 What is up navigation traders welcome to this week's video update happy good Friday today's Friday March 30th Hope everybody had a great week of trading Let's jump into the alerts from this week. So let's start back on Monday on the first trade of the week We did an opening trade in GLD where we sold an iron condor So implied volatility at that time Ivy percentile was at 81 so we had we had gotten out of a GLD iron condor and then implied volatility spiked back up and this is around the area where we sold the iron condor Since then we've had some good contraction in IV. I've had a pretty sizable move up move down as well so if we look at the analyze tab you can see price is still well within our range, but we could use a little bit of a pop up and Some more contraction in IV just some more time to pass. It's still early on this trade. So we will continue to monitor GLD Next trade was an opening trade in Ford slash CL So we we entered a new strangle on oil Ivy percentile popped up to 58 So oil trading options on oil features is one of my favorite You get such a good bang for the buck and when implied volatility pops up You know, this is something that I always like to be in as long as the IV percentile Makes it available to us So if we take a look at that trade what you'll see is we've got a little bit of profit there now We've got you know over $270 in profit, but look at the look at the max profit on this thing over $1,450 and it only takes, you know, it takes less than that in buying power to put this trade on You can see the mar margin requirement $1,314 so such a great bang for the buck if we take a look at oil on the chart What you'll see is that you know the implied volatility has started to contract for us So as long as we can get a decent steady range bound in price, we will hopefully look to take profits in that one Next trade was an opening adjusting trade in that gas So we added an iron condor in that gas in the June cycle Now with that gas the implied volatility is actually pretty low And so I wouldn't necessarily suggest this for a brand new trade But once we're in a trade and we're trying to adjust and get back to profitability You know, I'll continue to add and take off profits and stuff even if implied volatility is low So you can see here this one's still very centered. No no profit or loss yet Just waiting for some more time to pass in Natty gas Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in that gas So we bought back an iron condor that was in the earlier May cycle So we booked over 40% of max profit on that piece of the trade And so now we're just holding the the one that I currently showed that I just previously showed you Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in the queues So I I got a quite a few questions on this one because a lot of times if We're where we closed this put vertical in the queue. So this was originally part of an iron condor and Price moved down. So we closed out the call side We're holding on to the put side and a lot of times on these if we're still not in the profit We will we will either hold or continue to roll You know these the one side of the iron condor in this case What we did was let's pull up a chart of the queues first and then I'll go back to that So we we got this we got this big move down here on this day on this big down bar And so we got out of the of the short call vertical So we you know, we made max profit on that one and then the very next day We had this huge move up, okay And then it even popped up a little bit higher in the morning So this is the area where we closed out the put vertical We did this for a couple of reasons. We weren't we weren't quite profitable on that Iron condor on that specific one on that specific piece of the trade But our assumption was that the market was going to To move lower now it did, you know, I'm not looking at that from to show you. Hey, look at me I'm right not at all my my position was Let's get out of this long put vertical where we get this pop up You know just just take cut our cut that one loose because we still have two short call verticals in the queue So if we do get a continuation lower, which is what I was anticipating Then it's gonna not only take off that long Delta, but it's gonna keep on that short Delta for us to benefit And that's that's exactly what happened. Now. I'm looking at this from two perspectives. Hey, that was that was kind of my Directional assumption. So even though we are very mechanical You do still need to take some directional assumptions and have a bit of a directional bias in certain situations And that's what we did here the other piece of this is and probably the main The main point I want you to take away is that we did that because of how it fit in the rest of our portfolio Okay, so all these all these other positions if you've been following us for any time at all You know, we like to keep a slightly short bias overall and in all of our portfolios as it is beta weighted to SPY and So we were getting to the point where we're actually a little bit long Delta And you know if this market continued lower, we would be a little bit unprotected to the downside So that's another reason why we wanted to cut loose Some of that some of that long Delta in that short put vertical in the cues and keep on our short call verticals So as you can see now, we have these we have these two short call verticals Just one strike apart and you can see that down move helped help this piece And we'll look for some you know potentially continued down move to benefit that And then this one is pretty much the same thing just just a slightly different strikes So we're keeping that short Delta in the portfolio and we'll continue to monitor and manage these Now if we you know if implied volatility continues to stay high in the next week We might add another full iron condor in the cues just to continue to collect more credit work our way You know to profitability in this trade. So that's kind of the thought process behind that trade Hopefully hopefully that makes sense we've got a couple of We've got a couple of different videos on using short Delta to manage your portfolio If you look at our blog one is called how to how to Delta hedge your portfolio And one is how to trade options like a professional. So I would check out those two videos And I think that'll help make make the whole concept make a little bit more sense for you Next trade was a closing trade in Ford slash 6e. So this was the euro. So I had to make a couple of adjustments in this trade over the last month or so But we're able to Close this for a big winner. We close this for over $900 profit And with implied volatility contracting down to the 25th percentile Great time to take that off. So we're able to book a really nice winner in the euro Next trade was an opening adjusting trade in FXI. So in this one, we added a short strangle In the May cycle. So if you take a look at FXI You can see we've got two two pieces to this trade. So we've still got this Straddle which was originally part of a strangle. So it's been adjusted down to a 50-50 straddle so we need a little bit of an up move to to benefit that and Then the piece from the alert that I just mentioned is a another strangle. So another Very wide strangle. We put this on just to kind of expand that break even point and And collect more credit Because FXI the implied volatility is is is really high as is a lot of other equity-based ETF so Continuing to add positions there Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in ES. So we had We had a couple long put verticals that we had in our portfolio to keep that short Delta as I talk about and one of them You know with the with the big price move down. This was on the 28th that we closed this out You know had a nice profit on that piece of the trade. So we went ahead and just booked that took it off We're still holding a couple other things in ES One of which is the other