Stock Market: despite a lot of gyrations, not a whole lot has changed as far as our broad market indicators go. The equity-only put-call ratio remains solidly on a sell signal. This indicator is most applicable to indices such as $OEX or $SPX, not NASDAQ. As more and more put buying builds up (while the big-cap market drops), we will eventually get a contrarian peak of pessimism, but that seems to be some way off.
Additionally, our oscillator has dropped below -200 and is thus officially oversold. However, it can get VERY oversold, so will not anticipate. The oscillator will generate a buy signal when it eventually rises above -180 (it stands at about -217 as of the close of trading on Thursday, February 17th). In the past couple of days, small caps have begun to improve once again, and that has helped breadth improve somewhat. If that persists, we should see a buy signal from the oscillator within the week. However, as long as the equity-only put- call ratio remains on a sell signal, we would not get overly bullish, no matter WHAT the oscillator "says". Expiration is likely to be "yawn", at least as far as arbitrage buy or sell programs go. $OEX would have to fall below 740 for sell programs to occur at the close of trading Friday, and that seems unlikely since it closed at 752 Thursday.
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