You need examples.
I was wishing a longtime friend who turns 50 Sep 20 a happy what they call on Game of Thrones “Name Day,” and it called to mind those words. We were college freshmen 31 years ago – how time flies – and I thought back to my Logic and Philosophy professor.
He’d say in his thick Greek accent, “You need examples. You cannot illustrate anything well with merely theory, nor can you prove something without support.”
In the stock market, examples are vital for separating theory from fact. And for helping investor-relations professionals and investors alike move past thinking “the market is complicated so my eyes glaze over” to realizing it’s just a grocery store for stocks.
With a rigid set of prescribed rules for consumers. You can watch consumers comply. Some race around the store grabbing this or that. Others mosey the aisles loading the cart.
Timing plays a huge role. It’s not random.
I’ll give you an example. Monday I was trading notes with a client whose shares are Overbought, pegging ten on our 10-point Sentiment scale, and 65% short.
Okay, here we go. What does “Overbought” mean? Let’s use an analogy. You know I love using spinach, right. Overbought means all the spinach on the grocery store shelf is gone. If the store is out of spinach, people stop consuming spinach.
What alone can override an overbought spinach market is willingness to pay UP for more spinach by driving to another store. Most consumers won’t. They’ll buy something else.
All analogies break down but you see the point? We can measure the interplay of price and behaviors in shares so we know when they’re Overbought, Oversold, or about right — Neutral.
Now let’s introduce timing into the equation. Monday was the one day all month with new options on stocks and other securities officially trading. Our example stock was up 4%. Yet it’s Overbought and 65% short.
What’s “65% short?” That means 65% of trading volume is coming from borrowed shares. Traders are borrowing and selling shares every day to profit on short-term price-changes. It’s more than half the trading volume.
A quick and timely aside here: We were in Chicago Friday for the NIRI chapter’s annual IR Workshop and the last panel – an awesome one spearheaded by Snap-On’s Leslie Kratcoski, an IR superstar – included the head of prime brokerage for BNP Paribas. Among many other things, prime brokers lend securities. BNP is also a big derivatives counterparty.
Those elements dovetail in our example. The stock was Overbought and 65% short yet soared 4% yesterday. Short squeeze (forced buying), yes. But we now know WHY.
News didn’t drive price up 4%. It was a classic case of big moves, no news. One could cast about and come up with something indirect. But let’s understand how the grocery store for your shares continuously reveals purpose.
The CONDITIONS necessary for the stock to move up 4% existed BEFORE the move. This is why it’s vital to measure consistently. If you’re not measuring, you’re guessing.
Why would the stock soar with new options trading? There is demand for derivatives tied to the company’s stock. Parties short had to buy in – cover positions. Why? Because the counterparty needed shares to back new derivatives positions (naked puts or calls are much riskier).
The stock jumped 4% because that’s how much higher the price had to move to bring new spinach, so to speak, into the market, the grocery store. Nobody wanted to sell at current prices – the stock was Overbought. Up 4%, sellers were induced to offer shares.
On any other day of the month these events would not have coalesced. I suspect hedge funds behind the bets had no idea their cloak of secrecy would be yanked off.
Once you spend a little time measuring and understanding the market, you can know in a minute or two what’s setting price. And now we know to watch into October expirations because hedge funds have made a sizeable bet, likely up (if they’re wrong they’ll be sellers ahead of expirations – and we’ll watch short volume).
Speaking of timing, options expirations for September wraps officially today with VIX and other volatility trades lapsing. The market has been on a tear. Come Thu-Fri, we’ll get a first taste of autumn. Next week brings window-dressing for the month and quarter.
Our Sentiment Index marked a double top through expirations. About 80% of the time, an up market into expirations is a down market after, and with surging Sentiment, down could be dramatic say five or so trading days from now.
You’ll have to tell me how it goes! Karen and I are off to mark time riding bikes from Munich to Salzburg through the Bavarian Alps, a way to measure my impending 50th birthday next month. We call it The Four B’s: Beer, bread, brats and bikes. We’ll report back the week of Oct 9.
