 What's up navigation traders happy Friday today is September 21st welcome to this week's video update Let's go ahead and just jump into the alerts starting with the first trade on Monday the 17th We did a rolling adjusting trade in Apple. So this is one where we rolled from September to October And then adjusted the strikes accordingly now remember this one has gone against us We've rolled several times but we initially put this on for that short Delta that short bias Exposure our portfolio. So it's one of those that's continuing to be a hedge to protect us from downside Obviously, we haven't seen it a lot of downside in the market. It's been pretty bullish But you've got to keep that that downside protection on So here's what that trade looks like now you can see prices is well within our range here Just looking for some downside to benefit that one Next trade was a rolling adjusting trade in QQQ We did back-to-back. So we had two sets of short call verticals in QQQ So we rolled the first one out to October from September to October And then we roll the next one all the way out to November because it was in our wheelhouse of under under 60 days So what that does is it kind of spreads out the duration? So we're kind of diversifying our duration diversifying our time to expert expiration Typically, we're just rolling to the next monthly cycle But in this case we kind of fell in that spot where we could either have rolled the October or Rolled out to November. And so we did one of each just to kind of help Spread that around. So if we look at the cues, you'll see here. This is the October one You see prices right here still in our range here since we've rolled and then this one is out in November Very similar, you know risk profiles when you look at it One just has a little bit more time than the other. So that that's what that's what we did there remember these were originally part of iron condors and When price came down and breached our break even we closed out the untested side Continue to roll this this tested side and the reason we do that is because We needed to keep short Delta in our portfolio. So we could have closed them out But then we would have just been going out and looking for another short Delta position To add that back into our portfolio So in that case we just continue to roll this and keep that short Delta exposure in our portfolio and Continue to extend duration on this trade Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in EWZ So we closed out one set of our short strangles in EWZ booked over 40% of max profit on that piece of the trade And then at this point we were still holding the 34 puts and 35 calls And then later in the week and I'm going to go ahead and jump ahead to that next EWZ so on the 19th and we went ahead and closed out the remaining one and And booked a profit on that one So we ended up booking a nice profit on that trade overall In fact, let me just go to the closed trades and I'll show you where that ended up You can see we initially put on this trade on July 19th had to make several adjustments a couple different roles but by staying mechanical and just continuing to Make the necessary adjustments booked a nice profit of $623 on that one. So good trade in EWZ and And then I'll go ahead and go to the platform because we ended up putting on a another trade in EWZ Because implied volatility is so high You can still see that the IV percentile currently is at 92 IV rank at 67 So this is a great vehicle to be having short premium on because we're collecting a lot of credit And so you can see price is still very centered here on our new strangle Nothing to do but sit and wait one note I did want to make on EWZ the reason that their implied volatility has been so heightened is You know, there's a lot of turmoil within the the Brazilian government, but they actually have elections Coming up on October. It starts on October 7th So it's a little bit different than ours and that their elections last over a period of time. So it's October 7th through October 20 something I can't remember the exact date, but once once they get a better idea of Who the new president is going to be then implied volatility will probably contract But we may we may be already out of this trade by then we'll see what happens But if not just understand that risk that there could be some extreme volatility in the price of EWZ Leading up to and during that election period. So if you're not comfortable with that, then don't trade it We on the other hand, we don't we don't trade on news. Okay? Everything is built into this price. Everything is built into the implied volatility And when implied volatility is high that means there's uncertainty in that marketplace And that's when we like to sell we like to take advantage of that uncertainty Take advantage of that fear in the marketplace and sell premium. So we will be trading through that and But just FYI You know, if it if it makes you nervous, then you want to make sure and take the appropriate risk into account Next trade was let's go back to the go back to our order here Next trade was an opening adjusting trade in FXI. So we added a call butterfly out in November in FXI and And we've still got the put butterfly back in October. So if we take a look at FXI You can see it's it's been on a nice rally over the last couple weeks here And so our this is our November one still very centered and then in October one Price has gone a little bit outside of our range here. So just looking for a little bit of a bounce back to the downside to do anything there So we just simply added that November one trying to spread that out. So if we So if we look at them all together, you can see kind of widens out our overall break evens Gives ourselves more profit potential