 Hey everyone, welcome to this week's video update. Today is Thursday, November 15th. Typically I like to record these weekly updates on Friday afternoons close to the, when the market's closing, but today I wanted to do it on Thursday for a couple of reasons. One, I'll still be trading and sending alerts tomorrow. However, I won't have a chance to record it tomorrow. So I wanted to do it today. And then secondly, in light of the crazy moves we've seen in oil and that gas, I thought it would be better to get some additional thoughts and information out to you all today, sooner rather than later. So let's jump into the alerts that we had this week and just know that tomorrow there may be another couple alerts on Friday that won't be included in this update, but we will get those in next week's update just to make sure you kind of get my thoughts on everything on the new trades. So first of all, let's just, let's go to the platform and take a look at NatGas, okay? So NatGas had just an extraordinary move, crazy move. This is the largest on Wednesday yesterday. This was the largest one day move in NatGas in the last 14 years. And it's, and NatGas is at its highest point that we've seen in the last nine years. So, you know, with whatever it was, the weather reports, the supply and demand of NatGas and everything else involved, and just the, you know, perception from the overall traders, we had this big spike up. Now on Wednesday with that big move up, you know, no one really knows exactly what caused it. However, you know, a lot of times what happens in situations like this, when you get some huge massive moves in a symbol, and then now you got a lot of people who were short NatGas having to cover, which propels it even higher. And that creates this, what we call capitulation. Now, you know, I got a lot of emails from members who, you know, A had, you know, suffered big losses in their account at this point. And they were, you know, talking and asking about, you know, should we hedge this? Should we go long? You know, I think this thing's going higher. And you've got it, when big moves like this happen, you've got to really take a step back and stay mechanical and stay with the program, even though your positions are showing a loss. And the reason I say that is, and maybe this is just from seeing this happen over and over, you know, a lot of different times in my life and my trading career, or maybe it's just the contrarian in me, either way, you know, yesterday when I'm looking at this, I'm saying, okay, if I didn't have a position on right now, what would I do, other than, you know, put selling premium? What would I look at this chart and think? And my thoughts are, there's no way in hell that I would want to be long yesterday after the move already happened, right? And so if anything, I'd want to be short. And anytime you have a huge extended move like that, it feels like, oh my gosh, could this thing just get out of control and go forever? The reality is nothing goes in one direction forever. And we're seeing that today. I mean, it's down 17%, you know, it's down more today than it was up yesterday. And, you know, it's not that this thing couldn't have continued higher. It's not that it couldn't turn around and continue higher still, but you've got to kind of take a step back when something like this happens and make sure that you are just staying mechanical. You know, I talk about staying mechanical with our adjustments and our roles all the time. And when a big moves like this happens, sometimes I get a lot of questions from members, what are we gonna do? What should we do here? And my answer is always, you've got to stay mechanical. And before being in the trade, obviously the other thing that you need to do that I harp on all the time is making sure that you stay small. Now, keep in mind, you know, especially with Nat gas and oil and any, you know, options on futures related trade, you know, these are much bigger contracts than your equity trades. So when you're trading on stocks or ETFs, you know, those are much smaller size, a lot less leverage than what you get on these options on futures, which can be a good thing if you're staying small but can be a bad thing if you're too large relative to your account size. And so the one, the other thing I wanna make sure that you all understand is, you know, I'm trading this with real money, right? This is real money in this account. So we are aligned exactly with you, our members, okay? If we are feeling pain on a position, if you're feeling pain on a position, we're feeling that pain as well, okay? So, you know, unlike, and I talk about if you've been a member for any time at all, you've heard me talk over and over about the financial industry and financial advisors and how there's huge conflicts of interest because, you know, advisors are making money off of fees, regardless of the performance of your account. Well, that's not the case with us, okay? We, if we're making money, if you're making money, that means we're making money. If we're losing money, that means, you know, we're both losing money. So I want you to understand that, that we feel this just as much as you do and no matter how big our account is or how many times we've seen this, it's still, you know, moves like this are still painful. And, you know, with the alerts portfolio, we had, you know, obviously one set of strangles with one contract and another set of strangles with one contract. So a total of two contracts, but even with just that small position, you can see on a huge move like this how quickly that can accumulate. And so think about this in my other larger