You'd be forgiven if you read this headline and completely discarded this blog post to the trash heap. I feel you. But assuming you're reading these words, you seem to be willing to entertain the possibility of "unpopular" ideas.
In my experience, when getting bearish on a stock or an index, it is rarely a smart play (statistically speaking) to purchase straight long puts. The reason being that if I'm spotting a bearish opportunity, then likely the rest of the world sees it too and therefore people are probably getting nervous and beginning to hedge their long positions with puts or are starting to bid up speculative downside bets. In either case, it usually inflates the implied volatility in the options pricing, making puts an unfavorable purchase.
But every so often, we find a case where a stock or an index has really just worn people out and people have just lost interest. And when the security starts to show signs of losing support, the opportunistic speculator can get ahead of the crowd before the opportunity becomes obvious to everyone else.
This appears to be the situation in the Energy Sector ETF $XLE.
Well well well... markets go in both directions. Who knew??
I jest of course, but man it was starting to feel like the market will only go up forever. And naturally, when market participants start feeling that way and then they are suddenly hit with a small dose of reality, those of us caught leaning the wrong way tend to panic.
But the panic always recedes as cooler heads prevail and realize that they may have overreacted. This is the bet I'm willing to make right now with today's trade.
So is this two-day selloff a start of something new? Or is this a gift from the Pullback Gods to get into those longs positions you were FOMO-ing about?
One of the names that stood out for me in the latest Under the Hood report, was unsuspecting. These days I expect the names that are popping up there to be the sexy tech high flyers and/or cheaper low cap speculative names. But a certain name with a pretty popular cheerleader caught my attention.
If I was a long holder of big positions in $AAPL, $AMZN, $TSLA, $FB, $GOOG — any of the teracaps…. I’d be selling way OTM covered calls like a wild man here.#SKEW
Covered Calls is not a strategy we employ often at All Star Options, as there are better more efficient ways to use our capital to express similar bets.
As September gets under way, it’s time to review positions with September 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.
This month, we only have one position with September options remaining on the books. All the rest have already hit their profit targets or stop loss levels. In the scoreboard below I denote the date we exited each position.
A semiconductor name that we got into a few weeks back stopped us out, and that sucked. But the beauty of honoring stop losses and stepping aside is that it allows us to gain fresh perspectives on new setups.
Armed with this new perspective, as well as seeing the stock show up in a recent Under the Hood report has me ready to test the waters again.
One of the things I preach in the All Star Options service is to manage risk by defining risks up front or having strict stop loss levels in place. And on the flip side of that equation, I also repeat over and over the need to remove risk from winning trades when given the opportunity -- particularly in long call or put plays.
When holding long calls or puts, my rule of thumb is to always sell half of my position when I've doubled my money.
Salesforce, Amgen, and Honeywell were all welcomed into the Dow Jones Industrial Industrial average this week. And all three are being greeted by enthusiastic investors. (Especially Salesforce $CRM!)
While the first two names are in sexy industries, don't sleep on Honeywell $HON. Here's what JC said in a recent post on the new Dow additions:
Here’s a chart of Honeywell, which I’m not sold on yet. I think it does break out, but I think this is only something to be long if we’re above 165. Below that and there is too much opportunity cost, I believe.
It is undeniable that the current market environment is rapidly weeding out companies that cannot survive in a digital world, and handsomely rewarding those that can.
And it isn't always the super high tech, VC-backed, trendy startup company that benefits. There are plenty of "old-school" names positioning themselves for the new reality of commerce in our new world. Thankfully, we don't need to be "futurists" who can predict the future of social, economic, and government trends. All we need to do is keep a careful eye on where investors are allocating capital and the resulting price action tells us everything we need to know.
Our trade idea today is in one of those old school retailers that's reinventing itself in new school ways.
