Yesterday, the All Star Charts team published a bullish piece on the New York Times $NYT, suggesting the stock has the potential to leap as much as 50% from current prices. For those of us interested in leveraging this bullish idea using options, you'll like what I have in store for you today.
I love getting involved in stocks breaking out to new all time highs. I love it even more when I can leverage into the play with long options when volatility is low. The bang for the buck if you get hold of a big mover is so much more powerful.
We've got one of these opportunities setting up in the financial sector and it has my attention.
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.
One of the things I harp on here is Best Practices. When I make it a habit to engage in best practices in terms of both strategy selection and position management, I put myself in position to win more often.
Best Practices skews odds in my favor. It keeps me from swimming upstream against volatility currents. It keeps my risk lower. It helps with P/L consistency. And it helps me stick with trades that still have time to play out.
Selling Half is a position management best practice I employ most often when trading straight long calls and long puts. I like to sell half of my position when the value of the position has doubled. It can be very tempting to want to hold your entire position if it quickly runs up and you find yourself sitting on tremendous profits thanks to the leverage inherent in long options. And certainly, there are times when I wished I would've just sat on my hands as I watched a stock continue to fly higher. But for every one of those times I wish I had, there are easily five other times I'm glad I hadn't.
There are a number of great services for options traders out there that offer smart ideas for premium selling, or Iron Condor trading, or earnings trades -- I'm friends with many of the best practitioners. They are fantastic at what they do and I'm happy to name names. Just ask.
Subscribers to All Star Options come to us for option trade ideas which take advantage of directional edges the All Star Charts research team uncovers through exhaustive technical analysis. We are not beholden to any particular type of strategy, options spread, or timeframe. We simply examine each opportunity on a case-by-case basis and make an informed decision on what we feel is a good way to play a particular situation. We might not always end up picking the "best" way to leverage into a opportunity, but we think over time and over many iterations, our good decisions compound favorably.
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.
