 What's up navigation traders? Happy Friday today's Friday August 16th Welcome to this week's video update where we will review all the trade alerts and positions and Before we do so let's jump into the community and check out who got caught being hot this week You know each week we like to recognize one member of the community for helping other traders this week goes to an individual who Had a comment. We had kind of a back-and-forth conversation this week You know when that when the markets are this volatile and you have a position that just moves crazy against you Like we have like we've seen in bonds You know it starts to it starts to create some thoughts and concerns about gosh What if this thing just keeps going and going and going we know that markets don't move in one direction forever But it's definitely especially when you're when you're trading these uncovered option positions like we do sometimes You know it's one of those things where you have to understand that keeping your position size small And you know staying mechanical especially when things are volatile is what you have to do and so it's great conversation with Mel Thomas, so please help me in congratulating Mel Thomas congrats Mel. You got caught being hot all right, let's go to the alerts for the week and Starting with Monday the 12th So our first trade right out of the gate was a closing trade in SPX So we had a weekly iron condor on in SPX in SPX price moved down nicely right back into center of our range or closest center That morning on on Monday, and that was the last trading day so we went ahead and closed that out and Booked a nice winners $2,900 winner on that one. So good trade in SPX Next trade was an opening adjusting trade in ford slash GC so we just added an iron condor out in the October cycle with 44 days to expiration and And then we also have our at that point. We had our other iron condor in October as well We ended up closing one side of that which I think is the next alert. Yeah, here we go so The next alert was a closing adjusting trade in gold where we closed out the put vertical side as price had breached the upside break even and still holding the Still holding the call side vertical on that piece So now we've got a full iron condor and a half iron condor in GC both of which are in the same cycle So here is the short call vertical you can see prices still outside the range So we need a little bit of a movement down to get back into that range if we take a look at a chart of gold I mean this thing's just been crazy strong and recently the implied volatility has really spiked along with the rest of the markets so Good time to be selling premium in gold But if we can get just a little bit of a dip in gold that'll help out that piece and then in addition to that short call vertical We've also got this full iron condor where you can see prices dead centered got a little bit of profit Just waiting on some more theta decay before we take that off Next trade closing adjusting trade in IYR. So we had we had a short call vertical on in IYR Still in August. It was our last position in August got down to three days to expiration And so we just needed to exit so we went ahead and close that piece out Took a loss on that piece of the trade and then we're still holding our other full iron condor out in the sep cycle So let's take a look at that one IYR I can see prices hanging out right here Still within range could use some downside movement and you know to get back to center here and just some more time to pass in IYR Next trade was a closing trade in KRE So we had a short strangle on a KRE booked over 30% of max profit in just eight days Put that on when implied volatility really spiked had a little bit of a contraction But enough to to book 30% of max profit on that one. So good quick trade in KRE Next trade we did a rolling adjusting trade in ZB So these are our bonds that we were talking about these things have been just crazy to the upside In this case, we just simply rolled up our puts So as price moved higher and there's very lived a very little value left in those puts We just adjusted those up from 156 up to 162 We stayed in that October cycle because there's still 37 days to expiration So we now have the 162 puts and the 151 call So it's an inverted short strangle and then we also have our other short strangle that we have not adjusted In that October cycle as well. So let's take a look at both of those pieces Here's the one that we have not adjusted yet And you can see prices hanging out right here almost almost at the short strike But not quite if we take a look at how much value we've got in those puts We've got we've got a decent amount left here So we're not looking to roll those puts up quite yet But if price does continue higher into early next week, we'll do the same thing. We'll just roll those puts up and Then our other piece here the inverted strangle now what you'll see here is prices Out of our range here and you can see after the roll on the on the chart here. It's showing It's actually below the zero line When you when you've rolled that inverted you can get to that point now What we'll do is we'll we'll adjust these strikes as we get closer to that 21 days to expiration. So another 14 days and and we'll roll that out to the next cycle collect another credit Hopefully we can get some stability and some, you know, just cyclicality in this But when you have a huge move like