when volatility contracts.
Hosts Nick and Tony analyzed Japan's political and monetary shifts driving extreme yen volatility, explaining how Japan's new prime minister favoring government spending and looser budgets weakens the yen through higher bond issuance and money printing, similar to US dollar's 15-20% annual decline. The carry trade mechanics were illustrated: investors borrow yen at low rates, exchange for US dollars, invest in higher-yielding US bonds, and profit from the 1-2.5% spread while benefiting from yen depreciation when converting back. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle that continues "until something inevitably blows up" like August's carry trade unwind that impacted global equity markets. The discussion emphasized that content typically follows moves rather than predicting them, with the analysis highlighting how cheap yen funding affects not just Japan-US flows but also supports global liquidity as investors use yen loans to buy emerging market bonds and equities, creating trades highly sensitive to policy shifts that can quickly reverse.
Stocks stopped rising after prices came back within striking distance of record highs while gold dropped, suffering its biggest one-day loss in five years. What's going on? tastylive's Head of Global Macro Ilya Spivak breaks down what price action in equities, bonds, rates, currencies, and commodities seems to be saying about what global markets are thinking, and where they might go next.