Benzinga's Options Outlook For The Week Of August 5: Banks Not Participating, Techs All Over The Place

Markets have been relatively bullish via the indices posting big earnings and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision. Bernanke essentially reaffirmed no rate change and actual increase in POMO. The S&P 500 SPY responded very bullish to the news, but to no surprise, the underlying stocks have not been participating. JP Morgan JPM, Bank of America BAC and Goldman Sachs GS have shown little interest in the move higher, while the techs are just whipsawing all over the place. Watch out for a post earnings play in Priceline.com PCLN this week. Otherwise, traders might want to look into buying puts starting sometime Monday for risk/reward and the fact that puts should be relatively cheap due to the last bit of retail money pushing into the calls. The short won't be easy, but it'll be right around the corner. Careful of shorting a thin market, start it slow.