 Hey everyone, happy Friday. Today is August 24th. Welcome to this week's video update. Before we jump into the alerts, just one quick announcement. It's not quite ready yet, but we are releasing a new course coming out here pretty soon. I don't want to put a date on it yet because every time I do that ends up being a little bit longer. So pretty soon we have a new course coming out all about trading the VIX, V-I-X, and volatility-related products in ETFs. So it's going to be a good one. Look forward to sharing that with you. Of course, you as pro members will get that automatically loaded into your member's area. No cost, no additional cost, or anything like that. Just adding to the value in your pro membership. So look for that in the coming weeks and look forward to some feedback on that. But for now, let's jump into the alerts for the week starting with the trades we made on Monday. Started out with an opening trade, did a short strangle on Ford slash ZN. So I wanted to discuss this. I had some additional comments in the trade comments on this one because this is a little bit different. What happened was, remember we look at TLT, the corresponding ETF, to get a reading on the applied volatility. Well, when we put this on on 820, the IV percentile was up in the 53 range. So it was nice and juicy, nice and high for selling premium. And then literally within an hour after we put the alert on, the IV started dropping and just continued to drop until it got down to about this level, which is about the 15, 16 level. And the options weren't contracting. The implied volatility wasn't really contracting that much. And it would end up, I talked to TOS and ends up it was just a bad data feed from the exchange. And so we went ahead and kept the trade on. And then just a few days later, implied volatility is so low. It was under 10 on the IV percentile and IV rank. And so we went ahead and took that trade off instead of waiting for the full 50% of max profit. We booked about 20% of max profit, but we went ahead and took that off because it was kind of a strange deal. I've actually never seen it happen quite like that before. So anyway, that's that's what happened there. So if I skip ahead to the ZN close piece, and then I'll go back right here. So on 823, which was yesterday on Thursday, so we put it on Monday, closed it out Thursday, booked a nice profit over 20% of max in just three days. So nice trade. And here's where I mentioned, you know, normally we would hold for at least 30%, somewhere between the 30 and 50%. But I kind of explain that here. So I wanted to touch on that again, just to make sure everyone was clear on that and why we took it off so early, but ended up being a nice winner. And so we'll book it and redeploy that capital somewhere else. So just FYI there. Next trade was an opening trade in Baidu. So we needed a little bit more short delta. So we added a short call vertical in Baidu. And as I mentioned down here at that point, our short delta to theta ratio was at about two to one. So for every $100 of theta, we had about 200 short delta. And that's, that's, that's great. I mean, I think that's a good place to be right here. Remember, we always kind of be one being in that one to one to somewhere in that five to one range. We're at about two to one at this point. And right now, sitting today on Friday, we're about two and a half to one. So right in there as well. But we wanted to add in a little bit of short delta. So Baidu looked like a good candidate. And remember, there's no magic indicator. There's nothing that's going to tell you the directional move of a market. But what we're looking at here is just, you know, Baidu has had after earnings drop significantly and then continue dropping had a little bit of a bounce. And so we just looked at this as a decent point of entry for it to potentially roll back over. You know, that's, that's not saying that it will, there's no probabilities around this. I mean, it's just a directional play. But, but we looked for that kind of a situation when we're adding directional exposure. And in this case, we're looking for some short delta. And so that looked like a good candidate. It's just kind of hanging out pretty close to where we sold it down slightly on the trade, but just looking for some downside to benefit that piece. Next trade was a closing trade in BBY, which is Best Buy. We put on a pre-earnings long call, looking for some upside momentum leading into earnings. Got just that, booked over 30% profit in just seven days. So that was a nice trade. And let's go, let's go ahead and look at the chart of BBY. I think if I remember right, it continued to go even higher. So we would have booked more had we held on longer, but you can't play the hindsight game. So, so we got out here on the 20th. We got in on this day here. So we booked the profit here. And as you can see, the next two days went boom, boom, and Skyrock did even higher. So could have been a massive profit, but you know, you can't, you can't do that. You got to take your profits at your, at your, at your target and, and move on. So nice trade there in BBY. Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in EWZ. So we closed that one set of our short strangles in EWZ, booked over 45% of max profit on that piece of the trade. EWZ continues to stay high as far as implied volatility goes. Still a lot of uncertainty in the Brazilian market, which is why the, the options are expensive, why the implied volatility is so high. So continues to be a good trading vehicle in EWZ. So here's, here's what we have left our September short strangle. You can see prices out here. So it's out of our range, but the reason we haven't made any adjustments yet is because if we take a look at, if we just look at the calls, you can see we still got a lot of premium left in those options. So there's really no reason to adjust at this point. And then with the puts, obviously, you know, they're in the money and, but we'll just continue to hold this. And what we'll end up doing is in September we've got, we've got 28 days to expiration. So most likely, once we get down to around 21 days to expiration, we'll roll that out to October, collect some more credit and continue to manage that, that trade is necessary. A few alerts later, so I'll just go ahead and go over it now. We, we ended up adding to this. So we added a strangle and we did that out in October with 56 days left to expiration. And you can see this is still very centered prices right here. No profit or loss at this point, just waiting for some more time to pass before we do anything on that. So we've got those two pieces, the adjusted strangles in September. And then our other strangle we just put on is in October. Next trade was an opening adjusting trade in EWZ. So here it is. So here's where we entered that new strangle in October. And that's the one I just showed you. Then we've got a closing adjusting trade in oil. So forward slash CL. We closed out one of our short strangles in CL, booked a profit over 50% of max. And then we're still holding our other short strangle, which we did another alert in oil today where we rolled and adjusted that. So let's just go ahead and take a look. In fact, let's go, let's take a look at that roll first. So it was the last trade we made today or the second to last. So what I did is price had breached our upside short strike. So we needed to roll our puts up. But with just 24 days to expiration in those options, we went ahead and rolled from October to November. Because remember, we don't want to, we don't want to just roll our puts up in October. And then a few days later, we're going to have to roll the entire thing out to November. So we just simultaneously rolled our puts up and rolled out from October to November. So remember in the trading options on futures world, you can't do that role just in one transaction. So it's two separate ones. So we bought back our, the current position, which was the 68 and a half, 60 and a half strikes. And then we sold the new strangle in November and we did that at the 68 and a half and the 67 and a half. So essentially what we did is we rolled our puts, which were at 60 and a half. We rolled those up to 67 and a half. And then we rolled the entire thing from October to November. And this causes a lot of confusion, especially for newer traders, just because it's, you know, it is, it is a little bit of different concept and the fact that you have to do it in two different transactions is a little bit confusing. But just remember, it's the exact same thing as if we were rolling on a stock or ETF, we just have to do it in two separate transactions, which is why we have these, these two separate posted trades here. So, so let's take a look now at CL and take a look at what that looks like. So it's basically, it's almost like a short straddle, right? I mean, these strikes are one point away from each other. If they were the same, that would be considered a straddle. So it's just a very narrow, very narrow strangle. And that's what we like to do when we roll, just keep those strikes the same, collect more credit, give ourselves a little bit more time to collect some theta, and then, and then we'll potentially take this off. Now, if you take a look at where we at, where we're at P and L wise on this oil trade, I mean, we're already, we're up, we're up several thousand dollars on this trade. So as soon as we book this, it'll go into the closed trade section on in your membership here. And then, and you'll see it was, it was a very nice profit. It's, it's currently a very nice profitable trade, but we're just extending duration. I didn't add another strangle here. I had a, I had a question from a member, you know, sometimes you just roll the untested side. Sometimes you'll add another strangle or another piece to the trade. And in this case, we just rolled, and part of the reason is, is if we take a look at oil on the chart is it's kind of where implied volatility is. I mean, if, if Ivy percentile is up above 50, you know, I would have been more inclined to not only roll the way we did, but also add another kind of centered strangle around current price with implied volatility under 50 with the Ivy percentile under 50. Oh, in this case, the Ivy rank is, is 44 Ivy percentiles down at 19. In this case, we're just going to roll and manage the current piece instead of adding. Now, if, if things change and implied volatility spikes up, we will definitely look to be adding another piece to this. So kind of, kind of is a basis of where Ivy levels are. And then where we are with overall capital usage, you know, if, if, if we're looking to put on positions or want more exposure to oil or something like that, that's another reason to add to it. But in this case, we're just going to manage the current piece and, and, and manage it as needed. So again, that's what it looks like. And just waiting for some more time to pass and theta to decay. So let's get back in order here. Sorry, jumping, jumping around a little bit. So here's that closing, adjusting trade in oil. Next trade was an opening trade in CRM. So we open that on 822, which is on Wednesday. And this is a pre earnings long call. So just like we teach in our earnings course, looking for some upside momentum as well as a potential expansion in implied volatility to benefit the trade. As I mentioned, they announced 829. And let's look for about 20% profit on this trade or more. And then we ended up taking that trade off today. So again, I'm going to skip ahead to the trade we made today. And this morning we took that one off and booked almost 50% profit in just a couple of days. So put it on on Wednesday, took it off today on