that in bonds and and you know on this chart You may be thinking well that you know, we see that in other things all the time But bonds usually don't move that much and so You know based on the pricing the options that was a huge move So if we can just get some stability, maybe a little bit of downside You know that that's really gonna help our position and we're just gonna battle this one just like we have before Keep in mind. I mean we were we've been through this before if we look at You know oil for example Let me get to the continuous contract Oil oil oil there you are I mean, sorry, I've got a bunch of writing on here because I did a video on it I mean look at this move in oil to the downside and then to the upside so a huge 40% decline and then a 57% climb from that bottom and we came out profitable on this trade. Did it take us longer than we wanted? Yeah, sure I mean it took us several months to roll and extend duration and do that But that's the power of staying mechanical and we can do the same thing in bonds Bonds are not gonna go up forever, you know when we were in this downslide of oil It it felt like oh my gosh oil is going to zero right and then next thing You know V bottoms and shoots up 50 57% from the bottom and so you know You've got to just stay mechanical and in the key to this is keeping your position size small enough So that you can withstand Those massive moves. So, you know, even though bonds is a big move You know, it's nothing compared to what we saw in oil and we got out of that one profitable So we will continue to stay mechanical and and manage our way out of this one as well Next trade was opening trade in EWZ. So just looking to sell some more premium in a diversified symbol Went ahead and did that. We got a spike in IV up to well is that 57 percentile at the time we put this on Let's take a look at EWZ now You can see let me just go back to the three month daily. Okay, so here it is IV just slightly higher than where we put that on price is pretty close to where we put it on dead center Just holding on to that waiting for some more time to pass Next trade was an opening trade in SPX So we opened up a new weekly iron condor in SPX when that was at the seven days to expiration And then at that point we're also still holding a weekly double calendar, which I'll get to in a second But we still have on this weekly iron condor. So let's take a look at that and Oops, that's SPY SPX Here we go, so we're up we're up over a thousand bucks on the trade We've got a few days left till expiration in SPX. We've got five Yeah, so we'll be looking to take this off. What is that Wednesday of next week? Most likely And so we've got a lot of profit left here. So hopefully things can kind of stabilize a little bit We just kind of ping-pong around within this range and and can book a profit in that the the other one that I mentioned the Weekly double calendar that one was really frustrating because we had that on it was dead centered We up we're up a decent amount, but remember we're staying mechanical with these things We're waiting till we get down to about a day till expiration and what happened was on this day here This big down day We're we're pretty well centered here and just had a huge move down moved all the way past our break even break even So we ended up taking a loss on that trade Which is you know really unfortunate obviously we got a bounce after that, but that's after the options expire So you can't trade in hindsight like that saying what if but it was frustrating because we were dead centered had a had a lot of a lot of potential profit and it moved out of our range and So we had to take a little loss on that one but that's okay overall on the weekly trade still doing just fine and And that's the power of kind of laddering these on as price moves around and with implied volatility is High as it is. I mean we're getting big credits I mean we've got a three over a thirty six hundred dollar max profit on this just because implied volatility is high Now if you've noticed what I've done is I've actually moved these the long put in a little bit to lower our overall buying power requirement just because when Plaid volatility is this high it's going to take a lot of capital and it doesn't really shave off much as far as your overall probability of success probability of profit But it sure lessens your buying power requirement if you just move that move that You know, we like to do these at the 10 delta But the 10 delta was like the 2750 and it was just a considerable amount of buying power So we just moved that in about 20 strikes and and so that's what we're doing here Next trade closing trade. So here's that here's that Weekly double calendar. I just mentioned we got that huge move down We're unable to to book a profit on that one, but we're so we're out of that one at this point Next trade rolling adjusting trade in GS Goldman Sachs So we were just rolling our long put vertical and we did this from September out to October now We did this out to October with 64 days, which is a little bit outside of our wheelhouse So that's 30 to 60 days, but when you have a directional position on and you're just trying to extend duration I don't mind going a little outside of that and it just helps diversify our overall time frame from the different positions We have in our portfolio So we're over 50% of max profit on that So we just wanted to lock in that credit