 Hey, good morning everybody. This is Lee Lowell here from SmartOptionSeller.com. Today is Saturday, May 1st, 2021. Finally got into May. Yes, we're moving along. Welcome to another edition of our Saturday YouTube videos, where we would discuss an options trading strategy. And we look at the charts. We see what's going on in the markets. That's what we call our Saturday synopsis. I like to do this for you, give you guys some great options information, try to help you become a better options trader. As you can see on your screen right here, the option strategy that we will be discussing today is buying deep in the money call options. It is one of the four strategies that I lay out in my book. It is the only option buying strategy that I lay out in my book. I've got three option selling techniques and one option buying techniques technique. And if you don't know about my book, here's a little shameless plug. My book, Get Rich with Options. Four strategies straight from the exchange floor, from my time being a floor trader. These are the four strategies that I've come up with that are good for the everyday trader. You only need four of them. Three of them are option selling techniques and one is an option buying technique. And that is what we were going to talk about today. Buying deep in the money call options. Why do we want to buy deep in the money call options? What are they? And why are they so great? And why am I so gung-ho on those? So let's jump right in and talk about it. The strategy of buying deep in the money call options. What is that exactly? And what is deep in the money mean? Well, if you're a bullish on a stock, obviously you can buy shares of that stock, but there's another way to get exposure to those shares of stock. And that's by buying call options. Now, if you're a little familiar with options, you understand that there are different levels of strike prices. And there's ways to describe them. There's at the money options, out of the money options, and in the money options. And they all have a different reaction to how the stock moves. So what I've figured out over the years is that instead of buying shares of stock, you can buy call options. But there's only one very specific call option strategy that I recommend. And that is buying the deep in the money call option. And why is that? Because a deep in the money call option will act almost just like the stock itself. And there's great benefits that come along with buying deep in the money call options that you can't get with the stock. So my goal here today is to change you from a stock buyer to a deep in the money call option buyer. And I think once you understand the strategy and once you've done it a few times, you will be a true convert. You will convert over to buying deep in the money call options only instead of buying the stock itself. So let's discuss what the actual attributes or the characteristics of a deep in the money call option and why it works so well. And by the end of this presentation, you will see that, yes, you know what, Lee, you are right. Buying deep in the money call options is a much better way to go if I'm bullish than just buying stock shares. So let's go over my cheat sheet. I have two cheat sheets for you today. The first one here is just basically describing what a deep in the money call option is. And the next word document will go over an example. So buying deep in the money call options, you want to see it as a substitute for buying the stock itself. So obviously, if you're going to buy stock, you're bullish, right? I mean, you don't buy a stock if you're not bullish. So you have to be bullish if you're going to use either buying stocks or if you're going to use the deep in the money call option buying strategy. So number one, you have to be bullish on the stock. And to use the strategy, it's going to act as a substitute, almost a pure substitute. Okay. So the way I describe it is, you know, if you're if you're in a store, you can buy and the title of the video is you don't want to pay retail. And by that I mean, when you go into a store, you can either buy the name brand product, or the generic brand, which is basically the exact same thing as the name brand, you go into, let's say, you know, a drugstore and you want to buy some some Advil, which is really ibuprofen. Okay. Advil is just the brand name. And you can buy the generic store brand of ibuprofen for a lot cheaper, or you can go into a supermarket and buy a name, a name brand product of a food item, or you can get a generic version of the food item, same ingredients taste the same, it's just cheaper. So this is how I see buying deep in the money call options. You're buying the generic version of the stock, and you're getting the same benefits. So it's just basically a substitute for buying the stock. And and some of the great attributes are is that when you buy a deep in the money call option, you're going to have upwards of 70%, sometimes more, less risk. Okay. When you buy a stock, your risk is the stock can drop all the way to zero, and you can lose your your full investment. And the same thing with buying a call option, you can lose your investment if the stock drops, but that investment is going to be a lot less buying call options versus buying stocks will cost you a lot less in dollar terms, capital outlay right here. So these are too big, it's right here number two and three, you're going to have 