and so we'll just continue to manage this one as needed Next trade was an opening trade in natty gas So we put on a short strangle in that gas Ivy percentile in the underlying ETF UNG Popped up to 50. So we wanted to sell some premium in that gas. I love having these uncorrelated symbols so, you know natural gas isn't correlated to stocks or To weed or oil, you know, it's it's fairly uncorrelated symbol Which adds that that diversification to our portfolio, which is key You can see the prices right here still well within our range It's moved up a little bit since we put this on but we'll just continue to watch and let that theta to decay in natty gas Next trade was an opening trade in TLT. So TLT spiked up Excuse me the implied volatility in TLT spiked up to around the 60 level. It's been pretty low for the last couple weeks But it spiked up. So we sold some premium in here I mentioned in the trade comments that you could have traded forward slash ZB, which is the 30 year bond or ZN, which is the 10 year note, which we've Over the last few months. We've we've traded a decent amount of the notes in this case We decided to just put on TLT to change things up a little bit about any of those symbols works You can see we got a little bit of profit so far in TLT But nothing not enough to take off yet. So we'll just continue to monitor that Next trade was a closing trade where we bought back our iron condor in IYR, which is the real estate ETF Booked over 25% max profit. We're only in the trade for 14 days And this was kind of a tighter iron condor So the short strikes were closer to the current price. So we're not gonna wait for the full 40% of max profit We're gonna take that off a little bit quicker. And the fact that we got it in such a short period of time It makes sense to close those winners out and take those profits and run. So Booked a nice trade there Next trade was the one in EWZ. I already mentioned Then we've got the rolling adjusting trade in ES. So this was a A short call vertical which is originally part of an iron condor. We waited until Down pretty close to expiration this time. We usually don't like to wait that long We were hoping for just a little bit of downside. It did not play nice with us. It continued move higher So we went ahead and rolled that from September to November again kind of like the cues We ended up just rolling this out two different cycles. So instead of rolling from September to October We went ahead and rolled it all the way out to November with with 57 days to expiration and And so I'll show you what that looks like in fact I'll go to the platform here in a second because we had another ES trade Next trade was a closing trade in SMH. So we had a short strangle in SMH Close that out booked around 40% of max profit in just 14 days on that one. So Nice trade in SMH if we take a look at the chart Let's see where IV is right now. It's right under the 50 level. It's dropped even more So I'd be percentiles at 37 if if implied volatility Implied if I can talk today if implied volatility pops its head back up over that 50 level We'll most likely look to to sell some more premium in SMH being that the liquidity is Is good in there now Next trade It was EWZ. So that was that opening that's that current strangle that we currently have on that I already showed you and Then we we re-entered we opened a new position in this case an iron condor in IYR again the real estate ETF and again because this is Such a tight iron condor We're looking for about 25 to 35 percent of max profit as opposed to the 40 or 50 percent That we usually do and the reason we are trading this closer to the money is because IYR overall is a fairly low volatility ETF meaning the options aren't that expensive and so when you get in a situation like that just to collect enough credit sometimes you got to go closer to the money and So You'll see what it looks like here It's it's it's only two strikes wide. Excuse me three strikes wide. So the 8083 and And and so it's almost it's getting close to being a butterfly and remember we manage butterflies quicker Because of that more narrow range and so same thing with this here If we were to widen out those strikes to make it a big wide range The problem is you just don't collect enough credit so with transaction costs and your risk versus reward just isn't quite there It's kind of like trading some of these other lower price symbols even though IYR is an $82 ETF You're still just not collecting quite enough Credit to make it worthwhile And then on the other hand, I also looked at doing a short strangle So just go and naked and not buying the wings and I didn't like that either because of the capital requirement So I think for four contracts We were looking at putting up if I remember right it was it was like eight or nine thousand dollars And that's just that's just not a really efficient use of capital. So I wanted to define the risk But to collect enough credit I had to go closer to the money. And so that's what we're looking at here Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in ZW. So we closed out our short put vertical in ZW and And and so the options expired today. So we had to get out of this one Similar to ES this one didn't quite go our way in time and we kind of ran out of time So we went ahead and just closed that out took a loss on this piece still holding our full iron condor in November and So if we take a look at ZW Here's the full iron condor you can see we got a decent profit here not quite enough to take off yet But the other one you can see is zeroed out. That's the one that we just closed out So we'll just continue to monitor and manage this as needed But anyway, here's what we've got going on here. We've got We've got the long put vertical Okay, we