roll it out extend duration and keep that short delta in our portfolio So if we look at GS, it's up a little bit today along with the rest of the market But what we're at where we're at in GS is still within range here And so we're just looking for some more downside to benefit that Speaking of short Delta, we are We we have short Delta, but we are a little bit under our one-to-one ratio We like to be kind of in that one-to-one up to five-to-one on our short Delta to theta ratio And we're we're a little bit lower than that one-to-one. So we've we added a Short Delta play today, which I'll get to here in a second and we'll just continue to Massage that that ratio as we go along But you know big bounce today in stocks S&Ps up Over a percent a quarter and so look like a good point to add some short Delta So I'll get to that here in just a second Next trade rolling adjusting trade in XLK. So very similar to what we did in GS Except in this case, we just stayed in the same September cycle. So again, we're just kind of diversifying our time frame and You know September still has 36 days. So all we did is we adjusted our strikes down a few strikes So we went down from 85 80 down to 82 77 because we were well over 50% of max profit on this piece of the trade So we just locked in that credit rolled our strikes down closer to price and kept that short Delta exposure in our portfolio So if we look at XLK Here's where it looks like so it's moved up a little bit since we did that roll But price still within range here and just looking for some more downside The reason I chose the strikes that I did sometimes when I do these these rolls on these vertical spreads I get the question. Well, why did you choose the strikes that you did and when we do this? We're really just trying to get at least or right around a 60% Probability of profit now you can see prices moved up since we did the roll So now it's at about 56 but right when we put this on if you put your price slice on the break even that Probability of profit will will show about 60% and that's why we chose the 82 77 strikes that we did So that's the plan. We just want to have a positive theta higher than 50 50 probability of success and And let those probabilities play out and keep that it's more of a directional exposure trade though You were just trying to keep that that short bias in our in our portfolio overall Next trade and final trade was that short bias trade that I told you we added today And we did that in XLF. I like financials lower for a couple reasons one You know financials 10 financial stocks tend to do better go up when interest rates are perceived to be going higher Interest rates are perceived to be going lower, which is going to potentially hurt financials now How much of that is already priced in well, that's the magic question. We don't know that yet, but I just thought it was prudent to get short XLF get short some financials And it acts a little bit as a hedge against bonds So, you know if interest rates are going down typically bonds are going up And if interest rates are going down typically XLF or financials are going down So just using it as a little bit of a hedge and just wanting to get short financials And so we use the ETF XLF for that This one was pretty much a 50 50 Trade just a real directional bearish trade and what I did is I just you know XLF is such a low price symbol It's in the 20s. So you could have just bought a put as I put here But we went with the put vertical for positive theta You know assuming the position moves in our favor and we just did a wide You know, it's only a $5 spread but in the stock in the 20s. That's a pretty wide spread and so It's almost like synthetic short stock. You can think of it, but the upside and the downside are capped So that's where it was here is about 50 50 when we put it on it's moved up slightly since we did so But just looking for some downside To benefit that trade. So that's the plan in XLF And you know, I just I like this when you get this big push down We've got a little bit of a bounce higher I'm looking for stocks to potentially roll back over again. I don't think we've seen the bottom Again, that's my opinion. Nobody knows but you know, that that's what I'm thinking I'm thinking we're we're still gonna see lower prices All right, so those are all the alerts. Let's take a look at some of our other positions starting with oil We've got a short strangle in oil Let's get rid of these theoreticals Click on our actual position And with today's up move, I've got a decent profit in here But almost 450 bucks out of a potential 1440 So I just looking for a little maybe a little bit more upside a little bit more theta decay before we book a profit in oil In ES we've got this long put vertical here Where you can see prices pretty close to where we rolled this and so just looking again looking for some more downside To benefit that trade Gold I mentioned Natty gas So we've got these two different positions in that gas You could see Had a big move up in that gas which really helped yesterday Now we could definitely use a little bit more, but just kind of playing that one mechanical hoping for some stability In Natty gas so we can get back to profits in there as well Whenever bonds wheat so this one man, we had this huge move down in the grains this day here And and so now we've now we've got stuck on this one, which we will just take off into next week We've got yeah