TRADING WEEK FEB 17TH-FEB 21ST

The market keeps marching higher in spite of the initially bad news from the CPI release Wednesday morning. The relief from not implementing massive tariffs pushed the market higher. The intraday trading ranges for SPY were 2.76, 3.43, 6.04, 6.74 and 1.92. The hi-lo for the week was 12.48. With all of that the SPY straddle was a slight winner although a severe case of heartburn went along with it. There are no sexy numbers coming out this week, unlike last week. Housing Starts comes out at 8:30am ET on the 19th. On the 20th Leading Economic Indicators comes out at 10:00am ET. Twenty-four hours later Existing Home Sales comes out. Not exactly a Murder's Row for economic numbers. Due to President's Day on Monday there will be only four trading days. That made the negative gamma SPY 21Feb25 605-610-615 call butterfly expensive at 1.32 while the positive gamma SPY 21Feb25 610 long straddle was relatively inexpensive at 6.13. I went with the butterfly although I wouldn't criticize anybody for going long the straddle with the market being so toppy. OXY releases earnings on the 18th after the close. WMT releases before the opening on the 20th with RIVN releasing after the close.