put this on strictly for that short delta exposure in our portfolio. You can see the market's been strong it's moved higher and then we've got this Short call vertical What you see here see prices right here almost on the breakeven point looking for some downside to benefit that as well so these two short call verticals were originally part of iron condors and And so we've just been kind of rolling them again to keep that short exposure in our portfolio and extend duration on those trades So the two the two short call verticals are part of the iron condor trade I know this is a little bit confusing and then the one of the long put vertical with one contract That's part. That's a totally separate trade that we have on just as a hedge with that that short delta exposure So we have three pieces on two pieces are part of the iron condor one piece is part of the long put vertical and So we'll just continue to manage those so so it was it was that short put vertical. Excuse me It was that short call vertical Was the one that we were we held all the way up until the day before expiration So I was correct on those alerts Let me go back and just make sure not confusing everybody. Yeah, so it was it was the one yesterday Where we rolled the short call vertical. I was thinking it was the long put vertical, but it wasn't it was the short call and And so yeah, this one we were hoping we're kind of holding it We usually don't hold these all the way to expiration like this But I was just hoping it was so close that I was hoping if we could just get a little bit of a move down We'd be able to roll that for a credit Unfortunately, it went against us So we just we had to make the roll anyway because we're getting close to expiration So that one that one did hurt a little bit as far as eroding some of those profits that we've seen but but that's just part of trading in fact I want I want to show you an email that I got from a member this morning and I'm not gonna want to make sure I never used last names, but his first name is Jeff And so here's here's what it says and I think this is really important and I really hopefully it helps some of you other Traders as well. So hey Steve, I just want to continue to let you know how thankful you I am for the wonderful service You provide as always as I always tell you I'll never be able to thank you enough That's awesome. Thank we love hearing that From our members as well, but the key thing that I want you to see is You know this trade and he was talking about the the wheat trade This trade as well as the ES call vertical that we closed out yesterday didn't work out as well as we were liked But hey, that's trading. It's tough to see your profits erode by a couple of trades that heard love a little But I'm learning to think the way you do and remember that it's a numbers game And you have to let the probabilities play out and look at the long term not just one or two trades Amateurs have a tough time with losses and I'm striving to be a professional now Jeff has been with us for less than a year and I'm not sure exactly what his experience was before he jumped on board with us but To have this perspective and let me finish and then I'll give you my thoughts So I refuse to see it as other than just the way the game is played There will always be losses and some may sting a little more than others But on the flip side there will be times when everything works out amazingly and the market goes our Direction when we close out a trade it all balances out This perspective this mindset is Exactly how all of us need to be thinking, you know the last Yesterday when we did close that out and it did get it did sting a little bit But it's one trader one or two trades You've got to look at this as a long game If you're if you're that focused on one or two trades and taking a loss and you have that heart of a time taking a loss Then then trading is going to be a very very difficult thing for you And I responded to Jeff's email and I and I told him this what great perspective Especially for somebody as new of a trader as he is to have that kind of mindset to have that kind of perspective Man kudos to you Jeff because that is awesome. It literally took me 10 years to get to this point I would you know, I the whole market of fear and greed when I'd when I'd be doing well I'd get greedy and I'd you know start get my position size would start getting too big when I take losses I'd get down in the dumps get you know, emotionally down and and really emotionally tied to that and you've got a Stay small enough so that it doesn't affect your mindset too bad But B you've got to have this this mindset of long term Letting the probabilities play out and so this was such a cool email And I wanted to share it with everybody because I think if if more people had this mentality More people would be highly successful trading So anyway, I hope that helps and just giving a little bit of perspective and and thanks again Jeff for writing that email Because that that that's so awesome. We love hearing about stuff like that from our members Not only you know when you're having winning trades, but in this case, you know Jeff took a little loss on one of the trades, but but that mindset is so so key. So good job Jeff Um, let's see. Where were we here? So the ZW and then lastly we did an opening adjusting trade in oil for slash cl so we already have a An adjusted short strangle on in oil and we wanted to add to that So here is let's go to this one first. Here's our here's our current position You can see price is kind of hanging out here near the upper end of the range of this adjusted strangle and this is in November which has 26 days to expiration And then so what we did is we just simply we don't need to adjust this one