The title of this post is the sound I might make if today's trade hits its profit target, helping to offset the pain I'm feeling at the pump every time I fill up my car with gas.
I was just in California this week and paid $6.00/gallon for my rental car. Ouch!!
Today's trade is in a name that has already been a strong performer this year but is showing no signs of stopping as of yet.
Good morning everyone! This dispatch comes to you from deep in the northernmost reaches of Northern California, on the edge of the great Redwoods National Park.
I flew out here on Sunday morning with my oldest friend (since we were both five years old). After landing and shopping for some provisions, we got a short three-mile hike in during the afternoon/early evening to get our feet acclimated. But it was just a warm-up for the 30 miles we hope to cover today through Wednesday. Yesterday, the weather was perfect, the trail conditions were excellent, and the giant Redwoods were absolutely stunning! And we're just getting started. Hopefully, the weather continues to hold up (fingers crossed!).
Of course, I brought my laptop, and since my East Coast friend was suffering from a little jet lag, he crashed early last night. That left me some time to rip through charts in my hotel room, as one, such as me, does.
During my scanning, I couldn't help but get fully distracted by this chart of $GLD:
The ASC team, as always, threw out a bunch of actionable ideas in their most recent Mid-Monthly Conference Call. As you might expect, there's still a lot to like in the energy space. But it might have surprised you to see some bullish setups in some chinese and marijuana space names. I know it did me!
But one name in the Precious Metals sector piqued my interest and when I chatted with Steve Strazza about it this morning, he was pretty excited about it.
Trading opportunities aren't limited to just U.S.-based corporations. And thanks to ADRs, we don't have to go to other foreign exchanges to exploit opportunities in different countries. These companies have tracking shares -- often with tremendous liquidity -- on our exchanges here.
One such opportunity, with a big base that is showing signs of resolving higher, recently appeared in our International Hall of Famers report last week.
Is that a dead cat bounce in the Biotech ETF $XBI that will quickly fade? Or is this week's hard pivot off the $80 level the new floor?
I don't know the definitive answer, but the bet I'm going to make is that $80 will hold at least for a few weeks. If it does and as long as $XBI doesn't overshoot on the upside from here, I think this ETF is offering us a great opportunity to sell some premium here.
In light of global events, we're seeing significant market reactions all over the place. And it seems like the narrative changes on a daily basis. Now more then ever, as a Trader, is it important to turn off the news and follow price. Price doesn't lie.
One trend that has been signficant and showing no signs of stopping is the bullish breakouts we're seeing in energy, commodities, and materials.
And today's name is one of the bellwethers in the space that is beginning to breakout from a multi-year base.
The hunt for options premiums to sell continues. And with VIX showing signs that it might want to give up the 30 level for a little bit, we may have the trend of implied volatility mean-reversion beginning to become a wind in our sails.
A quick perusal of the most liquid ETFs options markets that I follow revealed a surprising sector at the top of the list: Utilities. And the recent price action suggests to me we may have seen the $XLU ETF get a bit ahead of itself, and it could be due for a little consolidation.
With VIX closing the day today north of 30, I'm still on the hunt for premium selling opportunities.
So as always, I perused my list of the most liquid options ETFs and found an opportunity where premiums are elevated and the chart suggests some rangebound trading action is likely over the next few weeks.
The day got away from me so I didn't get a chance to put it on yet, but I've identified a delta neutral candidate that I'll be looking to enter in the early going tomorrow AM.
Wild market conditions persist! Yesterday, stocks had a huge gap down opening, but then spent all day ripping higher and closed convincingly in the green. Today, the rally picked up right where it left off.
Talk about whiplash!
This makes it incredibly challenging to find directional bets with any degree of confidence. So, with implied volatilies elevated across the board, today we're hunting for another delta-neutral premium selling candidate.
And this time, we're doing it on an individual stock.
If you've been following our narrative this week, you know we've been preaching patience as the stock market is most decidedly in the "chop zone" right now. Me and JC did a live twitter stream on Wednesday afternoon discussing the situation and how we don't feel compelled to force any new trades.
That is still the situation. But one name that I've been watching for a delta-neutral credit spread has moved in the last two days in a way that gives me a little more confidence that now may be a good time to get involved.