A surprising outcome for some of my defined-risk long delta trades this week is that my losses weren’t as pronounced as I would’ve expected given the vicious sell-off we’ve seen in many tech names.

Why?

One thing that isn’t often discussed about being long options premium when expressing bullish or bearish bets is that owning long options (calls or puts) also means we’re long volatility.

In situations like these where we saw VIX briefly with a 65-handle, the rapid rise in options premiums put a floor in many of the calls I had long positions in. So while many bullish positions in my portfolio were losing money, the losses were rather pedestrian relative to what others who were holding long stock or futures positions were likely experiencing.

It’s not a win, but it felt like one this week.

We discuss this and a whole lot more in this week’s Options Jam Session:

The stock market likely has a couple of aftershocks left in it. But if the worst is over, I have to believe this is a great opportunity to buy the dip in some names that will be beneficiaries of the AI boom.

And there are few bigger and well-positioned names than Microsoft.

This market environment still demands that we define our risks and we're going to leverage elevated volatility in a way you might not expect to express our bet.

What do you do when the stock market sh*t hits the fan?

Be honest.

Do you tend to freak out and panic into quick exits? (if so, you aren’t alone!)

Do you recoil in fear and call it “zen detachment?” (there are more of these than you know!)

Do you get busy reading everything you can, talking to everyone you can, and watching all the financial TV you can to try to figure out why this volatility is happening?

Do you stoically go down with the ship turning your trades into investments?

We all have our different ways of dealing with the mental volatility that stock market volatility stokes in all of us. These past couple of weeks have revealed new things to ourselves.

Volatility is blowing out for the second day in a row.

I'll cut to the chase. This is a good time to sell defined-risk, delta-neutral options credit spreads.

We're going to do it again today.

VIX is near its highest level of the year and this is being reflected in options premiums nearly across the board.

It's also earnings season, so we want to be careful not to get caught in any potential earnings-driven landmines.

With this in mind, I've got a big cap name that has already reported earnings, is trading in a range, and is still exhibiting elevated options premiums -- the perfect recipe for a delta neutral options trade.

What do you call a blend of systematic and discretionary trading?

Systionary trading?

Discretionatic trading?

I think I’m leaning towards the latter.

Early in my trading career, I started up a small commodity futures hedge fund and prided myself on being fully systematic.

An algorithm derived the signals, I entered each trade manually, and I honored each signal religiously. To my credit, I stuck with it, no matter what. And I was rewarded for doing so, earning my investors 58% net returns on their money (net of my 2/20 performance fees) in just 18 months.

So, it was ingrained in me early on that systematic trading was good for me. It kept my emotions out of the decision-making process.

I’ve been chasing the systematic dragon in index options trading ever since.

In today's Flow Show, Steve and I put our heads together to find a good trade to take advantage of elevated options premiums in a big-cap name that may have seen the worst of the selling and is now may be putting in a pivot.

That name is Amazon $AMZN and here's the chart where it stands right now:

Another man's trash is another man's treasure.

And that certainly is true for Republic Services.

As can be seen in the chart below, $RSG has certainly been winning over the long run. And with this week's earning report sending the down 5%, it feels like a great opportunity to get positioned on the dip.

The Berkshires is a wonderful place to visit. And it can often be a great place to ride out the heat of summer.

Similarly, Berkshire Hathaway $BRK/B is often a great place to ride out the heat in the market.

And given the volatility backdrop in $BRK/B options, the options market is offering to pay us to catch the turn.

Let's get after it!

While I was away, volatility had a moment. And it's still hanging at pretty high levels, especially in tech stocks.

In the Technology sector ETF $XLK, we're seeing the highest implied volatility that we've experienced all year:

And with the chart of $XLK forming a range...

...this feels like a good opportunity to play for volatility mean reversion.

Here's the Play:

In today's episode of The Flow Show, me and Steve Strazza talk about the uniquely interesting market we currently find ourselves in, and we delve into a sector that appears to be making a long overdue turn higher, and a stock within the sector that is positioned for a potentially monster breakout.

Here's the big picture setup of Viking Therapeutics $VKTX:

When Michael Nauss first sat down at a trading desk, his computer had a keyboard and a screen. But no mouse.

And his screen displayed an order book. But no charts.

Thus began his career as a scalper working the order book, who paid no attention at all to trends or technical analysis. He was simply trying to find spots to buy ahead of large buyers and flip the position out for a quick couple of ticks. Do this a couple hundred times per trading session and perhaps he’d have a successful day.

This was all part of Michael’s journey of learning to walk before he could run. And it is a mantra that sticks with him to this day as he himself continues to learn and helps many others learn the craft of trading.

Michael says: “Learning is often about “UN” learning.“ 

People are frequently drawn to trading by a social media personality or a brokerage advertisement, and they are like moths to the flame of fast riches and early retirement. Then they lose.