The S&P 500 is back near highs. Call me crazy, but bullish setups in this environment with low volatility in the options get my antennae up for my favorite bullish strategy -- the simple long call. (Keep it simple, slugger!)

Sifting through all the trade ideas from the latest All Star Charts Quarterly Playbook, I happened upon a stock that is still several weeks away from earnings, is just a touch below all time highs, is trading at its lowest volatility of the year, and has a clearly defined risk management level. As you can imagine, this is pretty damn near the perfect set up for my favorite options play...

A funny thing about Gold is, people who have any kind of opinion on it are either EXTREMELY bullish, or EXTREMELY bearish. There tends not to be any middle ground. No surprise it is such a politicized instrument.

Well, I don't care about any of that. What I do care about is volatility priced into options in this space continues to be pretty juicy at the moment while prices of many Gold underlyings appear to be stuck in a sideways holding pattern. (You won't hear any talking head loudly yell on CNBC: "I THINK GOLD GOES SIDEWAYS!" LOL).

And the boys at ASC agree with me, having published a neutral opinion on it in their recently published ASC 4th Quarter Playbook. So let's get into the play that makes most sense from here.

Risk management is Rule #1.

Last month, I put a trade on that didn't work out. Believe me, it happens (shocking, I know! /EndObviousSarcasm). There was a level that invalidated my thesis and it was breached. I don't fight with price action. When price is speaking, I listen. So the trade was exited and I moved on, accepting my manageable loss.

Fast forward just one week from my exit and the chart has repaired itself and has established a newer, clearer level to lean my risk management against. My overall bullish thesis on this stock hasn't changed, and now with new levels to observe, I'm going back in for a new try with a similar spread, but at new strikes and a new expiration.

Geez... the calendar turned into October and traders are acting like Halloween is already here! The up-and-down trading action so far in the first three days of October can be downright frightening if you're chasing every whipsaw in this schizo tape.

Considering my portfolio is leaning a bit long at the moment, it feels prudent to put some downside exposure on.

The biotech space has been a laggard all year. If broader markets still have additional spook in them, it is likely biotechs will lead the way. So I'm positioning myself accordingly.

This is the video recording of the October 2019 Conference Call for Members of All Star Options

Ok, today's title is a cheeky play on the ticker symbol I'm trading today. I couldn't help myself.

Today I'm getting into a low conviction trade, but shifting the probabilities in my favor so that even if I'm wrong, I still have a good chance of reaching my profit objective. Pretty sweet, right? This is one of the many reasons I like trading options.

Sometimes, the charts set up where one could make a case for a consolidation being on the cusp of breaking out. One such beleaguered company appears to be doing just that. If there's any follow through, there is blue skies ahead and I've got a play lining up on the runway to take advantage of the tailwind.

I love it when steady dividend payers breakout to all-time highs. What's better than a stock breaking into blue skies and paying you a dividend to hold on? In the recent All Star Charts monthly conference call, JC uncovered an opportunity in an insurance company stock that has us thinking about profits. Sure, we options traders don't get to collect any dividends, but it is nice knowing that yield-starved savers will keep a bid under stocks like these as long as interest rates remain comically low.

All else being equal, when deciding between two or three viable trades, I'll often choose the one that offers me the best opportunity to neutralize my "greeks risk." Meaning, if my overall portfolio is leaning a little long delta, I might favor the new trade that is short delta. If I'm long a bunch of premium and therefore have a high negative theta score for my entire portfolio, I'd likely choose to add the trade that offers me the most positive delta. My thinking being: if I can neutralize as many greeks as possible, then I put myself in position to let the individual edges and risk-reward ratios play out in my favor without getting negatively affected by any sudden changes in the overall market.

This also applies to timeframe.

A quick scan of my open positions today revealed that I have a relatively high number of open positions with October, December, and January expirations. But just a couple with November expirations. So taking an idea from All Star Charts' September Conference Call, I've found an opportunity that we can play in November.

You've got to love a stock breaking out of a seven-year base and doing so with options pricing in the lowest volatility levels all year. And when it is in a strong sector that has been among the leaders all year, I'm licking my chops.

In elementary school, nothing was more interesting to me than Space. And a quick look at my Lego collection would confirm this in two seconds flat. I was obsessed. But more in the "great unknown" way. So many questions. So many possibilities.

As an adult, I'm still fascinated by people (Elon Musk, Richard Branson, etc) and companies who are involved in trying to bring humanity into space and further exploration. And it makes me happy to see the stocks that represent these endeavors do well, because its often a clue that they are on to something, that they are making headway.

In recent days, the US Aerospace & Defense ETF, which tracks all the biggest names in this space, showed signs of making new discoveries -- of all-time high price territories.