Lawrence G. McMillan reviews the options market in his weekly column for October 31.
The rally has been a straight-up affair, leaving a "V" bottom in its wake. Fortunately, our indicators have generated a strong series of buy signals along the way.
Since $SPX has sliced through virtually every conceivable resistance area, it makes it difficult to identify either support and resistance at this point. However, the overbought conditions that now exist have -- in the past -- caused the market to stop rising.
Equity-only put-call ratios continue to remain on buy signals, as they are now dropping steadily on a daily basis. Market breadth oscillators were negative all summer, but they were the first to turn positive in this current rally. Now they are overbought, but sell signals are not imminent here.
Volatility indices have collapsed during the rally. They are now in downtrends, which is bullish.
In summary, all of the indicators are positive. The only negative is that $SPX has risen so far so fast. So the intermediate-term picture is bullish, but the short-term action could be subject to overbought corrections.
Lawrence G. McMillan is the author of two best selling books on options, including Options as a Strategic Investment, and also publishes several option trading newsletters.