Friday, the 50% profit in just a couple of days. And kind of like BBY, you know, again, I don't want to play hindsight, but you know, had we held this a little bit longer, I mean, look at this thing, this thing exploded today, which would have given us even more profit. And hopefully some of you may be waited and got more profit than we did. So that's just part of the game. You got to take your profits when they're there. Sometimes you're going to leave a little bit on the table, but that is just the game you play. What you don't want to happen is it for it to reverse and you lose out on that profit that you had sitting in front of you. So all the life of a trader. Okay, so next trade was an opening adjusting trade in EWW. So we added a short strangle in EWW in October and still holding our adjusted strangle in SEP. So if we take a look at EWW, you can see implied volatility still staying nice and high. So going back to that oil example where we didn't add another strangle in oil in EWW, we did add another one. And so part of that is implied volatility is nice and high. So it makes sense. If we didn't have a position on it all, it would make sense to put one on and eat EWW. So in this case, we're just simply adding to our current position. And so here's the one we added in October with four contracts. And you can see it's dead centered, implied volatility has gone up a little bit since then. So you can see we're down about 28 bucks, but still very centered. And then our other adjusted strangle, you can see prices kind of hanging out up here near the upper end of our range. So by adding this in, we add to the position where implied volatility is high. And if you click on both of these, you can see it kind of widens our breakevens, gives us a bigger range to move around in, a larger max profit. And so that is why we do it. So just playing the wait and see game in EWW. Next trade was the closing trade in ZN, which is the note that I already went over. Next trade is the closing trade in CRM that I already went over. And then the adjusting trade in oil that I already went over. And lastly, we did another opening adjusting trade in this case in EEM. So very similar to EWW, where we had an adjusted strangle on in September, which is this one here. The price has come out. It's breached our short strike. And the reason I haven't adjusted yet is because we put this on as a fairly tight strangle. In other words, we have the strikes closer to where the money was at the time we put it on. So you're going to give it a little bit more room when your strangle is tighter. And so prices sitting right here between the short strike and between the breakeven. So if we look at just the put, you can see the amount of profit we have left is about 40 bucks. So it would have been okay to adjust this one as well. I'm giving it over the weekend. So if we get a little bit of a bounce back to the downside, you know, that'll, that'll be better than if we did the adjustment today. So that's where we're waiting on there. But if you had adjusted by rolling these puts up, I wouldn't have an issue with that either. But at this point, we're just going to hold this one. And in this case, we went ahead and added another one. And so you can see this is very centered. And we just added that today. So no, no, no profit or loss at this point. And again, the reason we did this by adding was look the IV percentile, it's at the 65 level. So it's nice and high. If we didn't have an EEM position on already, we would probably be looking to add one. And so in this case, we already had a piece, but we went ahead and added another one as well and started building that position out in October. So we have both the September piece and October. And remember, when the September options get to around 21 days to expiration, then we'll look to roll those out to October or if we're in the profit, we'll go ahead and close it. So we'll see what happens. But that is the game plan. So those are all the alerts. Let's take a look at some of our other positions. We've got a strangle on in 4 slash 6E, which is the Euro. This one is doing nicely, nice and centered. Got some profit here of about $675 out of a potential $1850. So waiting for a little bit more profit before we book this one. I mentioned oil, ES. We've got several pieces in ES here. We've got we've got an iron condor. So let's go ahead and take a look at that first. So that's right here. So you can see the price is hanging out kind of near the upper end of the range, looking for a little downside to benefit that trade. And then we've got a short call vertical, which was previously part of an iron condor. And we held that to keep that short delta in our portfolio. You can see with the strong move up in stocks, prices outside of our range here. So just looking for some downside to get back in. And then same with our long put vertical, which we have on to add some short delta to our account as well. And you can see with the strong move up prices outside the range now, just looking for some downside to benefit that one as well. Gold in gold futures, we have two different strangles on. You can see prices right here kind of hanging out near the upper end of the range on this one. And then we've got our other one, both of these are next October, by the way. And in this one, you can see price, we've got a profit of a little over $300 out of a potential $1,100. So looking for a little bit more profit before we book that one. So you know, the best thing that could happen is gold could play a little ping pong, just kind of bounce around and take one off for a profit and bounce up and take the other one off for a profit. And so of course, that's the perfect world. We'll see what happens. If we need to make adjustments, we will. If not, we may just book those and take the money and run. We'll see what happens. Wheat, we've