50 to 70% less capital outlay, sometimes more, sometimes greater than 70%, which means your risk in the trade is going to be 50 to 70% less as well. So and in the next screen in the next Word document, I'll show you were look at an example, and I'll show you the actual numbers. And then your returns, your percentage returns, your return on investment ROI, a lot of times could be double triple or even more than what you can get versus just buying stock shares. Okay. So remember, all option contracts have are all option contracts consist of 100 shares of stock, one option contract, which is the minimum amount you can trade consists of 100 shares of stock. So we're always going to be comparing the call option buying method to buying 100 shares of stock, because that's the only way to compare it. So we have to round up the number to 100 shares of stock. If you only want to buy one or two shares of stock, then you have to stick with buying the stock because you can't buy option contracts, because they always consist of 100 shares of stock. All right. So let's just get that out in the open. Now, along with the deep in the money strategy, we're going to look for an option strike that has a 90% Delta. Now some of you may or may not know what Delta is, but there's a couple definitions of Delta. The one that applies directly to this type of strategy is that in options Delta, and I'll show you where you find that, and I'll show you how to get it from your your your broker's platform. The Delta tells you how much the option price is going to move in conjunction with the stock price. So if the stock price moves, the option price will move as well. But not all options are created equal. Options have different Delta. So that means the option price will move along with the stock price at various speeds or levels. So what a 90% Delta does is that if the stock moves up a dollar, the option price will move up 90% of that value, which is basically 90 cents per contract. So if the stock moves up a buck, your option contract moves up 90 cents per contract. That's $90. So that's 90% of the move. A 50% Delta option will move about 50% of whatever the stock does. So if the stock moves up a dollar, your option contract will move up 50 cents per contract. We want to stick with deltas of 9% or higher because we want the option to move almost in lockstep with the stock. We almost want to have the pure substitute. And in my opinion, a 90% move is really just good enough. It's almost acting like the stock and you're saving all this money. Now a 50% Delta will only move about half the amount of the stock. To me, that's not a good enough substitute. But that's just my personal preference. A lot of people play 50% deltas which are actually at the money options. A 90% Delta is an in the money option. And why is it called in the money? Because when we're talking about call options, if the stock is here, let's just say at 100, and a call option that's deep in the money has its strike price set well below the current price of the stock. And we'll look at the example. And it's called deep in the money because it actually has true value. It has a lot of value built into that option. So an option that is in the money has a lot of money built up into it, a lot of value built up. That's why it's called in the money. And at the money option means the stock, the strike price is roughly the same price as the stock. So if the stock said 100, $100 call option is considered at the money. All right. So in this type of trade, buying deep in the money call options, we're down here, number six. Since we're looking at it as a substitute for the stock, we're taking a longer term view here. We want to hold for the long term. We want to gain capital appreciation as long as we're bullish and the stock moves up. We want to hold for a while. I consider this more of a longer term investing type of strategy. If I'm buying shares of stock, I'm holding for the long term because I want to see capital appreciation. I want my portfolio to grow. So we have to look at the deep in the money strategy in roughly the same light, at least six months out in time. Expiration dates for options can go out to three years in time. You can choose whatever expiration date you want. I suggest at least at a minimum six months out in time, you got to give yourself some time for the stock to move. If the stock doesn't move right away, you want to give yourself some time. So consider at least six months in duration. And the other thing that's important to understand when you buy deep in the money call option is that you want to figure out what the breakeven level is. When you buy a stock at 100, your breakeven is 100. That's your cost base is 100. But when you buy an option contract, your cost basis is different than where the stock is. So you want to figure out what your breakeven is. And I'll show you on the next screen. But the key here is that you want the breakeven of the option contract to be pretty close to what the breakeven of the stock is or where the stock price is. And I'll show you what that means. Now, a couple things that that people get confused about is what happens at expiration. You know, if I'm holding an in the money option, whether that's a put option or a call option, what can I do with that option? Once expiration draws near or comes on the day of expiration, what do I do? Well, there's three things that can occur at expiration