account, I have several contracts on here. So it is, it's been a move that's been, you know, very extreme for not only the alerts portfolio, but for my other account as well. And so just keep that in mind that this is real money that we're trading with too. So I want you to understand that our goal is specifically in line with you all's goal. And that goal is to make money and do it as consistently as possible. Now, having said that, the only way to defend against huge moves like this, when you're selling premium like we do, is to keep your position size small. And if your account is too small to accommodate the risk involved with the trade like this, then you really should not be trading it in that account. And overall, the majority of the feedback that I've gotten from members through this move is that most people, yeah, boy, it was painful because they're seeing some huge moves outside their expected range and, you know, showing losses in their account, but the majority of people are doing it right and have traded small enough so that they're not getting wiped out or anything like that. Now, I have had a couple of people, you know, who were trading in this type of position in an account that's too small and they are feeling, you know, more extreme pain. And so it just, I just want to reiterate the way to initially defend a move like this is at order entry and keeping your position size small. The other way is obviously you can define your risk. So if you are in a smaller account and you want to have that exposure in something like oil or net gas, instead of doing a strangle with uncovered options, you can also do defined risk with an iron condor. And so I hope everyone is learning from this situation. This is when you really become a better trader is when you go through situations like this. Now I know for some of you, it might not feel like a good lesson and no one ever likes to lose money. I do not like to lose money. No one is more competitive in the markets as far as wanting to be as consistent and profitable as possible than I am. But things like this happen and you have to be able to, you have to be able to work through it and especially learn from it. And if you're trading too large, you never get that chance to learn from it because you may have to close out of the position when you didn't want to or you may have to close out of other positions and these different things that come along with based on your specific account size. So I say all that just to A, kind of help you through the process of thinking through it like we do and B, helping you become a better trader because hopefully by now you know that this stuff works. I mean we were up nearly 40% for the year, year to date, our account a couple of weeks ago, peak did up to about 96,000. Now we're down to about 84,000 is our account size now. So that's a huge loss from our peak profit to where we are now and it's painful. I mean nobody likes to see that kind of thing and with that kind of a volatility in your P&L, that's almost too large even for the account size that we're trading. I mean we don't like to see that type of volatility in our P&L but we do know that things like this do happen and we've seen this movie before. We've been through things like this and again just to reiterate, not to be a dead horse but you've got to stay mechanical and work through this and just like I said yesterday this was a huge move up, now we're seeing it completely reversed to the downside today and so let's just jump in here and take a look at where we're at now. So here is, so we've got two different pieces on here. This is our one, it's basically a barely inverted strangle now, we've got the 4.05 put and the four call. So almost a straddle but you can see price is right here and now here's the other thing to look at is we're still getting about $109 of theta currently today at this point where price is trading and you can see minus six. So we've still got over $6,000 that we can make up, if price is gonna stay in a fairly steady range we have over $6,000 that we can make up in theta over the next 40, 41 days. Now again, we're gonna roll this when we get to 21 days to expiration but just think about all that theta that still has to come out of these options between now and expiration, okay that's a lot. So we have a, in a very short period of time we have the potential to make a lot of this back if price does calm down and a lot of times after a big move that's what happens and that's why rolling up your puts or rolling down your calls works and then rolling out to the next expiration works is because even if you do have a huge move that moves out of your range, a lot of times after that price will settle down and allow that theta to decay and bounce around in a little range allowing you to get back to profitability. Now it's gonna take several cycles and I say this over and over, anytime you have a big move that busts out of your range you just need to consider that you're gonna be in that trade longer than initially anticipated, okay. So we are going to end up rolling this into from, we're in January now we're gonna end up rolling it out into February once we get down to that around that 21 days expiration we're gonna stay mechanical and continue to do that and by doing that we're gonna collect an additional credit and then we're gonna continue to manage it as needed in that next cycle and then potentially roll it out to the next cycle again. So that's that piece there and then this one here we are already inverted so we're at the 4.1 put our puts are higher than our calls which are at 3.1 so you can see here here's where price