When Will They Learn How To Count In Florida?
Are we still in 2000? Hanging Chads, perceived punch marks. Think about this. Children that weren’t even born in 2000 have now graduated from high school. Tech companies that no one heard of eighteen years ago are now worth billions, but Florida seems to have the same problem. They have not learned to count. I know that ballots can be difficult to calculate. If you want X to be governor you mark X if you want Y, you mark Y. However, since there are numerous possible choices on the ballot, Florida and particularly Palm Beach and Broward Counties, can’t figure out how to count.
On Thursday Florida’s protracted Senate machine count was declared Illegal and now we will begin the arduous process of a hand count of the ballots again. When voting stopped on Thursday at 3:00 PM. Republican senate candidate Rick Scott had a 12,603-vote lead over his opponent, down from 56,000 votes after the polls closed on Tuesday night. It appears that somehow all 44,000 votes that were found all voted for his opponent. If you know anything about math this is impossible. Florida law which requires votes to be counted on election day seems to be overlooked. Instead, new rules seem to be written every day or existing laws are ignored.
Did you ever see the movie “Roller Ball”? It was anti-establishment film done in the 1970’s in which evil corporations controlled the rules of the game. If the rules didn’t suit them they simply changed them to reflect their corporate opinion. Now it seems Florida has decided that roller ball rules are not so bad. The state would not accept Broward counties votes because they were two minutes late. Filing time was 3:00pm but the vote tally didn’t arrive until 3:02. Sounds like a little Roller Ball.
Now the election will now go to a recount. I am sure hundreds if not thousands of ballots will show up one way or the other. The people in charge of the counting are political stooges that were placed in office by incompetent authority. If you believe otherwise shame on you. Personally, I don’t care who wins in their recount.Only their legacy will be remembered by their associates and family members. But I do believe what ex-senator Joe Liberman once said. ‘At some time, the insanity of recounts must stop. If we don’t, the extreme left or right will eventually take over the country’.
Ask Mr. Seifert
I am constantly asked questions about trading and how to exploit certain market factors to insure success. Each week I will answer one of those questions with a short paragraph which will cover the trading subject.
What is an Iron Condor, and does it have unlimited risk or reward?
Answer: An Iron Condor is a very useful spread that has limited risk and limited reward. It is initiated by buying or selling two vertical spreads in the same serial. One of the spreads is a vertical call spread the other is a vertical put spread. Each spread is either above or below the current price of the underlying equity. If you sell both spreads you create a credit and are hoping that the price of the underlying asset will stay near the current price until expiration. If you are correct, one or both of the spreads will be winners and you will cash the trade. Your risk is limited to the difference between the strike prices minus the credit that you received when you sold the spread. If you buy both spreads you are creating a debit, you are hoping that the price will move in one direction or the other far enough allowing you to collect on one of the debit spreads that you bought. Most professional traders sell Iron Condors since one leg of the spread must be a winner mathematically and it is possible to collect on both ends of the credit spreads if the price falls in the middle.
The Wise Guy Report: The View from The Electronic Floor
Each week I talk about how the Wise Guys (floor traders) find the soft spots in the market and take advantage of price dislocation in three major commodity markets: Gold (GC), Crude Oil (CL) and Long-Term Interest Rates (ZB). On the equity side, I cover MSS which is the Mister Seifert Sez Composite Index. This is a proprietary index that I created which measures the dollar flow of the four major indexes (S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000 and the Dow Jones Industrials) on an unweighted basis. Let’s look at how the U.S. Equity markets are faring.
Crude Oil Takes A Flop (Blow Off Bottom)
All markets go thru cycles. They begin in congestion where the strong hands and weak hands continue to trade back and forth trying to get an edge. Eventually, one group or the other gains control and the market breaks out of congestion in the favor of the long hands. The trend may continue for an extended period of time but eventually the strong hands will force out the weak hands and as the weak bets cover, you will see either a “bubble” market to the upside or a “capitulation” bottom to the downs side. Crude Oil has reached that level to the downside. Six weeks ago, Crude hit the top and analysts predicted that there was no top in sight. It didn’t matter that the oversupply was being fed each day by the increased fracking in the U.S. and Canada and the world was buying oil. Suddenly the mood changed and when no greater fool could be found, the market collapsed. The market is now at a capitulation bottom and this is no place to sell. If you want to take a chance form the long side on this downside blow off, by all means make the trade. On the other hand, if you want to observe until the market reverses, that is also prudent. The one thing you cannot do is follow the media on TV who are projecting oil is going to zero, it may but I can tell you that this is a time to buy not sell.
Last week I noted that the markets seemed to have put in a bottom prior to the mid-term election results and that “market expectation” was that the Republicans would keep their edge in the Senate and probably lose the House to the Democrats. It seems like that is exactly what happened. Although the Red tide may have been slightly larger than anticipated by the pollsters, and as always more vote counting will be necessary in Broward County, Florida the equity markets seem to have found a bottom and look like we could be primed for a “Santa Clause” rally. Crude Oil seems to be headed to yearly lows and that could pump more funds into the equities. Except for the U.S. it has been a bad year to own stocks in other parts of the world. Both developed and developing markets have been hit. We now have the final six weeks of the year to see if we can turn in another stellar performance in equities.
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The Optionomics strategies let you become the casino whereby you have a mathematical edge that lets you grind out consistent returns in any kind of market environment. These strategies are designed to produce good returns over a short to intermediate term time frame. It is an approach to the stock market which will be hot, cold or average over time, but the end result should be very good in any type of market environment.
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Each Monday morning by 11:00 EST, the plays for the upcoming week plus updated model portfolios for each strategy are posted on the site. The prices in the reports are Monday morning’s opening prices. In addition, I have a webinar on Thursday afternoon where I discuss various option strategies, what is happening on the floor and answer any questions that you may have. Don’t worry if you miss the show. They are archived on the site. Sound Good? Good! You can subscribe to one or more of the subscriptions for only $19.95 each per month on a month to month basis with no contract or strings attached. If you subscribe to three, it is only $49.95 per month while you can subscribe to all six for only $79.95 per month, a 33% discount. I think you will agree that this is a super offer so give it a try. Click on www.optionomicsgroup.com to access the Optionomics Group web site and get started today doing what the pros do –
“Don’t Buy Them – Sell Them”.
Mr. Seifert