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Strategies & Market Trends : LastShadow's Position Trading -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Susan Saline who wrote (15619)	6/15/1999 7:55:00 PM
From: LastShadow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 43080

Triple Witching coming this Friday Friday marks the quarterly expiration of options on common stocks and stock indexes, as well as futures on indexes. Investors and Wall Street brokerages buy or sell stocks and options in the days leading up to the expirations to reverse earlier bets. This time, puts and calls are more evenly balanced than for the last few expirations, when puts predominated, traders said. On the last triple witching day, March 19, the Dow slumped 94 points. Options are contracts that give the buyer the right to buy or sell a security at a predetermined price within a specified period of time. Puts are a bet that the market will fall, calls a bet it will gain. ''It's neither bullish nor bearish for stocks,'' said Diane Garnick, an equity-derivatives strategist at Merrill Lynch & Co. ''It means we'll trade in a very small range between now and Friday.'' She estimates that trading range would be from 1275 to 1325 on the S&P 500. Stocks have generally risen in options expirations weeks. During the past five years, the Dow industrials have gained 40 points from Tuesday's open to the settlement of futures and options on Friday, on average. No significant down moves occurred in that period.