is trading right now and you can see we still have, we have $7,000 worth of theta to potentially recoup just in this cycle between now and expiration. Again, same thing as we get close to that 21 days to expiration we're gonna be rolling out to February but we've got a lot of theta that we could potentially make up to get back some of those current losses. So keep that in mind if you guys have any other questions on that gas feel free to email me but we're gonna stay mechanical and we're gonna continue to work the process just like we always do and if price turns around and rips higher again we're gonna continue to roll those puts up collect that additional credit roll out to the next expiration cycle nothing goes in one direction forever and like I said, we've seen this kind of move before but what you can't do is A, trade too large and B, freak out in certain situations so that you book those losses and it just kind of shatters your confidence shatters your trading and kind of shatters everything. So I really hope that's helpful in kind of working through that process. Let's also go to oil. So oil, big move in the opposite direction and this is the other thing too is typically you don't see this type of move I mean natural gas and oil they are both energies, right? So there is that relationship but from a movement standpoint they're not very correlated they don't typically move together in one direction or in the opposite direction in this case, oil's just been on this slide to the downside and then had that big move on Tuesday to the downside to extend that but the fact that we got hit with the massive move in that gas and a massive move in oil kind of back to back kind of double whammy from a standpoint of huge moves outside of our range both in very large symbols, like I said options on futures being much larger than your equities. So we had this huge kind of record down day with 12 red bars in a row now the last couple of days we've bounced up a little bit but if we take a look at our trades on the analyze tab you can see that price is about right here and so we're inverted on this piece of our trade meaning our puts are higher than our calls if we take a look at our calls obviously we've still got a lot of potential profit in those so we're not needing to make another adjustment on in here yet but very similar to that gas once we get down to that 21 days to expiration we'll look to roll this out to February now in oil January only has 29 days left so we've got once we get down to about 21 days so about eight days from now we're gonna look to roll that out to February now we've got this other piece which is another short strangle that we added that we haven't even had to adjust yet even after that major move price is still well within the range we're not even to our short strike yet and if we do get to our short strike we're gonna stay mechanical and we're gonna roll those calls down and then the same thing with this piece this is also in January so when we get down to 21 days to expiration we're gonna roll this out to February and again we're gonna end up being in this trade for several cycles while we roll and manage and adjust the trade okay so that's where we're at in oil now let's go over, let's start from the top and go from the first of this week and go over the different trade alerts and kinda put those all together as well on Monday starting with Monday on forge slash ZB which is bonds we had a short strangle on in bonds we booked almost 40% of max profit in just a couple weeks and so we're completely out of bonds we don't have any bonds, notes or TLT if we take a look at the chart of TLT to get an idea of the applied volatility we're at 68 on the IV percentile so if that stays high we will potentially look to add in something on one of those positions either ZN or ZB or TLT and so we can look for that here in the next few days and then next trade was a rolling adjusting trade in Apple so we rolled down our long put vertical in Apple Apple made it move down in price we were at over 50% of max profit on that piece of the trade so we're continuing to keep this position on extend duration to keep that short delta in our overall portfolio and so let's take a look at Apple it's moved down even more since we did this roll in our favor so now we've got some profit on this piece we're in December which has still 36 days to expiration if this moves much lower here when we get to about 50% of max profit again if that happens then we'll look to potentially roll this out to January or depending on how much time we have left we may just roll the strikes closer again so that is Apple which seemingly went up forever is now starting to roll over and we're finally getting back to almost back to profits in Apple if we can keep this going for another cycle or two next trade was in oil so we already went over oil but just to kind of reiterate what we did here is with the price moving down we rolled down our calls we rolled down our untested side and we rolled down from the 67 strike to the 61 we keep our tested side the same strike we don't move that and we're just continuing to wait for some additional theta decay and some time to pass and once we get down to that 21 days to expiration we'll roll that out to the next one next trade was the Nat gas roll so on Wednesday we did two Nat gas rolls and we simply were rolling up our puts so we had two different pieces on there we had two different put sides so in this first one we just rolled up our puts and when we do that when we roll up the untested side we're always doing that to around the 30 delta and so that's exactly what we did here