Midday Musings

I've been out for much of the morning at various meetings which will lead to some interesting things... more about that another time.

1409 on the S&P cash... this is getting mighty close to testing the lower end the upward channel today... not quite time yet, but I do have a SPY Feb put strategy in mind which may be deployed next week.

Gold, complete meltdown. Had I not had the stop, I would be living in the refrigerator box (Sub-zero which is used here at the Kingsland home, would be my box of choice). But fortunately, stopped out near just south of $630 earlier in the week, and here the price a few days later probed down to $603! I actually had a buy order in for more GLD at 59.99 and am tickled pink that I've picked up more, though I suspect that I may have an opportunity to pick more up in the $58, or perhaps $57 range.

$54.90 was the bottom earlier today for crude... interestingly enough, this area remains stalwart support. While it's going to get to 70 in NYC tomorrow, colder weather is due later next week. Nat gas even hit a $5 handle briefly but has bounced back to $6.17 per decatherm.

Boston Scientific shares have drifted higher, but the real action has been in its call options. Earlier flyonthewall put out an advisory about takeover chatter. Who would buy it? One rumored possibility has been Pfizer as the acquirer. That probably goes in the realm of "wishful thinking". Options volume of 15k on open interest of 116k for the January 17-1/2 calls is pretty unimpressive. And what are the people thinking buying the January 20s?? With the huge open interest on the Jan 17-1/2s, it looks like BSX is a big candidate for pinnage in the $17.50 area in a few weeks.

Nothing like brevity on the part of Iranian scholar, Michael Leeden. Is Leeden saying, "Ayatollah so!": Ok... that's pretty bad material, but it is interesting rumor buzz... Just a one liner on something that may have Global importance: http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/michaelledeen/. The Iranians have since denied he death, but denial doesn't always mean denial in those circles. We'll see.