Category: INO.com Contributors

COVID-19 - An Agile Options Strategy

Posted on by The INO.com Team

COVID-19 has become the black swan event that has materialized into a worldwide economic halt. The spread of the virus globally has crushed stocks and decimated entire industries such as airlines, casinos, travel, leisure, and retail, with others in the crosshairs. COVID-19 was the linchpin for the major indices to drop over 30% over the course of 22 days. This COVID-19 induced sell-off has been the worst since the Great Depression in terms of breadth and velocity of the sell-off while inducing extreme market volatility that hasn’t been since the Financial Crisis.

Although options trading provides a margin of downside protection and a statistical edge, no portfolio is immune from the wreckage when hit with a black swan event. Thus, proper portfolio construction is essential when engaging in options trading to drive portfolio results. One of the main pillars when building an options-based portfolio is maintaining ample liquidity via holding ~50% of one’s portfolio in cash. This liquidity position provides the ability to adjust when faced with extreme market conditions such as COVID-19 rapidly. Thus, an agile options-based portfolio is essential. The COVID-19 pandemic is a prime example of why maintaining liquidity is one of the many keys to an effective long-term options strategy.

An Agile Options Strategy

Risk management is paramount when engaging in options trading. A slew of protective measures should be deployed if options are used as a means to drive portfolio results. When selling options and running an options-based portfolio, the following guidelines are essential: Continue reading "COVID-19 - An Agile Options Strategy" →

Is Real Estate The Next Shoe To Drop - Part 3

Posted on by Chris Vermeulen

Our continued research into the state and status of the Real Estate market continues to point to a process that is starting to unfold in the US which may put price and activity levels at risk. Within the past two segments of this research article, we’ve highlighted how market cycles and recent market data point to a Real Estate market that may be in the early stages of a downward price cycle.

Additionally, within Part II of this article, we highlighted the human psychological process of dealing with a crisis event which also suggests a deepening price contraction event may take place within the next 12 to 24+ months.

US New Home Sales Data Was Just Released

We believe the psychological process is just starting to become evident in the current data. For example, the US New Home Sales data was just released and it shows the sharpest decline in activity since June 2010 (nearly 14 months after the actual bottom in the US stock market in March 2009).

Real Estate

Our researcher team believes investors/traders and many consumers have become complacent with the current data and are simply in denial in attempting to relate future economic outcomes to the current set of circumstances. There has never been anything like this to disrupt global economic activity and consumer engagement over the past 100+ years. Not even the Great Depression or WWII was on this scale. Continue reading "Is Real Estate The Next Shoe To Drop - Part 3" →

Is Real Estate The Next Shoe To Drop - Part 2

Posted on by Chris Vermeulen

As we continue to delve into the looming Real Estate crisis that will likely hit the US and globe over the next 12 to 24+ months, we want to focus on the human psychological process of dealing with a crisis event and how that relates to economic engagement. In the first part of this research article, we discussed how the time-line and events that have unfolded over the past 120+ days have setup a continuing global crisis event. The best of our knowledge, there has been nothing like this, other than massive wars like WWII, that have taken place on the planet over the past 75+ years.

This presents a very real possibility that human psychological processes have engaged throughout the planet that may disrupt how effective the recovery efforts are in the near future. If humans engage in a traditional psychological crisis-cycle process, then there is little chance that the economic recovery will reach 2018-2019 levels very quickly. Let’s review the psychological process of a crisis event.

The Normal Psychological Reactions To A Crisis Event Are

Vicarious Rehearsal: People that are distanced from the crisis event (location or expectations) tend to react in a way that reflects their belief that “it won’t result in any dramatic changes to their lives”. Thus, they continue behaving and acting as they would without the crisis.

Denial: The process of denial takes on many forms. Some people simply ignore the warnings or information related to the crisis. Others become agitated or confused. Some simply chose to believe the threat is not real and others may believe the threat does not relate to themselves.

Stigmatization: Sometimes, segments of society may become stigmatized by their community as anger or blame drives people to believe infected people or segments of society that may promote the crisis event are identified. We’ve already seen some of this type of activity throughout the globe take place. Continue reading "Is Real Estate The Next Shoe To Drop - Part 2" →

Oil To Test Storage Capacity

Posted on by Robert Boslego

Timing when oil storage will be full is one of the key issues of interest in the oil market. It depends on how long stays depressed, or how quickly it can rebound, and how much oil producers are cutting output in the U.S. and worldwide. The answers are unknown, but I will try to outline what is known and likely.

Oil data in the U.S. is the most timely and accurate, so that’s a good place to start. Crude oil inventories in Cushing, Ok., the delivery hub for the NYMEX WTI crude futures contract, reached 59.7 million barrels in the week ending April 17. About 2.1 million is used for line fill, and so 57.7 million is the net stocks held in tank farms. That represents 76 % of net working storage of 76.1 million barrels.

Given the excess storage, it would not explain why trader panic drove oil prices negative just prior to the expiration of the May contract. The reason was that the remaining storage was leased. “The terminals have already contracted their storage 100%,” said Ernie Barsamian, chief executive officer of The Tank Tiger, a terminal storage clearinghouse, was quoted.

And so traders who were still long but could not take delivery had to sell at any price. And buyers got Continue reading "Oil To Test Storage Capacity" →

Gold Miners And Inflation

Posted on by Gary Tanashian

I think the case is closed, or it should be closed. But with firmly ingrained perceptions passed down from one generation of inflationist gold bugs to the next, you never know. Remember the old dismissive “gold is silver is copper is tin is oil is hogs” line from the 2003-2008 time frame? Probably not, but I remember it because it was me saying it against an army of inflationist commodity and resources bulls advising to buy gold, buy silver, buy oil… buy resources of all kinds to protect yourself from the evils of inflation!

As an interlude, here is a pleasant interaction I had with a reader (actually, the interaction was his in a comment to an article of mine, but you get the drift) during the 2016 gold sector launch that ultimately proved to be ill-fated by mid-year because… inflation.

I’m sick of internet d******s and the lying media and govt trying to tell me there’s no inflation! Inflation in the US is VERY HIGH. Its currently 8.3%, and has averaged 9.5% over the past 7 years.

Dude, the article was about why gold stocks do not benefit from inflation and why at that time the backdrop was positive (again, it degraded badly later in the year as inflation reared its head). Of course, there is inflation, all along the Continuum of deflationary macro signaling against which they routinely spray the stuff out of fire hoses, like now for example.

Without the secular decline in Treasury bond yields and complete abdication of the mythical Bond market Inflation Vigilantes, the decades-long inflationary regime would not be possible. Jerome Powell was unimaginably hawkish during the market correction of late 2018. The herd could not understand why, but we could. Inflation signals were getting out of hand as the yield spent a couple of months above the Continuum’s limiter (monthly EMA 100).

30 year bond yield

But sure enough, that got fixed as we suspected it would as the Continuum got hammered down since then into today’s deflationary doldrums. The Continuum has reloaded the inflation gun yet again as yields have tanked and bonds have bulled ever since. Continue reading "Gold Miners And Inflation" →