There's a trade perking up from the most recent Hall of Famers report that is ready for us to get involved. We're going to do it via a debit option spread with defined risk and a chart level that keeps risk manageable.
Stocks continue to be slippery with the S&P 500 down 6 out of the last 8 trading days.
I'm in the camp that this is a constructive pullback after a fantastic run to kick off 2023. JC has been pounding the table all month about how sloppy, digestive trading action in the month of February is perfectly normal market behaviour.
With February drawing to a close soon, I wouldn't be suprised to see this downdraft exhaust itself soon. As such, I'm going to make a tactical bet that a leading name in the banking/finance sector is going to hold these levels and potentially lead the way back to 2023 highs.
Strazza and I did The Flow show earlier this week in which one trade that stood out and caught my interest was a juicy short squeeze candidate.
Checking back on it today, the stock still maintains a short position greater than 20%. That means more than one-fifth of all shares outstanding are held by people with a short position. And if this stock starts busting higher, the only way traders holding a short position can end the pain is to buy the stock.
This can potentially fuel a rapid rise in share prices (see: Gamestop $GME circa early 2020).
I'm certainly not calling for a repeat of past meme stocks short squeezes here, but in this case, we've got a stock that's chart is in the middle of completing a beautiful base and short holders are no doubt keeping their fingers near the trigger to exit this position quickly if we see some follow thru to the upside.
We're already long some domestic semiconductor stocks via options (the trend is working). However, perhaps we've set our sights too close to home.
International stocks have been on a tear recently, showing even greater strength than the U.S. So maybe we should be looking for the strongest stocks, in the strongest sectors, in the strongest countries?
With this in mind, today's trade takes us to Switzerland.
I'm an amateur chartist, at best. If you want charting experts, I'll refer you to my team here at All Star Charts.
That said, I've got my eye on what appears to be a bullish flag forming in a hot Chinese stock and it looks ready for liftoff. Coupled with cheap options pricing, we can neatly define our risks and position ourselves for a big win.
A little pullback in stocks today has opened up the window for us to sell some options premium as a nice portfolio hedge for our predominantly long portfolio.
We don't need a long preamble here. The plan is simple: I'm going to enter a delta-neutral credit spread in an ETF that is currently atop my list of ETFs sorted by implied volatility.
Earlier this week, we took our original risk capital out of our Micron Technologies $MU position, and now we're enjoying a #FreeRide into the summer.
We've got a somewhat more conservative bullish bet going in Analog Devices $ADI via a call calendar spread.
As you can see, we've already got exposure to the semiconductors space. But there is a ton of bullish action here so as long as it keeps working, we're going to wade a little deeper in the semis pool for our next trade.
The Bull has been rolling. Have you noticed? Judging by the response I got from an innocent little bullish tweet last week during the midst of a mild pullback for stocks, you'd think I'm insane for thinking stocks have a chance to go up.
So many angry people looking for lower prices.
Maybe they'll be right someday? Chances aren't zero.
Meanwhile, I'll just keep paying attention to price and relative strength which is an excellent guide to point me into winning trades in any direction.
So for today's trade, we're going to ignore the digital assaults on our senses by the angry bears and get analog in our approach to riding this bullish wave.
Me and Strazza did The Flow show earlier in the week, and one of the names we discussed as being a possible trade to get into has finally popped its head above the trigger I was waiting for.
This one has the potential to be a quick mover, so let's get right to it!
No doubt Gold Bugs have been enjoying the price action in gold instruments recently. It has been a profitable few months to be long just about anything shiny -- even silver!