Thirty minutes after the market opens tomorrow, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will be delivering his much anticipated speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. The speech, its content and the market reaction to same will dominate tomorrow's news cycle, and well into the weekend, affecting the market open on Monday. From there, its a day or two of slow summer trading into pre-holiday weekend positioning come next Thursday and Friday (Sep 1 & 2). After Labor Day there are two weeks until Sep 16th monthly options expiration and then 5 weeks later is October 21st monthly options expiration. In other words, the next few weeks be pivotal in our big picture option trading strategies, especially in the shadow of a Wave 3 of 3 down expected to unfold dead ahead. The low for the year so far is Jun 17th, but we expect that to be exceeded by new lows on or before October 21st. What has been a surprisingly tame summer so far is about to enter a different dimension. That's the signpost up ahead - next stop.... Powell's speech, whatever it may contain, pales in comparison to the message of this chart. This week SPX generated a fresh Sell Signal and the unmistakable signpost up ahead is for a new YTD low coming in the next week or two, well before Sep monthly expiration. Depending on day-to-day price action we may want to be rolling Sep 16th options into Oct 21st expiration earlier than the week of expiration. We are taking trade management day-to-day, starting with the aftermath of Powell's speech. VIX Still waiting on a new Intermediate Term Buy for VIX index
