As always, there are a number of interesting investment ideas in the latest 2-to-100 Report published this week.
The one that most caught my eye has seen a recent collapse in options volatility resulting in cheap calls for us to play for an extended breakout. Cheap calls on stocks printing all-time highs are my absolute favorite play to make. So as you can imagine, I'm eager to jump right in.
There's a reason long-time investors are invested in low volatility household names that pay steady dividends: because over the long run, they work! The steady dividends and low volatility can be counted on to take care of us in retirement. This is a lesson I've been trying to teach my 7-year old Son. We created a small account for him and we're teaching him the power of investing in what you know (or in our case, in companies we spend money on as a family) and in companies that pay dividends which teaches the power of compounding.
One of those names we're invested in is also now showing up on All Star Charts momentum scans and may be set to accelerate its price price action.
Once again this month, I’m going to share info on positions that were closed in the month of July. As a reminder, our exit plans are always laid out ahead of time in each trade idea we publish. In every case, the exits mentioned below were all in accordance with the plans as laid out.
As we head towards August expiration, we only have one open position remaining with expiring August options. But July was certainly a busy month for exits -- both profitable and not -- as a couple of market whipsaws shook the trees and knocked us out of a bunch of positions.
Positions with August options that need monitoring:
As markets have gotten choppy lately, I've been on the hunt for more bearish and neutral trades to help balance out my predominantly long portfolio.
In this week's Follow the Flow report, Steve Strazza teed up a nice candidate for some downside exposure. The beauty is, the Options Gods are lining it up such that we can affordably take an aggressively bearish position that will pay off nicely if it works, while limiting our risk if we're wrong.
The team pumped out the Saturday Chartoons letter this weekend and as always, there were some nuggets of wisdom and ideas to be found therein.
The tone overall is: we're in a tricky spot here. There are some stocks going up, many stocks going down. But in sum, we're kinda stuck in the mud here for a little bit, it appears.
Of course, if this continues for a bit, then we'll want to keep our eyes out for more delta-neutral credit spreads to add to our portfolio.
There's one sector ETF that was specifically highlighted in this weekend's letter that fits the criteria I look for.
So Steve Strazza hit me up yesterday with: "Have you seen our latest 2-to-100 Club report? All of those stocks are breaking out!"
When Strazza gets giddy about price action, I take notice. Of course, I had to pull it up and scan the list. And sure enough, every one of those names is moving in the right direction. Some already moved so quickly that I'm going to hold off for a better possible entry point. But one of those names just triggered yesterday and is giving us a well-timed pullback today for us to get positioned.
Traders woke up Monday morning to a little reminder that volatility happens.
It certainly wasn't a calamity, but it was a larger gap down opening than we've seen in a while, following an ugly close on Friday which certainly has put some traders on edge.
When these types of conditions arise, we often see implied volatility priced into options rise to meet these increasing levels of fear. And today is no exception. On days like today, I like to peruse the list of active ETFs and see if any elevated implied volatilities are offering up a good income trade candidate.
The one that tops my list also has a nice risk management level we can lean against.
We've had a couple picks from our recent Young Aristocrats report that I've liked for options plays. But I waited on this one until today because we needed to get earnings out of the way.
The good news is, the post-earnings report reaction was muted and the setup remains intact, so we're ready to take action.
JC put a post up today taking a look at the Semiconductor sector. As a group, the sector is looking poised for a breakout and he goes into some of the even better looking charts for individual names that make up the sector index. Give it a read.
His favorite idea from the group is one that I can get behind, especially in light of the price action over the past two days. It feels like now is the time to get involved.
I've always wondered -- can publicly traded advisory and consulting services recommend the purchase of their own stock to their clients? There's probably a rule against this. Certainly, it would be in an ethical gray area.
That's too bad, because the ASC team recently surfaced a $20B market research and advisory group stock during their research and the chart looks like a fantastic setup.