if you're still holding an in the money option. And in the money option, we'll have value on expiration. So there's three things, there's three things you can do. You can sell your option, right? If it's profitable, you just sell it back to the market, and the trade will be done. You can exercise the call option, meaning you actually turn the option into shares of stock. And now you'll have shares of stock in your account, and then you just become a shareholder just like everybody else. So if you sell it, if you sell the option at expiration, the trade will be over and you won't have any shares of stock. You know, maybe you're thinking, ah, you know, I think the stock's topped out, I'm just going to get out of the trade. If you exercise the option at expiration, now you're holding shares of stock, now you're taking a longer term position still, you're holding for, you know, years to come. So you still have the shares of stock. The other thing you can do at expiration is what we call rolling the trade. Now if you bought the deep in the money call option and expiration is drawing near, and you don't want to sell it, and you don't want to exercise it, but you want to continue on with the trade, what you can do is you can sell out your call option that you bought, and then just buy a new deep in the money call option for another six months out in time or one year out in time. That keeps you in the trade, but you're still holding a call option. Now if you exercise it, you have to pay for the shares in full, the balance of those shares at expiration. You know, some people don't want to put out all the cash to buy the stock. So rolling it would be your best choice if you want, if you're still bullish on the stock and you want to continue on into the future. So rolling just entails selling your original deep in the money call option, and then just buying a new deep in the money call option for another six months out in time. So you can continue rolling for years on end, and you'll never have to pay for the stock. And if the stock keeps going up, that option value keeps going up. So these are your three choices of what to do at expiration. Now we always have to talk about the risk, the drawbacks, whatever. Buying a deep in the money call option, since it acts just like a stock, the downside is, is if the stock drops, okay, if the stock drops in price, all the shareholders will lose money and call option buyers will lose money as well. So you have to understand if the market falls or the stock falls, you can lose money. That's just the fact of life with holding a bullish position in a falling market. So I don't want to have anyone confuse that this is a win, win, win type of trade. It's a great trade. But if the stock moves against your prediction, you're going to lose money. So just understand that. But as noted up here, buying call options will have a lot less risk, and you'll have a lot less money on the line. So if the stock does fall, you have a lot less money on the line versus stock holders or stock buyers. So that's something that's, that's one of the great things about this strategy. And the other thing when you buy call options is that you don't receive dividends. As a stockholder, you receive dividends. But as a call option buyer, you do not receive any dividends, nor do you get any voting rights, right? If you're a stockholder, you get to vote your shares for, you know, officers of the company, you get to go to the annual shareholders meeting, whatever, whatever else there is involved with being a shareholder, you don't get those rights as a call option buyer. Okay, that that's only for the shareholders. So if that matters to you, you know, if you want dividends or if you want voting rights, well, in addition to buying a call option, you can buy yourself some shares of stock as well, if that's important to you. To me, the benefits of buying call options outweighs this drawback right here, you know, because I'd rather have less money on the line, less risk versus getting dividends or voting rights. That's just, you know, my opinion. So, you know, I went over this rather quickly. Let's just go over this real quick one more time. Buying a deep in the money call option can act as a pure substitute for the stock with a lot less money on the line, a lot less risk. And your returns on investment can be a lot higher. So let's go over an example. And I'll show you exactly what I mean. And I think the light bulb will go on over your head saying, you know what, this is really a great strategy. So let's move on to our cheat sheet number two, where we're going to look at an example of Apple. We're going to look at an example. If you're a bullish on Apple, and instead of buying 100 shares of stock, you want to buy a deep in the money call option instead. Now this is purely an example. This is not a real recommendation. It's not, you know, investment advice of any type. This is just an example of what you can do. And you can see how the numbers work. Okay. So as far as Apple goes, let me just bring up my option chain here. And we're going to look at the option prices. So Apple finished at roughly $131.52 yesterday, April 30, 2021. So we're going to use that price in our example here, we're going to round it down to $131.50 per share. So here's how the deep in the money call option example works, and why it's so great to buy the call option instead of buying shares of stock. So