February 11, 2016 Market Wrap Up

The Equity markets have not seen a green day in five days, as we’re down nearly 5% over this period. With that said, we did see a slight bounce off the lows in the S&P 500. Overall, it was very controlled selling, we traded in a range between 1810 and 1847.

With China on holiday, a lot of the focus was on Fed Chairman Yellen’s testimony and the action in the crude oil market. Now, the Chairman’s testimony was unable to spark a rally. Luckily, crude oil was able to catch a bounce late afternoon after hovering below $27 per barrel.

The bounce was attributed to some chatter out of OPEC. The UAE Energy Minister mentioned that he would be open to discussing supply cuts, according to the Wall Street Journal. Of course, that was enough to turn crude oil around and enough to reduce some of the losses in the equity markets.

The VIX traded above 30 at one point, closing the day 7% higher at 28.14.

On the options front, we saw large call buying activity in Rentech Nitrogen Partners (RNF). In addition, we saw heavy put buying in Eaton Vance Corp (EV), about 12.4 times usual options volume.

Stocks in play included: J2 Global (JCOM) +16%, Tesla (TSLA) +5.8%, and Bank of America (BAC) -5.6%

Here’s what’s going on tomorrow:

Key Economic Data:
12 February 2016- Retail Sales 8:30 AM ET

Key Conferences:
12 February 2016- KBW Financial Conference