Month: June 2010

1.       Understand the equity markets. Options are derivatives, meaning they derive their prices from the prices of the stocks, ETFs and indexes they are listed on.  While options strategies can limit risk or even change the risk you take, you should have some sort of opinion of the general direction…

by Jared Levy on June 3rd, 2010 *Data courtesy of Bloomberg So the second-quarter earnings season has basically ended and the S&P 500 Index (SPX) just had its worst monthly performance in almost 50 years, dropping 8.2% in May. In terms of earnings numbers for the overall index and the…

by Jared Levy on June 7th, 2010 …Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report was much worse than expected, hence the market’s very bearish reaction.  Only about 20,000 “real” permanent jobs were added in the month of May.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that 411,000 of the 431,000 jobs were temporary positions…