In last night's All Star Options Conference call, JC laid out a case for why interest rates look to be at an inflection point -- the takeaway being that a big move is likely to happen from here. The problem is, we're just as likely to rise as we are to fall. What to do?
While this type of directional indecision is likely to give pause to a straight equities player, we options traders can position ourselves to profit in either direction without having to pick one!
Stocks are set to rip higher at the open today, which makes it tough to buy into some bullish opportunities here as they all will be running away from us. However, there is one name setting up where today's enthusiasm should help us push through some minor resistance and get us targeting new all-time highs that were last seen back in September.
If broader markets are going to continue higher, we've got to expect the banks to participate and even lead. If that's the case, we're limiting our risk and betting on one of the bluest of the Blue Chips breaking into blue skies.
The technical reasons for remaining bullish US Stocks continue to outnumber the bearish reasons. And there are some stocks already getting started on the next leg higher. Though we are in the bullish camp over here, some elevated caution is necessary.
Today's play is one that takes advantage of a well established trend, yet reduces our cost and has an exit in case an inflection point sending stocks the other way develops.
Boeing got hit hard in recent months due to trouble with their planes and a grounding of their 737 Max fleet. But here's the real newsflash that we should be paying attention to: Airlines still need new airplanes because humans still want to fly. Of course, we don't really care what the "news" is about stocks we trade. We just follow price and volume action -- both of which are pointing to an opportunity here.
Markets appear to want to move higher. Regardless of our opinions, regardless of our fears, the only thing worth paying attention to is Price. And prices look higher. Heading into summer, let's go on a trip.
Due to technical and logistical timezone difficulties with JC traveling in Europe, we are unable to have our usual monthly conference call to run through the broad themes JC is seeing from his unique technical perspectives as well as our usual review of open positions that need action taken ahead of the upcoming expiration.
But have no fear -- we got you!
All Options Premium subscribers will also be invited to attend the next All Star Charts conference call so you can get caught up on the bigger picture in the markets. This Call will be held on Wednesday June 19th at 7PM ET.
The markets are engaging in some sideways chop thanks to whatever headlines we're ignoring. Meanwhile, there are some oversold sectors showing signs of some mean-reversion. And within one of those sectors, we've got a stock setting up with a pretty straight forward reward-to-risk opportunity.
As we head into June Expiration, there are a number of open positions with options expiring in June that may need some attention. Generally speaking as we approach any expiration, it is a Best Practice to begin aggressively weeding out or rolling out positions that aren't working. Why? For long premium plays, unless positions are comfortably in-the-money, theta decay will begin to accelerate and whatever premium is left in our options will quickly disappear. For short premium plays where we haven't yet reached our profit target, gamma becomes our enemy making our position more sensitive to fluctuations of the underlying. A small winner/loser could quickly get away from us. Best to roll it out to the next monthly expiration cycle to buy ourselves more time, or close it down and look for newer/better opportunities.
In no particular order, here are some currently open positions with June options that we'll be looking to take action on next week:
We're tracking a household name that -- with the exception of four wild days during the Christmas nadir -- has been riding it's 200-day moving average quietly higher and is setting up for what could be a big move.