you know that put had very little value left in it so we bought it back we closed it out and we resold out same cycle in January because there's plenty of time we just rolled up our puts from 3.3 up to 4.05 and collected a credit in doing so so and then I mentioned we were still holding our other short strangle which a couple alerts later we did the exact same thing we rolled up the puts on our other set of short strangles and rolled this one up from 2.9 to 4.1 so these are really close right 4.05 and 4.1 and those are both right around that 30 delta mark and so I just wanted to keep them separate so we just did slightly different strikes there and so same thing we're just gonna wait and collect some more theta hopefully price settles down and then we can roll that out to the next expiration cycle and continue to manage that as needed next trade was a closing trade in Netflix so we had a short call vertical on here that we put on in Netflix to add some short delta into our overall portfolio Netflix made a nice move down booked over 50% of max profit on that trade so we are completely out of Netflix we take a look at the chart here you can see we put this on about right here took a little bit of heat on the trade but then it rolled over and we got out for a nice profit on that one next trade already went over the net gas one next trade was a closing trade in SPY so we had a short strangle on an SPY booked over 35% of max profit on that one the move down in price yesterday gave us a chance to bring price back into close to being centered in our short strangle and had over 35% of profit so we went ahead and booked that one and so if we take a look at SPY let's just take a look at the chart here you can see it's bouncing up higher today but nice sell off yesterday got us back into a range where we're in a nice profit position so completely out IV percentile still continues to stay high so as we look to add positions we'll definitely look back to SPY potentially and then closing trade so I wanted to address a couple of things in this one I got several emails from or a couple emails from a couple different members who actually got assigned VXX stock on this one we did not get assigned but this morning we went ahead and closed that out excuse me so we sent out this alert to close our short call vertical took a loss on this one this was really frustrating and I hate to play the hindsight game here but just to give you an idea of what we were looking at on VXX so we had this on and then so we put this on obviously after implied volatility and the price spiked up and then it went way against us came all the way back and we actually had an order in to scratch this trade to scratch it as a break even never got filled and then unfortunately with the market going back down it price ran away from us so we ended up having to close this one for a loss and we sent that out alert out today now what I just mentioned before in regards to assignment remember we have an options assignment mini course here so if you ever have questions this is all addressed in your option assignment mini course but I did get a couple emails a couple members did get assigned because we had in the money options on VXX and we're only two days away from expiration the options expire tomorrow so a couple members did get assigned the actual stock and they were wondering what to do and we had already sent out the alert but and obviously we closed the position so the answer to that I got assigned stock what do I do well you close out the position and that's unless you wanted to keep that stock in your portfolio and sell options against it you can do that but what we would do is we would close it out we closed out this position if we had been assigned we would close out that position as well so that's the answer to that unfortunately took a loss on that one and if implied volatility spikes again and this kind of pops back up I looked at potentially selling another one today when the market was down early this morning but we didn't want any additional long delta in our portfolio we've got just a little bit of short delta not even quite one to one on our ratio so we've got about 400 of theta and we've got about minus 100 of short delta so I didn't wanna enter that and create some more long delta in our portfolio so we are just out of VXX at this point but we will look to potentially re-enter if implied volatility stays high and if price kind of pops its head back up try to recoup some of that loss that we just had on that one so those are all the alerts for the week so far and then let's take a look at some of our other positions we've got a position on in the Euro which is still very centered no profit, no loss here yet really and so we're just kind of playing the waiting game in Ford slash 6E in ES we've still got this long put vertical that we have on for short delta exposure and you can see let me just widen this out here so you can actually see the numbers you can see price is pretty close to our break even here just need a little bit of down move to benefit that piece and then gold we've got an adjusted short strangle in gold where you can see it's still pretty centered and we're just looking for some more theta to decay some more time to pass in gold we're in the January options which have 41 days so still got a lot of time before we do anything in Ford slash GC in wheat still have this iron condor which you can see we got a little bit of profit on but just waiting for some more time to pass if we get a little bit of an up move in wheat that'll benefit us there as well I already mentioned Apple we've got that piece that we