While scanning the latest All Star Charts Quarterly Playbook, one stock the team highlighted gave me a buzz of excitement. A household name found on seemingly every corner in America is breaking out and giving us a brief pullback to get in.

Synaptics $SYNA has been on a heck of run over the past several weeks as it recently thrust out of a nearly 5 month consolidation. Now resting just below all time highs, we're thinking there's another run higher in store. And today's trading action is just the kind of pullback I was looking for in order to get involved.

This is our ASC Research Q1 2021 Playbook.

The first section dives deep into the US Stock Market and Market breadth, then we discuss the International Markets and specific Factors around the world. Next we go into U.S. Sectors and the best looking Industry Groups. In the second half of the report, we dive into the FICC space (Fixed Income, Commodities & Currencies) and their Intermarket Relationships. Finally we finish up with Cryptos, Options and overall Market Sentiment.

You can skip right to the trade ideas here if you'd like, or give the full report a read!

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...

JC and I were chatting this morning about things we're seeing in the markets. The big thing we're observing is the breakout in financials. And a breakout in financials is rarely something one observes in a bear market, or a bull market that is in the process of "topping."

While it might be wise to wait for pullbacks in the financials space before entering any new trades there, we were able to take some risk off in a bullish calls trade in Morgan Stanley $MS we've been in since December 11.

But one stock that has JC's attention has been lulling investors to sleep over the past six months. And this is kind of ironic since one of their main product lines is Trojan -- which promotes anything but sleep ;)

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.

Me, JC, Steve, and the rest of the All Star Charts team were casually chatting during our weekly strategy session and Steve asked me: "What was our biggest options winner this year?"

Without a doubt, our best options trade in 2020 was long Peloton $PTON. We entered long October 60 calls in $PTON on June 17 when it was trading below $52 per share. The stock then went on a rocketship ride and touched an all time high north of $139 per share on expiration day Oct 16th, which we rode all the way. It rarely happens that we hold a long calls position all the way into expiration day, but the last 3 weeks saw barely a downtick, so there was never any reason to hit the escape hatch.

As we further discussed this, it hit me and I remarked to the guys that "What's your biggest winner?" is a bit of an unfair question. I don't think 2020 was a good year because of a handful of big winners. They certainly helped, but the real reason why 2020 was so successful was because PROCESS was our big winner.

As January gets under way, it’s time to review positions with January options that remain open (haven’t already hit profit targets or been stopped out). I'm getting started a little earlier this month because January expiration is on the 15th, and we're currently only 18 days until expiration. I don't want to wait through another long weekend before taking action. That's cutting it too close to expiration for my taste.

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.

Wow, after a few months in a row of not much to worry about heading into expiration, this month will keep us busy. At the time of this writing, I've got 5 positions that need continued monitoring (thankfully they are profitable) and a few that need to be closed now.

The team at All Star Charts has launched a new report called the Minor Leaguers Report. This report will highlight small stocks showing signs of making the jump to the Big Leagues!

If the success of the Under the Hood report is any indication, I for one am very excited to have this expanded universe to pick stocks for making options plays.

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.