Dissecting The OEX Intraday

I've always liked trading options on the indices because they are less volatile than stocks and are not subjected to upgrades/downgrades and earnings. And once you are familiar with the index, you know the pulse and how they behave without having to re-learn the thousands of stocks out there and their price movements. The only complain is that some indices have wide bid/ask spread and executing the order is another skill on its own.

The above is 15min chart of OEX from 29/8 - 10/9. Basically, I just want to highlight the importance of simple support and resistance and trend lines.

From 29/8 to 4/9, the index was contained in a nice diagonal uptrend channel. But on 5/9, the gapped down big time, breaking out of the channel and also the 5, 20 and 50 moving average on 15 min chart before finding support at 200 moving average.

Yesterday (10/9), the market gapped up on INTC upwards revision of guidance, but that bullish move was short lived. The market started to slide and did not stop until after 11.30am ET where it found support at the lower end of the downward channel. The market reversed course and made its move up until it hit the upper end of the channel and also the day's opening range high. The resistance proved too strong and we see another round of heavy selling towards the close.

If you look more closely, you will realise there are two similarities between last Friday's move and yesterday. Both bounced off the trend line at around 11.30am ET. At around 3.30pm ET, it made another reversal.

Meanwhile, I'll be watching this trend line closely. It is still valid until it is broken.

Tags:simplyoptionstrader, options trading, technical analysis