Generally, I am against being negative on the market.  After all, the best days come at the oddest times.  However, this week may be an exception.

First, the VIX (the CBOE’s volatility index) has spent most of the year in the high twenties and was over thirty in early March.  Today, the VIX dropped below 20.  This is less volatility than we have had since last summer.

Second, the FOMC is meeting, this week, and will make a rate announcement on Wednesday at 1:15PM CST.  Absent some sort of market news or event, all day Tuesday and Wednesday until the announcement should be quiet.  However, after the announcement on Wednesday should be good for trading, if only for less than an hour and a half.

Third, Thursday is May 1^st, May Day, and for readers familiar with European Holidays, it will be obvious that this spring holiday in Europe will mean reduced trade in the US markets.  Here in the United States, we sometimes lose track of the fact that the world does not celebrate exactly the same holidays as we do.  

As for May Day, there is an odd, abstract statue outside the International Studies Building at the University of Chicago that casts the shadow of a highly-stylized hammer and sickle to its right on May Day at noon.  My daughter and I were among a group of about twenty people on May first some years ago who witnessed the shadow.  I have to admit that it took some imagination, but, to me, it was a hammer and sickle.

So, there you are.  Don’t trade on May 1^st, but come to Chicago and ride a bike down the lakefront to the University of Chicago at noon and be among the few who will ooh and ahh at what might be a hammer and sickle.  Granted, it is cheap entertainment, but it will be time better spent than trading on Thursday.

Wishing you success in your trading,  Jeff

Copyright © 2008 Jeff Quinto, all rights reserved

Next Monday, the day after Easter, all European markets will be closed in celebration of Easter Monday.  Eurex will be closed so there is no need to get up in the middle of the night to trade Bund and DJ EuroStoxx 50.

The next holiday that you would not guess from your vantage point here on this side of the pond is May Day, the first of May.  Once again, there is no need to get up at 1:00AM to trade Eurex, it will be closed.

As for me, I would not trade US markets on these days.  You deserve a day off now and again, so why not do something you like on what is likely to be a low-probability day.

Wishing you success in your trading,  Jeff

Copyright © 2008 by Jeff Quinto
All rights reserved