just seven days so next week is expiration week So we'll probably just close that out next week and then we've got this other piece in wheat as well Which is out in the October cycle with 35 days to expiration. That's a full iron condor and that was doing good So just holding on to that and waiting for some more time to pass there in Apple we've got this long put vertical here After Trump delayed the tariffs. We had this big spike in Apple Then it's kind of come back down and we're just looking for some more downside to get back into range on that trade DE John Deere we held this one through earnings and And so it did move higher. It's up over three and a half percent today, but still in good shape here And we were looking to potentially take this one off or roll it if we got a little bit of down movement but we did not so we're gonna just continue to hold and And so that's where we're at on DE DIA the Dow We've got two different sets of short call verticals that we've just just been keeping it for that short Delta exposure You can see they're well within range just looking for a little bit more downside to benefit those EEM we put on this short Delta play last week and this is just simply of long put And so just just diversifying our strategies You know, we don't do a ton of long options just because you do have that theta decay working against you We bought these at around the 80 Delta So really deep in the monies to really try to minimize that theta decay and it was down We were profitable a little bit now It's come back up and so just waiting for some more downside to benefit that trade and we've got what 35 days Yeah, we're in the September cycle. We've got 35 days there. So a lot of time EWZ I already showed that one Goldman showed that one Intel Okay, so this is one that we've we've rolled a couple times. We're really close In fact, I think we're probably around break even overall after adjustments And so just just looking for to gain some profit here now what we'll do on this one next week We've we're still we still have 35 days to expiration, but you know, we get to a point like this We're well over 50% of max profit We're not gonna hold this one all the way down to 21 days to expiration We're trying to get out with a profit if we take a look at the chart See the applied volatility had a big contraction today, which helped the position But assuming implied volatility stays high next week We'll probably roll this one out one more cycle and try to Try to try to get to profitability before we close that out But pretty well centered here So got a big range for this one to move around in if if implied volatility does continue to contract Into next week and we get a little bit of a bounce higher and we're in a profit here Even if it's just a small profit We may just take it and run kind of depends on where we're at with the rest of the portfolio too But that's those are kind of the the two things we're thinking of next week We either roll out to the October cycle or just book it if it's profitable, but we'll see where we're at next week IWM we've got an iron condor here Price is sitting right here still well within range got some profit just waiting for some more before we take that off. I Mentioned IYR MasterCard MA got an iron condor pretty well centered here Just waiting for some more theta to decay some more profit in MA before we take that off Netflix this was a short bias trade that we put on We're close to a point of taking this off a couple days ago But we're waiting for a little bit more price gone has gone up today, but still well within range Really just holding this for that short short delta exposure Hopefully if we get a little bit of a move down early next week, we can book a profit on that one QQQ very similar to DIA. We've got a couple sets of short call verticals. Just looking for some downside to benefit those SMH SMH is coming back nicely for us So we've got two sets of adjusted strangles This one is dead centered and pretty similar to Intel We're not going to hold this all the way down to 21 days to expiration But you know if we get some more theta decay and we're in good position here we'll just roll this one out to October and Keep that keep that trade going, you know, we're still down on SMH and so an implied volatility It's still decent. So we're gonna continue to stay in this trade and And try to collect some more profit before we before we get out the other piece here Again pretty pretty similar and and so making back some good profit in that piece as well So just holding for now, but we'll look to roll at least one of those maybe next week And then maybe hold this one until we get closer to that 21 days to expiration SPX I mentioned SPY so we've got a Short call vertical here pretty close to where we rolled it to just waiting for some more downside to benefit that one Then VXX we put on this short call vertical spread as implied volatility spiked It did spike even further after we put this on we put it on on this day here And then a couple days later we got this another spike and it hasn't quite come back down into range yet though But if implied volatility continues to contract that's gonna benefit this trade So just holding on to that at this point. I mentioned XLF and I mentioned XLK So that's it. Those are all the alerts. Those are all the positions Look forward to another great week of trading next week. Have a great weekend. Talk to you then