February 18, 2016 Market Wrap Up

It was a rather uneventful trading session today. For the most part, indices traded slightly lower, after posting solid gains in the previous three sessions. The S&P 500 is up about 5% over the last four trading days.

Despite the sell-off, we’re starting to see volatility come in. For example, the VIX actually sold off, even with the markets lower. It closed the day down 3% at 21.64.

With that said, crude oil prices have seen a nice bounce this week, up more than 10% on hopes that we’ll see production cuts out of OPEC. At the moment, there is a tentative agreement to freeze production, but we still have to wait and see on whether that will come into fruition.

On the options front, we saw large call buying activity in Avon Products (AVP). In addition, we saw heavy put buying in First Republic Bank (FRC), about 51.2 times usual options volume.

Stocks in play included: Boise Cascade (BCC) -29%, Jack In The Box (JACK) -16%, and Ingram Micro (IM) +23%.

Here’s what’s going on tomorrow:

Key Economic Data:
19 February 2016- Consumer Price Index 8:30 AM ET

Key Earnings:
19 February 2016- DE

Key Conferences:
CAGNY Conference
Barclay’s Industrial Conference