if Apple's at $131.50 to buy 100 shares, it would cost $13150. Okay, remember, we have to compare it to 100 shares of stock. Now on Apple, in October 2021, 100 strike call option, which has a 91.3% delta, and I will show you that cost $32.80 per contract. Now, in order to figure out your actual cost, you have to multiply the option value times 100, which is the option multiplier of 100 shares. So 30 to 80 per contract times 100 equals $3,280. So number one, right here, to buy 100 shares of Apple costs $13150. To buy one deep in the money call option for October expiration only costs $3,280. Right here is a big deal. That's a savings of $9,870. That is a 75% discount to buying the shares of stock. You can save almost $10,000 just by buying the call option. And you have $9,870 less at risk. If Apple drops to $0 per share by expiration, all the stockholders will lose $13,150. All the call option buyers will lose $3,280. That is a 75% discount when you're buying it. And it's also 75% less money on the line. Now, where did I get this? How did I pick the October 2021 100 call option? And where did I find the delta? And where did I find the cost? Well, that's what you do when you look at an option chain for any stock that you're interested in. Okay, this is an option chain for Apple. And I'm going to move myself over here to this side. Here are the call options. This is an option chain. Here are the call options for Apple for the October 15, 2021 expiration. So 167 days in the future. Not quite six months, but I'm using this as an example. So when you're going to search for a substitute to the stock, when you're going to search for a deep in the money call option, what is the first thing you do? How do you pick the strike price? How do you pick the call option? Well, the most important column in your option chain is right here, Delta. Okay, every option chain, and every broker should offer you the opportunity to see what the Delta is. Now, remember, the Delta tells you how the stock, how the option price will move when the stock price moves. And you want to have at least that 90% Delta. So you scan down the Delta calm till you reach the option that has the closest to a 90% Delta. And in this case, it's the 100 strike call has a 91.3% Delta. Delta's range from zero to 100%. Can't get any higher than 100%. Me personally, I choose the 90% Delta or the one that's closest to 90%. Because I feel that getting 90% of the movement is is good enough. It's almost the same as just buying the stock itself. Okay, so 91.3% Delta is the 100 call. So you're going to buy, not sell, you're going to buy the 100 strike call option. And here's where it went out yesterday. On the close $32 and 70 cent bid at 3290 offer. We always want to try to do something right in the middle. So right in the middle is $32 and 80 cents per contract is the fair value for that option. We go back to our our cheat sheet here is the Apple October call is 3280 per contract is $3,280 that you will have to pay when you buy that call option, you always have to pay the full price for the call options value right when you buy it. Just like when you buy 100 shares of stock, you'd have to put up $13,150. Here you're putting up $3,280 delta of 91.3%. So we've picked our we've picked our deep in the money option for this trade. Let's talk about the breakeven. Because remember, breakeven is a very important thing. Now when you buy the shares of Apple at $131.50, that's your breakeven, that's your cost basis. To figure out the cost basis or the breakeven on the call option, you have to add the strike price 100 plus whatever the option cost $3,280. So the breakeven for the option is $132 and 80 cents. All Apple has to do is move up above $132.80 within the next six months. Apple's at $131.50. Now all it has to do is get up to $132.80 in the next six months. I have a pretty good idea. It's a pretty good chance that Apple can move up to $132.80 by expiration. That's only $1.30 per share higher. Apple could do that within minutes. In the next six months, Apple could be up $30 per share. So the breakeven is very close to the current price of the stock. In this case, it's about $1.30 higher than where Apple currently is. That's great. You want your breakeven to be very close to where the current price of the stock is. In this case, it's pretty close. It's $1.30 off. So I know Apple could move up $1.30 in price within the next six months. So that's the breakeven. Once again, the maximum risk here is $3,280 for the option versus $13,150 for the stock. That is a huge, great benefit to buying the call option versus the stock. And you're going to get 90% of the movement. So if Apple goes up $1, your option contract will gain $90 in value. If you have 100 shares of stock, it goes up $1, you're making $100. The option goes up $90. That's 90% of the movement. So you're getting just about all the same bang for the buck, but you have thousands and thousands of dollars less at risk. So let's look at the example of what happens if Apple goes up. What do the numbers look like? So this will make you understand why buying the call option is so superior. Let's just say Apple goes up to $150 at expiration. By October, Apple reaches $150. What are the profit loss and return percentages for the stock versus the option? In this case, the stock will gain $18.50 per share. You bought it at $131.50 and now the stock's at $150. That's an $18.50 share