 What's up navigation traders welcome to this week's video update today's Friday, January 4th We had a short week of trading due to the new year holiday. So look forward to a great 2019 Before we jump into the alerts, I just want to recognize this week's winner Who got caught being hot every weekly. We like to recognize Somebody who's been active in the community Asking questions helping other traders Just being engaged with community. So this week goes to Chris a so congrats Chris You got caught being hot keep it up guys love all the engagement in the community So keep up the good work. I hope it's helpful. I know I've enjoyed it It's been great being able to interact in a on a platform like this with you all so keep up the good work And let's jump into the alerts starting with 1231 which was Monday First trade was an opening iron condor in XLU. So at that time IV percentile was up to 96 so we put on a iron condor in XLU and This is one that we did really tight. So this is close to the money almost like an iron butterfly We could have done a butterfly or you know, even a little bit wider iron condor We just chose to do it this way and we're still we're dead centered here. Got about 10% of max profit So just waiting for some more before we do anything else Next trade was an opening trade in XLV So this was a short call vertical that we put on to Get some more short Delta Exposure in our portfolio and let's take a look at XLV. There was a couple people in the Community a couple days ago that met or yesterday that mentioned. Hey, this is at 50% of max profit Are you gonna send out alert and and we didn't and the reason was is just because we had made a lot of other adjustments roles Took off some other short Delta plays. So we just didn't I know a couple people in the community did so that was a good call in hindsight After the big move up in the market today, you know, we're not at 50% of max profit now. So The the key thing I want to I want to talk about with this is Yes, we like to manage and close our trades at that certain percentage of max profit But we also want to pay attention to how that trade how that position plays into the rest of our portfolio And so that's the reason why we didn't take it off yesterday Now for those of you who did take it off It must you know, it probably played better into your overall portfolio. Maybe you had other short Delta positions Or whatever the case may be. There's no right or wrong answer I have absolutely no issue with you taking it off even though I didn't send out the alert In fact, obviously in hindsight, that was a good choice and do we wish we would have done that too? Yeah Sure, of course, but but we're not gonna play the hindsight game either. So Anyway, that's where we're at in XLV still still in the profit but just looking for some downside to benefit that trade and Speaking of short Delta, we we've got a little bit of short Delta Not quite to that one-to-one where we want to be Versus our overall theta, but but we are in good shape there and position if the market does Roll back over and continue lower. Although looking at today. Wow, the market is strong S&P's are up 77 Nasdaq up 255 Dow up over 700 Russell up over 50 We've got about an hour before the market closes So who knows what'll happen the rest of the hour, but that's where we're at at the time of this recording Next trade was a closing trade. And so that was on 31st skip the first market was closed So this is on the second we closed our short strangle out in Facebook Booked about to booked exactly $240 in profit there. So that was a good trade we had a couple adjustments couple of rolls and Paid off well by staying mechanical ended up booking a nice profit on Facebook and as I mentioned We opted to close instead of roll Because I didn't want to have to deal with the stocks earnings announcement Which I think they announced the 31st or sometime at the end of January and so just made sense to go ahead and book that winner close out and redeploy into other high probability trades Next trade was in natty gas. So we had a position that was still in Feb So we went ahead and rolled this from February out to March and again depending on your platform This is with toss. It's called February March, but I always put the days to expiration Feb had 25 March had 53. So you know the exact cycle that we are looking at and there's very little value left in the calls. So we wanted to roll down our calls and With just 25 days to expiration. We went ahead and roll the entire spread out to March so we rolled down our calls and rolled it out. So we leave the put the same at four We just rolled the calls down and rolled the entire spread out And then we're still holding our other piece that was already in March as well So let's go to the platform and just take a look at our net gas position Combined so here's our 3.1 3.7 spread you can see prices right here nice move up today Almost 3% in that gas up which is helpful for us So made some profits in there today and then this piece here the one that I just talked about with the alert again It's it's right here. So nice move up today help that out so we're just looking for a little bit more upside in natty gas to continue to Get back some of those profits that we need we're still down in that gas overall But if we could get a little bit of a bounce here, that would be definitely helpful If not, we'll continue to stay mechanical And if