Quad Witching Is Here

Quad Witching Is Here

Quad Witching is the third Friday of March, June, September, and December. That would be tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow, see what I did there?). It’s the day that the four largest sets of derivative contracts expires, all on the same day.

The fact is, there are enormous technical factors, unseen to others, running all the time. To make things worse, it has been a very difficult market for risky assets, which resulted from the CPI surprise on Tuesday. All eyes went immediately to Friday, which is tomorrow.

Now, you can adjust your positions any ole time, but tomorrow is not a good idea; it’s strictly a professionals-only day.

To give you an idea how difficult 2022 has been:

• Microsoft and Amazon, which have led for decades, are each now underperforming the market (S&P 500), as a whole, by more than 7.5%. The year isn’t even 3/4s done.

  

• The best in the world, running global, diversified portfolios, unlimited resources, have not cushioned the blow in 401(k)s or IRAs. Note that these numbers are not precise enough but the principle remains.

  

That makes tomorrow even trickier, because risky markets are already on edge, the week has been a shock, so it will be difficult impossible to tell what is going on.