I’m one of those people who tends to ignore most stock market commentary. In my time of trading and investing—which is only a short time in retrospect—I would much rather focus on the price action and have a plan in place than anxiously read random stranger’s opinions online, or even worse: base my entire trade on what CNBC has to say. That being said, let’s take a look at where SPY is and where it potentially could be headed using the volume and moving averages as a guide.
I’ve written before how having the 10, 50, and 200-day MA indicator in place has completely upped my trading strategy in enabling myself to envision the downside more as I have been sort of guilty of being in the “stonks only go up” bunch, but now seeing SPY at new ATH after an incredible month’s run that we called in May, I am now in the cautious zone of there being a local top and forthcoming correction. NOT to be all doom and gloom at all, but rather staying protected and not chasing calls at the top so to speak without having any position in a potential selloff.
Back on May 8th on the daily chart there was a 10DMA crossover to the 50DMA, since that time SPY ran from roughly $510 to $540! Which: was it only because of that indicator? No, of course not (who is really to say “why”), but having this strategy in place, one could have purchased OTM calls for a swing and banked.
Last Friday on 6/14 SPY closed at $542.78 and hit an all-time high of $544.12 on 6/12 just two days before. Since it failed to close above this price and is trading way above the 10DMA now, with the 50 + 200DMA getting further and further below, part of me thinks it might be time for a pullback at *least* to the 10DMA of $535.87 and maybe even close to the 50DMA at $519. So a cautious trader would basically do a reverse trade from last month: instead of purchasing OTM calls with the 10DMA crossover to the 50, one could use the MA as a pullback zone for put strikes at a later date.
Another thing I am looking at is the volume: on 6/12 + 6/13 there were two red volume bars followed by a lower volume green bar on 6/14; using the above data one could see that people were selling at that new ATH. So for me I would be looking at a July 19th expiration put strike between $535-519 as a hedge for my portfolio.
Does this mean a guaranteed pullback? Of course not, but looking at the past moves, what goes up must come down eventually. Unless of course, for whatever reason, the May-June run continues into new bull territory, the dip could be minimal increasing the 10DMA to $540-550 and SPY could be heading to uncharted territory $550-560. In that case, you could have the later-dated puts in place along with some OTM calls if the run continues.
I care less about being “right” and more about being prepared and ready for any and all possible outcomes minimizing emotions and what the next guy is saying. My plan for the swings is an option strangle strategy of $535-525 puts for 7/19, and $545-550 calls for 7/19 and just seeing what happens.
For the shorter-term trader, for next week you could do a straddle of $540 calls and $540 puts and just see what happens for 6/21 letting one side expire worthless, and if you’re mega bullish for next week you could get the $545-550 calls for an extended run (whereas the bears might see that 10DMA $535 hit before Friday).
At this point it seems like one could simply flip a coin to determine the fate of the market as it usually defies all logic, but the first signal I’d be looking at this week is getting below $540 to see the 10DMA for a correction, and for bulls closing above that previous ATH $544.12 to see $545-550.