you know if it continues lower we'll continue to roll down our calls as we see necessary and You know potentially roll out in time if needed as well, but There's a chance we could get back to even in this cycle if price stabilizes or goes up applied Volatility contracts all that good stuff. So We will manage that one as needed Next rate was a rolling adjusting trade in Apple. So Apple this was interesting Apple came out with some guidance and stocks don't do this a whole lot But what they did is it's let's go to Apple. You can see that their earnings announcement isn't until 129 But they came out this day on the third and gave some guidance saying hey, listen, our Our earnings our numbers our projected sales, whatever it was. I can't I can't even remember exactly whatever it was They're not gonna be very good. And so before they even announced earnings They came out with kind of that mid mid quarter guidance and the stock dropped about 10% It has since rebounded Decent amount today. It was up over 4% now step about three and a half Today with the rest of the market being up But interesting, you know stocks don't do that a whole lot. I wouldn't I wouldn't be surprised if Instead of implied volatility Expanding into the earnings announcement if it actually continues to fall I'm not interested in putting on a strangler or an iron condor at this point with that in uncertainty Involved but that that's kind of my thoughts on what might happen Next trade was a rolling adjusting trade in XLK So this is a long put vertical that we've been holding for that short Delta exposure We were over 50% a max profit on this piece So we wanted to keep that short Delta exposure So we went ahead and rolled that to the next cycle We rolled from January out to Feb with 43 days to expiration. We take a look at XLK It's bounced back up over 4% today So it's kind of broken out of our range a little bit. So just looking for some downside to benefit that Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in FXI So this is one where we had a call butterfly in January prior after the big move down It was it was at a point There's a very low probability of it getting back to range So we just went ahead and closed that out and kept on our put butterfly Obviously, we would have wished we would we wish we would have waited until today with FXI being up as much as it is But we still have this one on still collecting that theta still collecting That daily time decay on those options. And so we will probably add to this one at some point here We're in February, which has 42 days to expiration You know, if these March once they get under 60 days, we may add one out in March or we may so continue to add one in Feb We'll see what happens. But as of right now, we're pretty dead centered on our put butterfly Next trade was a rolling adjusting trade in 4 slash ZB, which is the bonds and so we just rolled our strangle from Feb to March and And with this one, we we rolled our puts up price had had breached our Upside short strike and so we needed to roll our puts up and with just 22 days to expiration We went ahead and rolled that to March bonds were down nicely today over over a percent, which is a pretty good size move in bonds and So you can see we're right back to dead center in this one already got some profit back after that roll So just continuing to hold this for some more time to pass in ZB Next trade was a closing trade in Ford slash GC. This is one that we did today We had a short strangle on in gold only had this on for eight days And we were able to book over 45 percent of max profit. So it had a big contraction In implied volatility today with the market being up if we look at GLD to get an accurate reading on the IV percent IV percentile Indicator here. I mean look at this. Look at this contraction. It went all the way from about 92 ish down to 61 ish So that's you know, that's a big contraction. So we were able to get out of that one nicely in Ford slash GC and Lastly our last trade was an opening trade in Ford slash six B, which is the British pound and With this one FXB is the corresponding ETF. So let's go to that on the platform real quick. I just want to point something out that I mentioned in the alert FXB Well, you see we use this for the implied volatility indicator because the IV indicator is not accurate on the future But if you look at the options on FXB, this is one that I wouldn't trade just because I mean look at the the open interest is you know in the single digits on some of these strikes and and the bid ask spread on $124 symbol is you know, 20 cents wide right at the money. So Not really looking to trade FXB just using it for the implied volatility indication So we went ahead and put on a short strangle in six B Which we just did this today. So pretty pretty well centered right where it was it moved up a bit today, but Pretty close to where it was So those are all the alerts. Let's take a look at some of our other positions oil having a nice move up today Which helps our position pretty similar to Nat gas. We're looking for oil to move up We're looking for Nat gas to move up to benefit these. So this is one piece Our other piece is the 54 56 spread. So again here just looking for a little bit of upside movement and some time to pass in oil Yes, we've got this long put vertical. This is another one that we are at about 50% of max profit on Couple days ago after today's big move up, but