The equity markets took off higher today with SPX gaining $28 to close at $2076, near the December 2015 high just above $2080. Russell traded even more strongly, up $24 to $1135. Volatility dropped about 1.4 points to 14.4% on the VIX. Trading volume popped up as well with 2.1 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading, but remains below the 50 dma at 2.3B. Trading rose 11% on the NYSE and was up 3.5% on NASDAQ. The strength of today's move prompted IBD to shift to an assessment of "Market In Confirmed Uptrend".
New home sales may have had a role in today's strong market, as they reported an annualized rate of 619 thousand homes for April, up from March's 531 thousand. This is the highest new home sales number since January of 2008.
We closed the volatility trade we entered on ULTA in the trading group on May 6 for a 23% gain. This trade began as a diagonal call spread and was predicated on the June options rising in implied volatility as the earnings announcement approaches. Join us in our next trading group meeting June 2nd.
We have two positions open in the Flying With The Condor™ service; the Jun RUT iron condor at 1010/1020 and 1220/1230 stands at a net gain of 14% and the July SPX condor at 1860/1870 and 2170/2180 is up 10%.
The second estimate of first quarter GDP will be reported Friday. Will that pull the market back into the sideways channel? Or will that report be revised upward and energize the bulls? SPX is close to resistance around $2080, the high from last December. The next resistance level is $2110, the high from November of last year.