This is the video recording of the September 2018 Conference Call for Members of All Star Options

I love incorporating a mix of delta neutral income trades in my portfolio -- especially after a nice run in the stock market that might be due for a pause soon.

50 days until expiration is the sweet spot for income trades, which is exactly where we find ourselves with October expiration. So for the second time this week, we'll be choosing an ETF that has elevated premiums but is stuck in a 90 day range -- the perfect type of candidate for a delta-neutral Iron Condor trade.

This week I'm thrilled to have my pal Todd Gordon on the show. He is what I like to call an "Elliottician", meaning he approaches the market using the Wave principle developed by Ralph Nelson Elliott throughout the 1930s. Todd Gordon, of TradingAnalysis.com walks us through his wave counts for the S&P500, Gold, and Semiconductors. In this episode, I think we demystify and answer some of the questions we all have about Elliott Wave and its practicality.  I encourage you to have the charts with you when you listen to this one because Todd goes over several Elliott Wave counts that will make a lot more sense if you're following along visually. He does a good job of explaining things so you can also go back and listen again with the charts in the future. I hope you enjoy this one. I really did!

Over the last two weeks we've discussed small-caps, mid-caps, and the chartbook updates in depth, though we've not had a post dedicated to large-caps in quite a few months. Many of our upside price targets have been hit in Nifty 50 and Nifty Next 50 names, so I want to use this post to provide perspective on the most actionable long and short ideas today.

Over the last few months we've talked about the diminishing number of short setups as even the weakest sectors and individual names begin to stabilize, however, we're still open to short opportunities. So today I want to discuss what goes into our thought process in distinguishing between stocks that we want to be selling strength in, as opposed to stocks that are stabilizing and not the best candidates to short.

For the purposes of this example we'll talk about two stocks in the Industrial Manufacturing Industry to show that while this is a weak Industry, the individual names to play this theme through are very different.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Two months ago we highlighted Deutsche Bank because we felt that price action disagreed with prevailing bearish sentiment around the stock, which created an opportunity for us on the long side. Today we're looking at a stock that presents a similar trade for us, with well-defined risk and 30% of potential upside over the intermediate-term.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Last week I wrote about the Canada's Energy markets to introduce our new Canadian Chartbooks (Major Sectors & Indices and TSX 60). In today's post I want to focus on the Banking and REIT sectors, which are showing relative strength and continue to offer opportunity on the long side. Not to mention I've been itching to use this Toy Story pun as a title since JC hired me.

First let's take a look at the TSX Capped REITs Index vs the TSX Capped Composite. It's spent the last 2 years bottoming and is now breaking out above a confluence of resistance. If this ratio is above it, the bias is to the upside with a target at the '15-'16 highs.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

Below is a weekly chart of the...

In our last India Chartbook Update post we discussed a continuation of the trends we've been seeing for most of 2018, as well as some new developments in the Commodities and Currencies space. Additionally, our mid-cap update discussed our shifting view of that market-cap segment and highlighted the best opportunities in our view. We also did a small-cap update post the following day highlighting our views there. Today we're going to discuss any major changes over the last two weeks at a high level, which will direct you to the Chartbook areas to look for these themes.

When a stock has the potential to double from here, you have to get aggressively long. This is especially the case when there is a clearly defined risk management level. This often happens when a stock has been beaten to a pulp to the lowest prices in years. Which brings us to today's poster child for disgruntled shareholders: General Electric.

Is there a more downtrodden stock out there right now than shares of General Electric $GE?

This is the monthly conference call for Members of All Star Options. In this call we will discuss the current market environment and focus on price and volatility behavior. Throughout the session, J.C. Parets will add commentary on the technical outlook moving forward, and Sean McLaughlin will discuss the options strategies available to profit from the market activity.

This month’s Conference Call will be held on Thursday August 30th at 7PM ET. Here are the details for the call:

The Baseball-almanac calls the 7th Inning Stretch, "Perhaps the most mundane, yet physically rewarding moment of every baseball game". Over time, I've learned to respect this time of the stock market calendar year in a similar manner. The timing of it is very close too, as we approach about 2/3 of the way through the game, or year in this case.

I've found that it's a great time to reflect on the decisions we've made so far in 2018 and mentally prepare for the rest of the year. This period I'm referring to specifically is the week before Labor Day weekend and the week after. Things historically get back to normal around September 10th-11th.

It is that time in the options cycle where October options are in the sweet spot (between 45-55 day until expiration) to be looking for income trades wherever volatility pricing offers an edge.

And for our first choice for an October income trade, we're almost quite literally going back to the well, repeating an income trade that we put on in September to satisfactory effect.