again, we just we wanted to hold this we're holding it for that short delta exposure We've got you know, we're still in Feb. We've got a lot of time in this one 42 days So we went ahead and just hold held it and we're just gonna continue to hold it for that short delta exposure Wheat we've got an iron condor in here on here You see price is pretty dead centered in our wheat iron condor. So just waiting for some time to pass on that one Apple Did I already mention this that we we have this long put vertical that we're holding for short delta and Just so just looking for some downside some more downside in apple to benefit that DIA we've got two different short call verticals on these were originally part of our iron condor trade And we just continue to roll those for that short delta exposure And so this one's pretty close where we rolled it here and then this one Has come out of our range, especially after today's big move. So just looking for some downside to benefit that one EWW we've got this adjusted strangle on here So you can see we've got a little bit of profit just waiting for some more profit before we do anything on that one EWZ we've got this short strangle on here. It's kind of hanging out in the upper end of the range Have it's close to the short strike haven't made an adjustment yet If we look at the value in those puts still we still got a little bit if it makes Much of a move higher into early next week. We will roll those puts up and stay in Feb Feb still has 42 days to expiration. So I'm not looking to roll out to the next cycle yet at this point FXI mentioned IWM we've got two pieces on an IWM one is a short put vertical Which price was way out here. I was considering closing this piece out to get rid of that long long delta Good thing I kept it on so with this big move up price is almost back into range here If we get a little bit more up movement, we'll go ahead and close that one out book a profit on that overall piece of that iron condor on That overall January iron condor and then we've also got this Feb iron condor on which is pretty well centered here Just waiting for some more time to pass IYR we've got two pieces on here very similar We've got this full iron condor where prices kind of hanging out here in the middle And we're waiting for more profit there and then we've got our Short put vertical where price had come down breached our breakeven We closed out the untested side and just seen if we can get a bounce higher in that IYR piece before we close that one out Still got plenty of time in Jan got 14 days So we've got at least seven days before we're gonna do anything in that one J&J We've got we put this on for that short delta exposure. This is a short call vertical You can see we've got some profit here not quite enough to take off yet We take a look at J&J This is when we talked about the community about a week or so ago to this big move down got kind of a bounce up and And we wanted to you know get short See if we get a continuation to the downside So we'll see what happens in J&J and then see same thing in Lulu although Lulu is acting strong now Stronger than the overall market has But we've got a short call vertical in here that we're holding for that short delta exposure as well And hopefully we can get a little bit of downside get that one back into range in Lulu as well QQQ very similar to DIA. We've got two sets of short call verticals on this one here right close to where we Originally rolled it to and then this other one is a little bit out of range here So just looking for some downside to get back in SMH we've got this adjusted strangle, which is actually at the 85 straddle Just holding waiting for some more profit in there We're still down on this trade overall after all adjustments and rolls so just continuing to collect that theta and Obviously if price stays in the range, we'll end up booking this one eventually We may look to add to it if it gets close to one of these Lower break evens or upper break evens just to add some more credit to that trade SPY I mentioned that one I think no no I didn't sorry We've got a very similar to IWM. We've got two pieces here one is a Short put vertical This was originally part of an iron condor in January and price had come down Breast our break even closed at the untested side prices come all the way back And we're actually profitable on this iron condor waiting for a little bit more before I take it off So probably early next week. I'll take that piece off and we'll book a winner on that piece And then we've got this other iron condor where price is hanging out in the upper upper end of the range And so what we'll probably do if we take off this short put vertical We'll probably end up adding another centered iron condor around current price And so that's where we're at in SPY. I mentioned XLK. I mentioned XLU. I mentioned XLV XRT This is one where we've got this adjusted strangle here We're still down a little bit on the trade after all adjustments and rolls But coming back nicely here got about $644 of profit in this piece after the roll but still looking for some more So we'll probably end up continuing to hold this maybe roll it out to the next cycle Maybe add to it depending on where price and implied volatility move to So those are all of our alerts. Those are all of our positions. Hope everybody had a great week Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you next week