We are in the tricky part of the quarterly cycle where upcoming earnings warrant caution on options trades in individual names. Premiums get elevated ahead of the uncertainty heading into each earnings event, so that makes being long premium an undesirable idea. Meanwhile, it makes me uncomfortable getting short elevated premiums into these events because of the risk of an outsized move blowing through any short strikes I may have on.

And of course and ironically, with summer in full swing, broader indexes are seeing declining volatilities which makes it tougher to put on good credit spreads.

But your boy hasn't given up looking for opportunities, and I see a good one shaping up in the Utilities space.

This is the video recording of the July 2018 Conference Call for Members of All Star Options

Perhaps it's the overwhelming number of afflicted Bears coming in to emergency rooms, pharmacies (for pain meds), and therapists couches across America that is fueling the continued bull market in healthcare stocks? Interesting thought.

But we're not fundamentalists here, we just follow price action, volume, and with our options trades -- volatility. And those three things are pointing to a great opportunity for profits in the $XLV Healthcare ETF.

Jack Dorsey, CEO of both Square $SQ and a little-known company named Twitter $TWTR, is having a pretty good year. How good? Well, in the last 365 days, $SQ is up 177% and Twitter is up a more modest 158%. Boy, the sentiment in these two names sure has changed. It seemed like just yesterday Jack Dorsey was America's most hated CEO. "Pick one!" the masses screamed. Everyone thought he had taken on too big of a workload as the stocks of both companies languished in prolonged downtrends. Amazing what twin upward trending stock prices can do for Public Relations.

While both stocks look compelling here, we're going to take advantage of some attractive volatility being priced into $SQ options and an earnings event to play both sides against.

With two weeks to July expiration, it's time to review our July positions that will be expiring soon and take any actions that are necessary to reduce risk or take profits. This is the time of the cycle when the theta cost of our long premium plays will start to accelerate against us, or the gamma risk in our short premium plays will start to ramp quickly against us. No bueno in either case.

With earnings for Apple coming up on July 31, there's just enough time, worthwhile juice, and a significant price level to lean against in order to potentially bite off some quick profits in $AAPL while limiting our downside risk. Since we don't have much time, lets cut right to the chase...

The running metaphors for Nike $NKE stock are too obvious, so I'll do my best to avoid them. However, it cannot be denied that last week's monster gap higher coming out of earnings has launched the stock around the final turn and it is now sprinting towards a big, fat, round number - $100. That big magnet coupled with a pretty common phenomenon called "post earnings drift" following positively received earnings events sets up a pretty compelling case for a profitable move setting up. 

...FEED them.

Continuing with a theme that emerged for us this week, we're taking recent volatility climbs as a gift to help us get through a typically slow summer trading period. Weeks like this one -- just ahead of a holiday week -- are the kinds that level-headed premium sellers wait for when putting on their "income trades."

I feel like the recent minor skirmishes in U.S. stocks over the past week have been a nice little gift for premium sellers heading into what is a traditionally the slowest period of the calendar year. With the Independence Day holiday on the horizon, it's looking to me like a great time to start selling some premium in the indexes. So we've got a quick and easy one to set up before you light up your grills and sparklers.

Last week, Tom Bruni penned a post titled Global ETF Carnage Continues, highlighting how ETFs representing stock markets around the world have been getting hurt by US Dollar strength. While he isn't yet calling a bottom, there was one particular Latin American ETF that was beginning to show signs of bottoming and it is a scenario he'd like to see replicated in more global ETFs to give him confidence the turn is coming.

The best way I know how to stay engaged in this possible turn is to have some skin in the game.

If you're like me, you think ATM charges are a crime. And one of the worst offenders is Chase, part of JP Morgan's umbrella. It's time we make them pay us back for all the ATM fees they've stolen from us for the privilege of having access to OUR money.

It just so happens, I see a great opportunity shaping up to make some high probability cash flow to replenish our bank account balances.

AMD has had a tremendous run off this April's lows, where it bottomed out around $9.00. Today, it's trading north of $16. That's a greater than 75% move in about 11 weeks. Wow.

But we have some very important technical and supply-and-demand reasons to believe the move might only just be getting underway. And we want to participate, but limit our risk in doing so.