gain, which is $1850 actual dollars, which equals a 14% return on investment. Not bad for six months, 14% return on investment for the stock purchase. The option purchase, the call option purchase, if Apple's at $150, the option would be worth, at that point, let me rephrase this, the call option profit, call option profit would be $17.20 per contract. The worth is, let me see if I made the calculation here. Yes. Okay. So let me show you how that works. The call option profit would be $17.20 per contract at expiration versus $18.50 for the stock. Now, how do I find that $17.20 per contract profit? At expiration, Apple's at $150 per share. You subtract out the strike price, which is $50, then you have to subtract out your cost, your original cost of the option of $32.80 and that equals $17.20 per profit. Okay. There's a couple numbers involved. It's easy math, but the end game here is the end profit is $17.20 per contract profit, which is $1720. Now, here's where we compare the two. The call option gain of $17.20 is a 52% return on investment, 52% return. How do you find out the return on investment? Well, you take your gain, your $1720 gain or $17.20 per contract gain, you divide it by your original cost. $17.20 gain divided by $32.80 cost equals 52% return for the call option. The stock had a 14% return on investment. So here's the numbers you need to concentrate on. The stock made $18.50, the option made $17.20, almost the same amount in dollar terms. It's $130 difference, but here's the kicker. The returns for the option is almost quadruple, almost four times better than the return for the stock right here. Call option ROI is almost quadruple, 52% return versus 14%. That's 3.75 times better, almost quadruple the return. And the dollar gains are almost the same. Dollar gains are almost the same, $17.20 versus $18.50. So I'm getting or we're getting almost the same dollar return, but yet the percentage return is almost four times better than buying the stock itself. Now, what happens if Apple goes up to $200 at expiration? Well, the stock would have, you'd make $68.50 per share gain. The option would make $67.20 per contract gain. Very similar dollar wise, but here's the return. The stock makes 52%, the option 205% return. Once again, almost quadruple the return. You're getting so much more bang for your buck return wise because you're only spending so much, you're spending a lot less money up front to buy the call option versus buying the stock itself. So the deep in the money call option is so superior to buying shares of stock, mostly because you have a lot less money on the line and you have a lot less risk on the line. If Apple drops to zero, your loss is going to be so much less than the stock shareholders, but on the upside, your dollar gains are practically the same, but your return percentages are triple almost quadruple. So all you have to do is go through the option chain for any stock that you're interested in, look in the delta column, figure out the 90, find the 90% delta, figure out what the cost would be, and run the numbers. Now, some people will say, all right, well, what about a 50% delta? So let's look at an option. So the 50% delta would be roughly the 135 strike right here. It's got a 47.7% delta, that's pretty close to 50. That option will cost you about $845 per contract. So you're spending $845. Now with our 100 call, we're spending almost $3,300. So yes, the deeper, the bigger delta options cost more dollar wise than let's say the 50% delta. But remember, the option's only going to move 50% of what the stock does. Do you, is 50% of a move good enough for you? That's up to you to decide versus how much your wallet can afford. Now you also have to understand, well, what's the break even? You take the 135 strike and add it to $840. So that's roughly $143.40. $143.40. Apple's currently at $131.50. The break even here would be $143 and change. So Apple has to move up an extra $13 per share by expiration just to break even versus your 100 call where Apple only has to go up about $1.30. It has to go up $1.30 here versus Apple has to go up over $13 for this strike. So the break even prices start to ratchet higher if you choose a smaller delta option. Yes, the cost will be less. So you have to figure out, okay, do I want to pay less money or do I want to hire delta? Do I want my option to move more with the stock or do I want my option to move less with the stock? So you have to figure out, you have to run some numbers, figure out what works for you. The theory is, and the way I do it is I stick with the 90% delta because regardless, the option will always cost less than the stock itself. But some people get hung up on the option cost versus these other ones that they can buy because it's cheaper than these deeper in the money options. You have to remember how much delta do you want to get, how much do you want to see the stock move? And you make the decision. So that is your lesson for today on buying deep in the money call options, why it's superior to buying shares of stock itself. Remember, here's all the information. You're going to spend a lot less money, have a lot less at risk. The option is going to move almost just as much of the stock as long you stick to 90% delta and hold the trade for a while. This is a longer term investment trade. So I hope this has helped you understand why buying deep in the money calls is a great strategy. That's