got an iron condor on in wheat. So you see price right here, need a little bit of upside movement in wheat to benefit that trade. Apple has been a little bit of a thorn in our side. You know, huge move up. Apple has just been super strong to the upside. And so we're looking for a little downside to benefit that. I got a couple questions. Why haven't we done this? We're almost at max loss on this piece. And that's exactly why we haven't done anything on this. You know, if we were to roll, that's just going to give more exposure. Whereas this, you know, we're almost at max loss. So if it continues to rip higher, it's not really going to hurt us much. But if we do get a downside move in Apple, it could benefit us. So we've got a lot of time left in September. We've got 28 days. So we're going to continue to hold this. Again, we put this on in our portfolio to add some short delta to some short bias. And we'll continue to keep that on. You know, Apple's not going to go up forever, although it seems like it has been. So we'll just continue to watch that and manage. And it's kind of being used as a hedge in our portfolio. We've got to keep that short delta, that short bias when we're selling premium. Same thing in Baidu. We put this on for that short delta. I already mentioned this in the alerts, but just looking for some downside to benefit that piece. Or maybe I didn't mention the alerts. Anyway, we put this on for some more short delta. So just looking for some downside to benefit that. Still well within range. Just waiting for some time to pass and potentially downside movement. DIA, we've got two short call vertical spreads that were previously part of Iron Condors. You can see price has moved slightly out of our range. Just looking for some downside to benefit that. Again, we've continued to hold that for short delta. Kind of sound like a broken record with this short delta. And it seems like we have all this short delta on here. But the reality is, like I said, we're only at about two and a half to one versus our theta. Part of that is because we've got more positions on right now, with just opportunities and different symbols. So our theta numbers are pretty high. But at the same time, we're about two and a half to one on our short delta. So definitely not too much short delta. E-E-M I mentioned, E-W-W I mentioned, E-W-Z I mentioned, FXI. Okay, so this is another position we have on. We've got two butterfly spreads. Here's the put butterfly spread. You can see price is just kind of hanging out here near the upper end of the range. Need some downside and FXI to benefit that. And then the call side we already adjusted. And I got some questions on this because this is kind of a funky looking graph. And so the thing you got to remember, I mean, you see the zero lines up here and the graph is down below. So even the peak of the graph is below the zero line. You got to keep in mind when we rolled this call, all we did was we rolled the call from, I think it was it like 44, 45 somewhere in that range, and we rolled it down to the 41 and left the long strikes alone. Well, when you do that, so we booked the profit from that piece and we rolled it up. And by doing that, it's going to make our graph look a little funky. So you almost can't even pay attention to this graph on a butterfly after you adjust that way because it's not going to tell the whole story. It doesn't take into account what you traded the other call that you already closed out. So we're just going to continue to hold this. We're in a positive theta position. You can see 42.66 is where we're trading right now. I'm just above that. And so 42.71. So we're collecting a positive theta of 407 per day. So still beneficial to keep that on. And then as we get closer to expiration, we'll continue to potentially roll this or manage it or just close it out. We'll see what happens. It depends on where price is as we get closer to expiration. But remember, again, we're in September. We've got 28 days. We've got a lot of time. So we're just going to continue to hold that for now. IWM, we've got a couple pieces on here. We've got this short call vertical that we need price to come back down into range on this piece. And then we've also got a full iron condor where you can see price is just kind of hanging out up here. Again, you could use a little bit of downside to benefit that. QQQ. We've got a couple of short call vertical spreads similar to DIA. They were previously part of iron condors. You can see prices right here on the breakeven line. Just looking for a little downside to benefit that. And then Tesla. Tesla, remember, we put this on last week and implied volatility is up near, you know, in the 90s. And it's starting to contract now a little bit. And it's just kind of bounced around, kind of settled down around this 320 area. And you can see because of that contraction implied volatility, we've got a profit now of over 350 bucks. But we've got a max profit of over 1300. So looking for some more profit in this one, hopefully price can kind of continue to stay in a nice steady range. And if implied volatility continues to contract, hopefully we'll book a nice winner there. And lastly, XLK. This is another one we have on for short Delta. And you can see prices just inside the range there. Just looking for that to kind of hold on and stay to the downside to benefit that trade. But remember on these short Delta trades, of course, of course it's going to be a drag when the markets just rip and higher. But remember, you've got to keep that on because if we have a vicious move to the downside, or we just kind of have a little bit of a rollover in the market, you're going to want to have that short Delta on. So just continue to manage that. And everybody have a great weekend. Look forward to another great week of trading next week. Have a good one.