Stocks opened flat on Monday and never warmed up, sinking slowly into the red midday on relatively light volume and tripping to session lows around the close.

There was no clear catalyst for the turn lower, but I would just note that there was less to the Friday advance than was obvious at first glance. That move involved a gap higher followed by no further progress, a sign that there was very little conviction and amounted essentially to short-covering and not truly enthusiastic buying.

The main news thread of the day was the addition of more monetary policy support in China. The People’s Bank of China cut its benchmark interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, the third such cut in the last six months. Chinese equities were higher in reaction, with the Shanghai Composite rising 3%, but there was no carry-over to the eurozone or U.S. markets.

Speaking of the eurozone, there was some progress in Greek talks, but it’s clear the two sides need more time to work out their differences. There was no deal at the Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers today, but none was expected. The statement from the meeting highlighted progress, but also noted that key differences remain. Pension and labor market reforms are considered to be among the major stumbling blocks.

The good news is that Greece reportedly made a 750 million euro IMF payment that was due tomorrow. It is believed that Athens has enough cash to make it through the month without sinking into the Ionian Sea. Could the country default? Sure. And there were further reports of contingency planning along those lines over the weekend. The IMF has reportedly been speaking to southeastern European countries regarding Greek bank subsidiaries operating in the region and how they might be buttressed.

In the United States and Germany, the big news of Monday’s session was the slow-motion crash of bond prices following a brief lull at the end of last week. The yield on the U.S. 30-year rose above 3% as a result, since yield moves inversely to price.

A busy Treasury auction schedule is exacerbating the situation. The U.S. government is expected to sell $64 billion in 3-, 10- and 30-year debt this week. There was some skepticism that the moves were driven by any meaningful shifts in the macroeconomic narrative, especially after an April jobs report that was considered to have hit the sweet spot for both equities and bonds.

Tech, materials and energy stocks fared the worst yesterday, while health care stocks were the only group to mostly survive the slump. Today’s recommendation is for a trade in that very sector.

CIGNA Corporation (CI) is a major health insurance organization whose shares have been among the strongest on the board in the past three years. They have recently pulled back, and that should provide a good entry for a bullish position at a time of year that tends to be favorable. We are going to go out to June with our Cigna call trade, giving these plenty of time to run. 

Buy the CI June $130 calls (CI150619C00130000) at $3.10 limit, good till canceled, for target $4.35. These are monthly calls that expire on June 19.

InvestorPlace advisor Jon Markman operates the investment firm Markman Capital Insights. He also offers a daily trading advisory service, Trader’s Advantage, and CounterPoint Options, a service that helps individual traders make steady, consistent profits with volatility-related instruments.