why I put it in my book. It's the only option buying strategy that I recommend on a long-term basis. So there you go. I hope it's been helpful. Let's move on to the next part of our video, which is our Saturday synopsis, where we like to take a look at the charts, look at the indexes, look at individual stocks, see what they've been doing over the last week, and we can try to make a prediction of what's going to happen moving forward. Let us open up the charts to the SPY exchange traded fund for the S&P 500. We always like to look at the S&P 500 because I feel it gives us the best overall view of the market as a whole. We've been, if you've been watching these videos for a while, we are bullish on the market. I am bullish on the market and obviously the market has been going up since we hit the lows of the pandemic last March, 2020. We have gone straight up since and the market continues to go straight up since. Doing technical analysis is the cornerstone of the way that I trade. I look at the charts. I like to see where stocks are moving. I like to see if they're an up trend or a down trend, and then I can make my decision on what option trade to take. I mostly focus on bullish strategies. Why? Because the market goes up over time. In the long run, the market always goes up. So there's no sense in me trying to take bearish positions. If you want to take a bearish position, you have to get in and out pretty quickly because the market usually ends up going back up. You have to be pretty good with your timing. I just stick with the long-term bullishness and I pick bullish trades. In order for me to analyze what a stock is doing, I look at the charts and I have a very small number of indicators on the charts that I use. I go over this each week. I have a 20-day simple moving average, a 50-day simple moving average, and a 200-day simple moving average. Down here is the RSI, the 14-day RSI indicator, which shows overbought, oversold conditions for that specific stock or index. What I also do is look for price patterns. This is a W pattern. I look for W patterns, congestion patterns, bull flags. I look at support and resistance. Simple things like that to tell me where I think the stock might be going next. Here is the S&P 500. It has been very strong. This little move up right here, this piece. This is a daily chart. Each bar here is one day's worth of trading. The market got kind of ahead of itself. When it does that, what we need to see is some sideways action or a little downside action so the moving averages can catch up. We don't want the mark to go vertical because when the sell-off does come, we get that nasty quick down move that scares everybody. We like to see these nice controlled moves higher. When it starts to get ahead of itself, meaning you got a lot of space between the prices and the moving averages, then we're starting to get a little overheated. That's when we have some pullbacks. We get some sideways action as you can see. Right here, finally made the high here, and it started to pull back sideways action, so at least the 20-day moving average is starting to catch up to it. When you're looking for an entry into a bullish trade on a bullish stock, it's a good thing to try to wait for the pullback to one of these moving averages, either the 20-day or the 50-day. When the market is really strong or stock's really strong, it might only pull back to the 20-day moving average. It might not pull back to the 50-day. If it only pulls back to the 20-day, that shows that the stock or market is super strong. Here, back in this era, it bounced almost every time it came back to the 20-day moving average. Hit the 50-day once here, moved up again, hit the 20-day, got below the 50-day, but bounced right back, and here bounced off the 50-day. Then it had this huge power higher, we've had a little bit of sideways action pullback, but the market did manage to hit all-time highs again this week. I'm still bullish, but I understand that there are going to be pullbacks, and those could be great for buying opportunities. If you're looking for your next buying opportunity, you might want to wait till it pulls back to at least the 20-day. You can nibble a little bit there, and if it starts to pull back more, wait to see if it connects with the 50-day here and bounces again. It bounced off the 50-day a couple of times here, right here, and here, and here, so three times it bounced. You can look for new entry points on a pullback. As long as the stock's still in an uptrend, it should bounce off one of the moving averages. We don't really want to see a pullback all the way to the 200-day moving average because that would be a pretty large move. Obviously, you can see a strong uptrend. It hasn't even come close to hitting the 200-day moving average. The general mark, the S&P 500 looks good. This past week was a big week for earnings announcements, and most of the earnings are coming out pretty good, and the forward guidance for the next quarter seems roughly pretty good as well. The market still looks pretty strong. I'm staying long here. I like the market. Let's move on to the Dow Jones. See what that did. Dow Jones is strong as well. Open this up a little. The Dow has pulled back right to the 20-day moving average. Yesterday, Friday, Thursday, this week pulled back right to the 20-day moving average. Let's hope that it's just gearing up, storing some energy. It's getting rid of