Market Check with Options and Quant Trader Fari Hamzei

Some notable bears keep getting beat down like in scenes from the new movie Zombieland. Even notable bear Doug Kass declared "Mission Accomplished" when he made a market top call at 1070 and assumed the crash had begun.

To be fair, this is a challenging market to call. However, in the beginning of August I asked GreenFaucet readers "Is a Mini-Bubble Brewing?" and explained how a new leg down was not as imminent as most were claiming. I hope, like us, you have been following the technicals and not the self-proclaimed prognosticators.

Sometimes I get caught in my New York City state of mind. So, this morning I caught up with professional options and quant trader Fari Hamzei in Chicago. I asked Fari what he sees in the markets now, and he responded:

"While trading remains noisy this morning, the October options expiration has had an up-bias -- especially if you look at open interest in SPX options. So far, the earnings have been good, the economic data has been good (at the margin), and we have had plenty of shorts to run over. The next few points higher in SPX won't be easy. Our proprietary indicators are at interesting levels of resistance (+Two sigma plus area and Monthly Resistance One). It may take us a bit to push through this area. Regardless, all is well in Chicago -- the derivatives capital of the world!"

Now, let's see if earnings can keep the bulls running ...