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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics

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To: Zeev Hed who wrote (17026)12/30/2001 4:26:53 PM
From: mishedlo  Read Replies (1) of 99280
 
Zeev, My criminal mind says the "powers that be" can win huge with the market going essentially no where by Jan expiry.
QQQ puts are moderately high balancing out Equity calls.
How does the market go sideways but cause the most pain?

Same scaenrio as last month, I suggest.
INTC flat from here to expiry
The Q slightly to moderately down to kill those buying both equity puts and calls on the more popular big names.
Garbage + MSFT rallies so that the QQQ PUTs bite the dust.
QQQ Jan 40 will kill the calls as well as PUTs (actually CALLS are a way bigger position than PUTs), so if we rally hard firts we will need to later sink.
INTC at 32 1/2 collects the worlds fair in premiums.
CSCO anywhere below 20 is a good bet.

Now how do we get there from here?
What will do the most harm to the most people.
What is least expected?

Scenario #1
Let's say we rally first.
Everyone is happy.
Many people have positioned themselves for a "January Effect" runup, even some noted bears.
This seems too logical and would not surprise anyone.

Thus let's try #2
We sink a moderate 80-100 Naz points in 3-5 days to start off Jan. Now the bulls do not know what is going on. The bears who were afraid of January are not in on much of the action having closed shorts in the end of year markup, but they welcome this drop and pile on some shorts and PUTs after this moderate decline. Then a very very quick rally of the entire drop in 1-2 days (a classic bear trap). Slight pullback and then chop into expiry ending on an up note right at max pain or slightly above at expiry. The rally continues afterwards to "distribute the wares". Wall street touts this rally as "proof" of the new bull market. Dollars come pouring back into the market.... bla bla bla ... You know the rest

That is the most unexpected scenario that is consistent with making enormous January option interest expire worthless. It puts the bulls to the test and the bears to the test, while the initial expected January rally puts no one to the test IMO.

Perhaps this scenario is just too "impossible" to engineer with all that Jan influx of fund $ ready to sent to $ heaven, but that is why I am very very cautious here.

M
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