– Jeff Kilburg: Welcome to Striking Options, the show that reveals the options you have to better navigate markets I'm Jeff Kilburg and we've adjusted our show until we can get back into the studio
I'm joined today by Bob Iaccino Welcome, Bob – Bob Iaccino: Good to talk to you, Jeff – Jeff Kilburg: Well, exciting week, Bob 40% of the S&P 500 companies, nearly 300 of those companies, are going to report their earnings this week
We're seeing another $1 trillion in stimulus, potentially, to be approved out of Washington DC, but my question to you is, which one's more important to market sentiment? – Bob Iaccino: Well, definitely to sentiment, I think it's short-term earnings, medium-term a new stimulus plan The earnings, a lot's been made about earnings where we've got 80% of the companies that have reported actual earnings so far having beaten a much lowered EPS That definitely is a tail wind, but I think there is kind of a replay of the government taking things down to the wire and then potentially getting a deal done just in time
– Jeff Kilburg: All right, fair enough Let's dive into two topics today, if you're comfortable with that I want to talk about the NASDAQ 100 making new all-time highs, but then I also want to shift gears and talk about the recent surge in Bitcoin Sound like a plan? – Bob Iaccino: Sounds like a plan – Jeff Kilburg: All right, here we go
Technology, we talked about last Thursday being one of the biggest earnings days We saw Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, they all delivered on their earnings reports, and they actually added, those four stocks added, $215 billion in market cap after the close on Thursday That's like adding a Home Depot So, sure enough, we are seeing technology continue to attract assets My question to you is, we see such disparity between the technology sector and the broader S&P 500; can this persist? – Bob Iaccino: Yeah, I think it can
I think the one issue that might plague technology is what you mentioned a second ago, which is the stimulus plan, and I mean the money directly to consumers One of the things that tech could count on during the lockdowns was that people had extra money to spend, and they spent it online, which certainly went into things like new iPads and purchases from Amazon and the like So I think that might be the one thing that could throw a wrench in the works, but it seems like the Fed put is alive and well for technology And when we see wrenches potentially being thrown, we like to talk about utilizing NASDAQ 100 futures or the micro e-mini NASDAQ futures And also exciting, at the end of the month, for the trade day of August 31st, there's actually going to be options on the NASDAQ, the micro options
Those are coming out, as well as micro options in the S&P 500 So, a lot of tools in the toolbox, Bob – Bob Iaccino: Yeah, this is my favorite new announcement from the CME Group, short of the micros themselves I really loved when those came out, but those micro options, I think they're just going to be very, very valuable I like to use the NASDAQ specifically for hedging and some short-term opinions in the market
– Jeff Kilburg: Fantastic; well, let's shift gears Let's talk about Bitcoin Here we are in Bitcoin, back above 11,000, really interesting to see It's almost like a safe-haven trade After the month of March and the volatility, we saw a great appreciation and attraction of assets into Bitcoin
– Bob Iaccino: I'm going to steal a term from OJ Renick where he called Bitcoin "a high-beta safety play" And I really like that, and I think what we're going to see from Bitcoin now is we're going to see a tracking gold much more closely, prior to that attract the stock market I think it may have disconnected from that a little bit
– Jeff Kilburg: We're also seeing an increase in volume in the Bitcoin futures Does that really just speak to the adoption worldwide, as we're seeing more and more institutions and active investors adopt some form of allocation, or the suitability of Bitcoin in a portfolio? – Bob Iaccino: I think that Bitcoin futures was a validating factor in that space, and that's one of the things that I'm seeing reports of, is that less and less of the holding of cryptocurrencies is being done on the exchanges, and much more hedging is being done at the CME – Jeff Kilburg: All right, Bob; well thanks, as always And we also want to thank you for tuning in to Striking Options Please tune in every week as we will continue to strike options
Recent Comments