TRADING WEEK JUN 17-21

The volatility for the market continued this past week. The intraday trading ranges for SPY were not quite as good with 2.42, 4.96, 4.82, 3.74 and 2.96. The hi-lo for the week, however was 12.27. Notice that SPY was up 1.6% while the VIX and the VIX futures were all up. The skew is not quite as reliable as it used to be, which takes away one trading opportunity, but profiting from upside volatility gives you another opportunity. The at the money QQQ long straddle last week was a winner again. This coming week has only four trading days with the Juneteenth holiday on Wednesday. That means one less day of gamma scalping. The economic numbers this week are U.S. Retail Sales at 8:30am ET, with Industrial Production following forty-five minutes later on the 18th. On the 20th at 8:30am ET Housing Starts come out. Existing Home Sales and Leading Economic Indicators come out at 10:00am ET on the 21st. With one less day of trading and no blockbuster news coming out I'm going with a negative gamma position. That is going long the SPY 05Jul24-21Jun24 543 time value spread for 2.55. A gap opening would be deadly but you could otherwise make adjustments as the market moves. KR releases earnings before the opening on the 20th.