Flying on Virgin America from San Francisco to Denver last week, I saw something I had not seen in a long, long while: empty seats. In this case, about a third of them were open — quite a change from summer, when vacancies were as scarce as foie gras and Beluga in economy class. Accordingly, I am recommending shorting this ETF if it gets within spitting distance of the 24.74 target shown. Specifically, you can offer 400 shares short for 24.71, stop 24.84. Put options on this vehicle are too illiquid to trade, but you can substitute Virgin puts a few days ahead of the carrier’s next earnings report, due out on November 3. Meanwhile, here’s what Investopedia has to says about JETS: ‘An ETF designed to track the investment performance of the U.S. Global Jets Index, which includes commercial airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and airport and terminal services companies around the world. The index is constructed by first selecting the largest nine U.S. airlines according to market capitalization. The top four airlines are weighted at 12% each, while the next five are weighted at 4% each. _______ UPDATE (Oct 20, 6:53 p.m.): Raise the stop-loss on the trade suggested above to 25.10. I’d hate to miss short this flying pig merely because I was too cautious. ________ UPDATE (Oct 26, 7:41 p.m): JETS may have topped Monday at 25.55, just 19 cents shy of the target I’d suggested shorting. This was difficult to foresee, especially since the high occurred on an opening-bar bull trap. We’ll consider other opportunities as they arise, but the theme will not change: The airlines are topping out — for a long, long time.
