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All Star Charts

Expert technical analysis of financial markets by JC Parets

[Options] Monthly Positions Review – August

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Once again this month, I’m going to share info on positions that were closed in the month of July. As a reminder, our exit plans are always laid out ahead of time in each trade idea we publish. In every case, the exits mentioned below were all in accordance with the plans as laid out.

As we head towards August expiration, we only have one open position remaining with expiring August options. But July was certainly a busy month for exits — both profitable and not — as a couple of market whipsaws shook the trees and knocked us out of a bunch of positions.

Positions with August options that need monitoring: [Read more…]

[Options] A Retail Hedge

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As markets have gotten choppy lately, I’ve been on the hunt for more bearish and neutral trades to help balance out my predominantly long portfolio.

In this week’s Follow the Flow report, Steve Strazza teed up a nice candidate for some downside exposure. The beauty is, the Options Gods are lining it up such that we can affordably take an aggressively bearish position that will pay off nicely if it works, while limiting our risk if we’re wrong.

[Read more…]

[Options Premium] Low Energy

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The team pumped out the Saturday Chartoons letter this weekend and as always, there were some nuggets of wisdom and ideas to be found therein.

The tone overall is: we’re in a tricky spot here. There are some stocks going up, many stocks going down. But in sum, we’re kinda stuck in the mud here for a little bit, it appears.

Of course, if this continues for a bit, then we’ll want to keep our eyes out for more delta-neutral credit spreads to add to our portfolio.

There’s one sector ETF that was specifically highlighted in this weekend’s letter that fits the criteria I look for.

[Read more…]

[Options Premium] Growing Into the Bigs

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So Steve Strazza hit me up yesterday with: “Have you seen our latest 2-to-100 Club report? All of those stocks are breaking out!”

When Strazza gets giddy about price action, I take notice. Of course, I had to pull it up and scan the list. And sure enough, every one of those names is moving in the right direction. Some already moved so quickly that I’m going to hold off for a better possible entry point. But one of those names just triggered yesterday and is giving us a well-timed pullback today for us to get positioned.

[Read more…]

[Options] How to Trade a Hot Mess

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In the recent All Star Charts monthly conference call, one of the themes that were repeated often was that stocks are in a “hot mess.” In other words, many sectors are a bit stuck in the mud, offering very few signals or hints on the next direction. And when stocks aren’t offering us many clues, the likely conclusion is that we’ll go sideways for a while. It might be choppy, but the net result will be a whole big bowl of nothing.

With that in mind, it pays to look for opportunities to take advantage of stocks or ETFs that have somewhat elevated implied volatilities (meaning options are richly priced) and put on delta neutral credit spreads. We already did this earlier this week, and we’re going to continue with another similar trade in a wildly different ETF. [Read more…]

[Options Premium] Welcome back, Volatility

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Traders woke up Monday morning to a little reminder that volatility happens.

It certainly wasn’t a calamity, but it was a larger gap down opening than we’ve seen in a while, following an ugly close on Friday which certainly has put some traders on edge.

When these types of conditions arise, we often see implied volatility priced into options rise to meet these increasing levels of fear. And today is no exception. On days like today, I like to peruse the list of active ETFs and see if any elevated implied volatilities are offering up a good income trade candidate.

The one that tops my list also has a nice risk management level we can lean against.

[Read more…]

[Options] A Play in the Worlds Most Precious Resource

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It isn’t often that we put on trades where we are explicitly swinging for the fences. But an opportunity has presented itself in the lastest Young Aristocrats report that is offering up an all-or-nothing reward to risk scenario. If we’re wrong, we’ll likely lose 100% of our capital. But if we’re right? We could potentially make 6-10x our investment. I’d like to think the All Star Chart team’s conviction on this trade tilts the odds in our favor a little bit.

What’s interesting (at least to me), is that the play is in a name with exposure to water. Yes, water. The earth’s most abundant, yet precious resource. I’ve always daydreamed of someday making a killing with long-term investments in water rights and so forth. I’m not there yet, but maybe this play will jump-start my exploration.

[Read more…]

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