I am pulling the plug on my short position in the Euro here, selling my Euro ETF (FXE) January, 2012 $134 puts at cost. It’s not that I have suddenly fallen in love with the beer drinkers and the garlic eaters. This is an option driven decision. With market volatility falling across all asset classes, [...]

Take a look at the charts below, and you will see what prompted me to knock out some shorts on the S&P 500 (SPY) on Friday. The longer the current trading range in the index works, the more traders pile into it, confining it to an ever narrowing range. I am even hearing that fundamental [...]

I heard the magic words today from German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy: “treaty changes”. That will be the gist of their joint proposal at the European summit this coming Friday to deal with the sovereign debt crisis. To me, this means that the two besieged leaders are finally biting the bullet [...]

The November nonfarm payroll came in at 120,000, better than the consensus. The unemployment rate plunged an eye popping 0.5% to 8.6%, the lowest level in 32 months and one of the sharpest contractions on record. Some 140,000 private jobs were added, bringing the 32 month total to an even 3 million, an impressive feat [...]