some of the froth. I had this up move. We want to see a pullback. Now, it's touching the 20-day. Let's see if it'll continue to move higher, or maybe it might have a little more selling to do and might catch up to the uptrending 50-day moving average. We'll have to see, but I have to believe the market is just gearing up for the next move higher. Let's look at the NASDAQ because the NASDAQ's really been a mover. Most of these big tech stocks can really drive the market higher. It had been going up. It kind of came down. Back in February, March had this little downtrend, but it was able to power higher and move back up above this resistance line. You can see here, it almost touched the 20-day moving average yesterday, Friday, April 30, 2021. Let's see if it can hold here during next week. We've got more earnings coming out, and let's see if the market can continue higher. I really don't see anything on the horizon in the very near term to derail this. At least here in the U.S., the coronavirus vaccines are going along well. Almost 40% of the U.S. population has been vaccinated now. At least one shot of a two-shot vaccine. You've got the one-shot Johnson & Johnson. We've got a good amount of our population getting vaccinated. Businesses are opening up. People have cash. They're starting to buy things again. That means companies' earnings should be going higher, and the stock prices will follow along. I'm bullish. We have talked from our President, Joe Biden, about possibly raising taxes, raising capital gains taxes, but that still has to pass, still has to go through Congress. We're not really worried about that yet. Interest rates, inflation, not really a big concern here. I think things in the U.S. are good, are conducive for a nice bullish market. In the long run, the market goes up, so I'm staying long. Let's take a look at some individual stocks. We talked about the Apple example earlier on, but let's take a look at Apple itself. Apple had earnings Thursday after the bell, or was it Wednesday after the bell this week? It rallied higher. This move right up here, this bar rallied higher, but it could not hold its gains, so it has sold back off. It's touching the 20-day moving average. I'm long Apple. I always say that in every video here. I want to see it bounce. I want Apple to get back to at least its all-time highs, 145. It's sort of been just trading in this range, not really doing anything. It's been frustrating, but I have to believe Apple had great earnings, so I have to believe Apple's going to keep going up over time, just meandering a little, but I'm still bullish. Let's take a look at Amazon. Amazon had blowout earnings as well, but during the normal day session yesterday, it tagged, got up to the resistance line here in this wide channel. But before the bell, after earnings came out, the aftermarket session, I'll open this up, and it'll show you what Amazon did. Here's what Amazon did. It went all the way above $3,600 a share in the aftermarket Thursday after the close, but then all of Friday it retreated. Here's remember, $3,660 is the number, almost $3,670 per share. Let's go back to the daily chart. During the day session, it couldn't get above $3,600, but the aftermarket, it was trading up here. During the day session where most of the players are, it couldn't get above the resistance line. Let's see what Amazon will do next week. It may get knocked back down a little bit, have to see, or let's see if it could push higher through this resistance line. Let's look at Tesla. Tesla is still meandering around here, just kind of congesting again. Tesla wants to find out where it wants to go. I've got a lot of congestion patterns in here, got an uptrending support line. It's an ugly chart. I will admit this is an ugly chart. I really can't get a gauge on what Tesla wants to do. It's kind of hanging around here. In our spread newsletter, we did get into a bullish put option spread, but we have lots of cushion for that one. I'm hoping that, and I'm thinking that Tesla is going to kind of stay around this level, which is fine. It's fine for option selling of a stock just kind of meanders. That works out well as also. Tesla's just kind of a jumbled chart here, but I'm hoping this little, it got during the day yesterday, it rallied from the lows. It's kind of sitting on the 20-day moving average here just above this resistance line, so I'm hoping Tesla can get its mojo and start to move higher. What else do we have? Let's look at some other stocks. AMD, we got into AMD this week in our newsletter selling put options. AMD had this W pattern, been waiting for it to move above 85. We talked about this last week as well and two weeks prior. It got above 85, 86, 87, and I thought that was it. That was the breakout after their earnings popped up nicely, but has since sold off. But it's sitting on at least, it's above this uptrending channel here. It's above some of the moving averages. We want to see AMD catch its footing and start to move higher. But when we sell the put options, we have a lot of cushion. We pick strike prices way down here to give us buffer for directional error. I like AMD for the long run, hoping it will go back up next week. What else we got? Microsoft, Microsoft still in moving up had a little pull back this week because of the earnings. Earnings will have an effect. There's no doubt, but Microsoft was getting a little ahead of itself. It's got