So now that all the "FANG" stocks have reported earnings and their price performance has essentially dragged equities indexes higher over the past month, now what?
As May gets under way, it’s time to review positions with May 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.
It would seem that the "new" economy we live in -- one where we order everything online for fear of walking into stores -- would benefit the companies that provide the infrastructure and transportation to make that happen. Fundamentally, that makes sense. But we're chart readers here, and the charts are telling us something different.
The guys at ASC are out with a piece this week highlighting the weakness under the hood in some of the biggest sectors in the US Stock Market. Read it here.
One of the poster children for weakness we want to get short ahead of another possible leg down is setting up right now.
Since I've got a little positive delta building in my portfolio and I'm leaning towards the market feeling a bit overextended here, I'm adding a little negative delta in an index to help balance the risks in my portfolio a bit.
And of course, it makes the most sense to get short the weakest (in relative terms) index to express this hedge.
Say what you will about stock market action since the equities bottom was put in on March 23rd, but either way you can't not be impressed.
Do we go higher from here?
I don't know the answer (hint: neither do you), but I do know that if we do, we're going to be continually led by the leaders in this bounce so far. And one of those leaders is the stock who's company everyone uses -- in some way -- whether you realize it or not: Google.
Options premiums are still pretty elevated across the landscape and the default mode for me when looking for trades to put on is still to prefer selling premium to express any directional bets.
However, JC put some bullish metals ideas in my head last week that are starting to look interesting to me. And there's one in particular that warrants a shot with a debit spread -- where we can use the prevalence of still high options premiums to help us lower our cost of participation in a directional bet.