While checking out my list of liquid ETFs to get a feel for the markets this morning, it caught my eye that Gold is currently sporting the highest implied volatility (as measured by IVRank). I suppose it is no surprise given the amount of volatility we're seeing in Gold's distant, but currently more popular second cousin, cryptocurrencies.

You'd think Gold would be trading similarly.

However, looking at the daily chart, it appears $GLD is getting stuck in a range bounded by 184 on the upper end and 166 on the lower end.

I'm loving this new Young Aristocrats report the All Star Charts team as recently begun producing. There have been some great ideas here for me in helping my son build a long term investment portfolio of names with both price appreciation potential, but also steady and increasing dividend growth. Sometimes, traders forget this is what stocks are supposed to do!

Of course, while scrolling through the list, one of the names caught my attention for a tactical options trade. You can say I "discovered" this opportunity...

Happy New Year! 2021 is here!

I don't know about you, but I'm super excited for this coming year. I'm expecting volatility in both directions. And volatility = opportunity for options traders.

That said, let's not rush into anything. I know... if you're like me you're itching to start firing off trades.

But as the opening 90 minutes of trading has showed us so far today, things can get slippery fast as people and institutions start putting money to work and rotating money around in often sloppy fashion. This is pretty typical in the first couple trading days of any new year.

Many of you know that one of my favorite bullish setups is a stock making new all-time highs, with $100 per share within our sights. So many times stocks are attracted to that big round psychological number. It doesn't make any sense (like stocks rallying on the announcement of a stock split), but we don't care. It's something we've observed time and again and betting on a stock getting there is practically money in the bank.

While $100/share is typically where we see this behavior, the same principle holds when a stocks approaches $200, $300, $400, etc.

With this in mind, a stock mentioned in recent Under the Hood report is finally popping today and we're getting involved.

It's that time of the year when shopping is on everyone's mind. I don't know about you, but my house has been under a mini panic as we scramble to make sure everyone's gifts are accounted for as he head into the final week before Christmas.

Clearly, this scene is playing out in households all across North America and it is being reflected in the share prices of online shopping venues.

Here's a non-Amazon way to ride this wave.

JC published a bullish piece on Japan today. He's been pounding the table on the potential for a massive base breakout for some time. He's so exited about it, we even traveled to Tokyo last year to see what's going for ourselves!!

One of the names he mentioned in the post stood out to me and I'm willing to step in and take a position.

2008-2009 was a dark period for the banking industry. The "Financial Crisis" nearly brought the whole system to its knees. Stocks in household name banks became penny stocks (Citibank!), Warren Buffet had to rescue Goldman Sachs, and a few had to put themselves up for sale (Merrill Lynch), or even became extinct (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers).

For some long-term investors (and former employees in this sector), this is still a fresh wound.

But charts in this sector are starting to tell a different story.

One thing you'll read between the lines in nearly everything we do here at All Star Options and allstarcharts.com: We stick with winners. We ride trends. We get long relative strength and we get short relative weakness. We don't overcomplicate things. We don't need to be the Hero who shorts a parabolic stock at its zenith, or buys the oversold stock at its generational bottom. Those trades make for sexy stories, but that graveyard is a mile wide and 50 feet deep.

With this in mind, here's an undeniable leader that is setting up again:

As Steve Strazza was putting together the latest "2-to-100" report, he and I were chatting about his latest great stock idea. He is pretty excited about this one, and who am I to not join him?

Let's get right to it.

This is the video recording and slides from the All Star Options Monthly Conference Call: December 3, 2020.

As December gets under way, it’s time to review positions with December options that remain open (haven’t already hit profit targets or been stopped out).

Most trades I put on for All Star Options tend to have a minimum duration of 30 days (short premium plays) and often as long as 6-8 months (for long premium plays). As options approach expiration, greeks like theta and gamma start to become my enemy and whipsaw my P/L. Therefore, as options and spreads get into the expiration month, my best practice is to put each position on notice — it’s time to take action.

As it turns out, we only did five trades in total with December options. Currently, we only have two open positions with December options remaining on the books, and only one of them requires any action. The rest have already hit our profit targets or stop loss levels. In the scoreboard below I denote the date we exited each position.

Here’s the scoreboard:

Here's another idea from the semiconductor space. And why not? Semis are leading the way right now.

There's nothing wrong with playing "follow-the-leaders" in the investing world. We'd rather ride the wave than fight the current.