Hello Shtirlitz:
I noticed a peculiarity today in going over a number of tech stock options (CBOE closing quotes)--the options reflect pricing expecting a future price centered around today's closing price. Gone was the general indication of upward pricing forward. Trading volumes in the underlying stocks were often fractions of usual, too. Time premiums seemed to fairly uniformly advance with time scale. Arguably the options are indicating (at least my sampling of a couple dozen tech stocks, the majority which are short candidates and a few longs) stock prices are at their expected price level for the next 9 months.
I think I will watch this, hope for some selective rallies in issues, and trade the options, rather than the stocks. I would be looking for a rise, plateau followed by decay in put premium, buy the puts, and look for favorable trades for the future. If that doesn't pan out then another alternative is to buy deep in the money puts and sell those after a price drop. The market has been choppy enough that doing spreads would be less productive due to volatility premiums, especially if pricing remains flat. I am presuming there is significantly further downside in the general market yet to come--lower highs, lower lows, monies flowing from more speculative issues to less speculative issues.
Best regards,
m
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