rolled down and we're just waiting for a little bit more downside potentially to benefit that DIA we've got two sets of short call verticals in DIA which you can see I've got both checked here so they're pretty close in strikes these were originally part of iron condors and we've just continued to roll a couple cycles several cycles for that short delta exposure so just looking for some downside to benefit that trade EEM we've got a short strangle on here in EEM you can see we got a little bit of profit here not enough to take off yet so just waiting in EEM at this point EFA we sold a short call vertical to add some short delta exposure in our portfolio you can see we've got a tiny bit of profit right here but just looking for some more downside to benefit that piece EWW we've got two different short strangles on here one is this adjusted short strangle so we've got the 44 call and the 42 puts and you can see prices is right here if we look at just the call side we still got plenty of premium in there so no other adjustments needed at this point so we're just holding onto this we had originally adjusted it because price came down breached our short strike came down to basically our break even so we rolled down our calls now we're just waiting for some more time to pass there and then we've got this other piece of the trade which is a full unadjusted strangle you can see implied volatility has gone up since we put this on so we are down slightly on the trade but price is still well within our range so just waiting for some time to pass here still in December so 36 days to expiration so nothing to do at this point if we take a look at a chart of EWW you can see implied volatility is still extremely high so definitely a symbol we wanna be in at this point and then EWZ making a big move up today and so if we take a look here we're pretty centered here got some profit not quite enough to take off yet we wanna get at least 30% of max profit on these short strangles so just holding onto EWZ for now in Facebook we sold some premium in there we've got a short strangle on it Facebook and still still pretty centered within our range so just waiting for some theta to decay maybe some contraction in implied volatility to benefit that trade you can see it we put it on implied volatility popped up a little bit since then now it's just kinda leveling off so looking for some contraction in implied volatility to benefit that piece in FXI so we've got two pieces to this trade on we've got two different butterflies this is our put butterfly and so you can see price has moved a little bit outside of our range here so we're just holding to see if it we get a little bit of bounce back back into range and then we also have our call butterfly and you can see this one's very centered so just waiting for some theta to decay on that one if we put these both together basically looks like an iron condor and still well within our range here so nothing to do except for weight on FXI IWM we've still got an iron condor on here and IWM and you can see we've got some profit here but just waiting for some more before we take that off IYR we've got an iron condor on here we're in a pretty good profit position overall on this trade but we're just we're waiting for some more profit on this piece of the trade before we take it off potentially so just kinda playing the waiting game there in the cues very similar to DIA we've got a couple sets of short call verticals that were originally part of iron condors hold we've been rolling these for several cycles just to keep that short delta exposure you can see we've got this one here which is three strikes wide the 173-176 calls and you can see we've got some profit in there but just looking for a little bit more downside to benefit that and then we've got this other one which is five strikes wide and you can see we've got a little bit of profit there as well but just holding that for some more profit and the short delta exposure it gives our portfolio SMH this one is coming back nice move up today almost 3% higher in price and this one is pretty well centered we're almost about at breakeven on the trade overall after the rolls and adjustments and so we'll probably either we'll either take this one off for breakeven once we get to that point or we may try to squeak out a little bit of a profit but of course if price kinda makes a big move we may look to add onto this and add another piece to get some more profits but we'll get some more credits and then effectively book some more profits assuming price stays in our range so just holding SMH for now XLK we have this long put vertical on for that short delta exposure and so just looking for some more downside to benefit that piece and lastly XRT so prices moved down a little bit today almost 1% so you can see we've got some profit there but not quite enough to take off so just continuing to manage that one is necessary so those are all the alerts those are all the trade, the positions through Thursday, November 15th and we will pick up on reviewing Friday's trades in next week's video update everybody have a great final weekend before Thanksgiving next week is Thanksgiving on Thursday well we will be trading before that at least on Monday and Tuesday for sure actually I haven't checked to see when the markets are closed I think they're typically open the morning of Thanksgiving or I can't remember exactly so just be sure to check that we won't definitely won't be trading on Thanksgiving but leading up to that we will potentially based on opportunities and needed trade so everybody have a great weekend talk to you soon have a good one