yet as far as rolling or doing Anything like that, but what we did do is we went ahead and added another short strangle centered around the current price And that's where that's where we're at right now One of the reasons we wanted to do that is if we look at a chart of oil What you'll see is the implied volatility is is really Nice and high at the about the 66th level. So I was looking to get on some more short premium some more exposure there and uh And so that's what we've done and so and we spread that duration out. So we've got Some in november and then the recent strangle we added is in the december cycle I can't believe we're already putting on december trades Uh, it's gonna be christmas before you know it, but uh, but that's where we're at. So That's where we're at in oil. So those are all the alerts Let's take a look at some of the other positions that we have on went through these and went through apple cosco So cosco is a pre earnings long call that we have on earnings Announcement is on 10 for so October 4 so we still have about a couple weeks before that happens So we're just looking for some upside in cosco Which you know with the market being strong the last couple days I would have hoped that cosco would have followed through Followed the market and and exploded a little bit higher And I would have hoped to have booked a profit in this already. However, that didn't happen But you can see, you know, when the rest of the market was going up cosco is kind of just bouncing around. Let me get this Cosco is just kind of bouncing around but now it's starting to to crank up So if we can get up to kind of the two between 240 and 245 level up in here That'll give us a nice profit that we can take off. So we'll see if that happens Into the next couple of weeks Uh, let's see DIA so we've got a couple of short call verticals on in di a which has been extremely strong So you can see prices broke out above our range here So we need a little bit of downside to get back into our range in di a similar to the cues this this uh This was both of these were part of a an iron condor and we and we rolled them to continue to keep that short delta in our portfolio And speaking of by the way As far as that ratio goes we are um Currently at about four to three and a half to four to one on our ratio So remember we always like to keep About anywhere from one to one to five to one short delta in our portfolio So versus our theta so if our theta is theta is a hundred dollars. We don't want to have any more than minus five hundred dollars of short delta and we're right at about four to one right now And so we're kind of in uh, we're we're well within our range. Obviously with the market Going higher as it has this week. Uh, that's going to automatically give us more short delta because of the range bound trades that we have on and so we're we're in a good situation But obviously if we see a little bit of downside that's definitely going to benefit us Uh, if not, we'll have to just continue to roll up and manage manage as needed Next next position is EEM. So we've got an adjusted strangle on here I was looking to potentially add to this by adding another november kind of centered Strangle around the current price, which is right here But implied volatility is really contracting today. It's right down at the 50 level on the percentile So i'm hoping that next week we might get a little bit of a pop up And I will look to potentially add on to this trade by doing an opening adjusting trade Uh, in regards to the current position, you know, if you look at just the puts You know, we still we're not anywhere close to max profit on that. So that's why we don't need to adjust yet Uh, you know price would have to get kind of way out in this area here Before we needed to roll up the puts anymore October has 28 days to expiration. So once we get down to that, you know, around 21 days to expiration You know in the next seven days Then we'll look to potentially roll this if we need to roll the puts up We will if we need to just roll the entire spread out to november. We'll do that But we'll wait and see what happens if price comes back down And just continues to Have our profit line continue to increase that theta to decay Then we may just take it off and close it out We'll have to see where we're at with everything at that point EWZ already mentioned FXI I mentioned IWM So we've got a short call vertical on in IWM that we was previously part of an iron condor You can see prices well within our range got a little bit of profit here But uh looking for a little bit more before we do anything with that I mentioned IYR I mentioned the Q's I mentioned TLT tesla our good friend tesla tesla has been good to us over the last couple months Uh, I've got a little bit of profit here on this short strangle about 140 some dollars of profit If we get a little bit of downside and or a little bit more implied volatility contraction Uh, we'll be more in the profit here You can see with the headlines and things going on with tesla and elon musk The uncertainty is still in the market. So the implied volatility continues to stay high If we get a little bit of a contraction there, we'll uh, should be able to book a nice winner Assuming price stays in a decent range Lastly XLK we've got a Long put vertical on here. You can see prices right there So just looking for a little bit of downside to benefit that as well Again, that is a piece that we have on for that short delta exposure To uh to keep our portfolio a little bit short biased in case of that downside Velocity uh that we can see from time to time. So Those are all the alerts. Those are all the positions. I hope everybody has a great weekend Look forward to some good trading next week. Have a good one everybody