a little pullback. I don't really have much of an opinion on Microsoft here, but it did break out above this channel, finally moved higher. I think Microsoft in the long run should move higher, but I don't have a near term prediction for Microsoft right now. Let's see what else. Netflix, take a look at Netflix. Netflix is still meandering in this channel here, sort of right in the middle of it. Had earnings, got knocked down. Now it's sitting below the 200 day moving average. I don't really have much an opinion on Netflix right now. It's just contained in this long term channel, not really doing much for me either way. We can take a look at, how about Nike? Haven't really looked at Nike much. Nike was moving up nicely, but now it's sort of in this. This is how you do it. You draw your trend lines. You want to connect maybe six months worth of lines here. If you can go that far, at least a couple months worth of lines. It's kind of hard to, you kind of have this channel here. It's not exact. It's sort of the eye of the beholder. Charting is a little more art than science, but you can see the downtrend. Here's the general direction of Nike. Got a little bit of a downtrend here. It's kind of bouncing in this thing. I wouldn't get bullish yet until I can see a breakout above the downtrending line here. Nike needs to get above $135-ish or so before I would feel comfortable getting into a bullish trade on Nike. Intel, another chip stock, got knocked down earnings this week. It was moving up nicely, trying to get its action back from AMD, but it hit above $68, and now it's dropped about $10. So Intel, eh, not much to say here. It has to work off this sell-off here. Not much to say about Intel. Walmart. Let's talk about Walmart because I like Walmart as a company. As far as a stock trade, it has to get above, solidly above this resistance line here, about $140-141 per share. It's in this uptrend it just couldn't blow above it. Walmart has earnings soon, I think. I don't know what the date is. So we're watching earnings numbers. I think it's in the next couple weeks. It has to get above this area, but I wouldn't take a trade before earnings because we don't know which way it's going to go. Let me go scan through my list here. Cisco, anything on Cisco? You know, a lot of these companies' earnings are coming up, so I don't really want to jump into a trade until the earnings pass. Let me see what else I got down here. Costco has bounced back. McDonald's. McDonald's looks pretty strong. I don't know if McDonald's had earnings yet or not, but remember, we're in earnings season, so we're a little light on the trades until earnings passes, but McDonald's looks pretty strong. It went below the 200-day, but has rallied pretty good sitting on 200-day. So if you're long McDonald's, I would say stay long. It's probably going to bounce here, but earnings will tell the tale. Oh, Twitter. Let's take a look at Twitter because Twitter got knocked down. We just got out of a trade on Twitter. We got out, took our profits before earnings. Here's earnings the other day, so it got knocked back down about $8 yesterday, $8 or $9. Twitter, maybe if it finds its footing, we could possibly jump in for another put-sell trade, but for right now, we watch and wait, see where Twitter wants to go. All right, we're getting a little long on this video. Quickly, we can look at Mara because that's one of our positions, Bitcoin-related. Wherever Bitcoin goes, Mara is going to go. Marathon, patent company, it moves along with Bitcoin, so it's trying to get back up into this channel here, but whichever way Bitcoin goes, Mara will go as well. All right, so that pretty much does it. We're getting a little long here, almost 50 minutes now. I know these videos are long, but I want to give you the information. Lastly, once again, market for next week, S&P 500. Market looks strong, might have a little bit of a pullback, but that's no reason for pause, no reason for a concern. Markets pullback, that's just what they do, and you can get in for the next round if you so desire. All right, that's it for your Saturday synopsis. I'm still bullish. Let's quickly go to our website, Smart Option Seller website, Put Selling Basics. If you have not downloaded our free guide yet, come to our Put Selling Basics page on our website. Click here, and you'll scroll down. You can put in your name and email address, and we will send you our Put Selling Basics guide. Learn how to sell put options. That's what we do. That's our bread and butter. Here's our services tab. We have two newsletters, Smart Option Seller newsletter, Sell Naked Puts, Vertical Spread Newsletter. We sell Put Option Spreads, and we have our one-on-one coaching. I have great sessions with people that want to get to that next level. If you need a little help, consider our one-on-one coaching. All right, I hope this video has been helpful to you. Don't forget to hit that red subscribe button in the right hand corner of the video. I will put in a link if I don't already have it for my book. So in the description of the video, I'll put in the link from my book. And leave me a comment. Send me an email. Give me a thumbs up. I appreciate that. I want to make this channel the best channel for options traders. All right, that's all for me today. I hope everyone has a great weekend, a great trading week ahead, and I will see you all next week. This is Lee Lowell, signing off.