long put vertical So just looking for some more downside to benefit that piece and then this is part of a separate trade But we've also got a full iron condor on in ES that you can see here's still well within our range But but nothing else to do at this point on that one And by the way just to kind of take a little bit of a sidetrack You know, I've been I've been talking about the last couple months You know in February when when implied volatility really popped up I talked about man, this is this is the greatest time to be a navigation trader because of the opportunity, you know We love volatility. We love two-sided action. We love high IV and And that's what you're seeing from some of these trades. We're taking off making much higher profits I mean we for closed trades and I'll be sending out a an update for March performance But we had we had our best month ever as far as closed profits Over I think it was over $3,300 in profits and the reason that is is because we're putting these trades on Very similar to we what we have in the past the differences We're collecting a lot more credit because the options are more expensive And so that's why you know entering these short premium, you know selling premium in high implied volatility is so powerful because your max profit goes up the probabilities are a little bit better But but very similar the difference is the amount of profit that you're taking out of these trades when you're booking profits at 30 40 50% of max profit are just that much higher and and so it's just I love trading in times like this because it's just It's so much more fun things are active markets are moving implied volatility is high We're booking better profits and so hopefully this volatility continues You know into the near future so we can continue to play this game Okay, so we closed that Yes long put vertical next trade was a closing trade in EEM so kind of a similar thing We had a long put vertical in EEM We did roll it one time But with that price moved down in EEM we were able to We were able to book a nice little profit there So we got that nice push down so we were able to book that took that one off So we don't have a current position now in EEM. So we're totally out of that one Next trade was an opening adjusting trade in the soybeans. So continue to monitor Manage our soybean positions add positions take them off working our way back to profitability and soybeans So we put this on in the June cycle and so now if we take a look at soybeans We've got two different positions the one that from that alert that I just mentioned You can see we're got a little bit of profit just waiting for some more time to pass some more theta to decay Before we do anything there, and then we've got this other In the the other iron condor in the May cycle where you can see if we just get a little bit more of a move up a little bit More contraction in implied volatility will take that one off for a profit. So continue to monitor those into next week Next trade was a an opening adjusting trade in XRT. So we added a another short strangle in XRT Implied volatility staying nice and high there. So if you take a look at XRT See we've got two different positions on this is our April cycle where we've got three contracts Which is an adjusted strangle now currently a straddle. So we're right at the 46 strike as you can see right there We we are in the profit here I'd like to see a little bit move higher before we take that one off But we also but the alert that I just mentioned is one putting on this new Centered strangle so again just staying mechanical playing the game adding credits booking taking off adding booking taking off And that's the way the game is played If we take a look at the chart of XRT you can see implied volatility still staying nice and high at the 86th percentile So we want to continue that to have positions on in a lot of these You know high IV ETFs And by the way, I got a question about you know, why don't you trade more individual stocks? And we tend to we tend to air towards more directional plays in stocks when implied volatility is low But when applied volatility is high we want to stay in more broad market sector ETFs because Either a little bit, you know, they don't we don't have the earnings and dividends announcements We don't have some of the you know, just crazy You know if a stock comes out and makes an announcement that was kind of unexpected and the stock has a huge move You know, you don't you don't have to worry about that with ETF So when implied volatility is high and we're continuing to put these positions on, you know Strangles iron condors butterflies straddles in in periods of high implied volatility You know, we want to stick to the ETFs In that case and and and kind of get away from the individual stocks Just because we you know, they we have a little bit more higher probability success in the ETFs So that's what we will continue to do as long as implied volatility stays high and Then lastly on Thursday Obviously the markets closed today on Friday, but the last trade on Thursday was a long put vertical in XLK Now one other question I got from a member and it was good question So I want to make sure I address this and that is okay implied volatility is high Why not sell call verticals instead of buy put verticals? It's a great question because you know, we sell premium when when implied volatility is high waiting for a contraction The reason in cases like this when I'm when I'm doing it is more of a directional play the reason I buy a long put vertical because think about this if If the the stock goes down in this case XLK if the ETF goes down What's that most likely going to do to implied volatility? Okay. Well, what it's going to do is implied volatility is going to expand most likely. Okay, right? It goes down implied volatility expands and so by buying a long put vertical You're actually getting a little bit of a benefit From implied volatility expansion and that's why we buy a long put vertical instead of selling along call verticals It's a very small difference. So it's not huge. I mean, we're gonna benefit if price moves down I mean, that's gonna be the biggest Decider of if we win on this trade or if we lose But you know any little edge you can get and so that's that's the reasoning for buying long put vertical even though implied volatility is already high Because if it goes down like we want it to then we're gonna get an expansion in implied volatility Which will benefit the long put vertical a little a little bit more than the short call vertical So hopefully that helps hopefully that makes sense And and so that is that's all the alerts Let's go ahead and jump back onto the platform and take a look at some of our other positions Whenever oil went over ES whenever Nat gas whenever soybeans wheat We've still got an iron condor in wheat So you can see price is kind of hanging out in the lower end of the range If we get a just a little bit move a little move higher in wheat. We'll we'll book that one So month or that Apple we've still got this long put vertical and Apple keeping that short Delta Got a profit after the roll and everything. We're we're a little bit profitable I want a little bit more. So if we get a little bit more down move in Apple, we'll take that one off and book a profit there DIA so we've got a few positions on in DIA First of which is an iron condor that we've got out here in the May cycle very centered So nothing to do there yet. And then we've got these two short call Verticals that were previously from iron condors. So we've got this one Got a nice profit there So if we get a little bit of a more move down next week We we'll take that off or potentially roll that one then very similar here just a little bit different strikes Got a nice profit there. So looking for a little bit more down movement there before we roll or take that one off EWW got a strangle very centered here Just looking for some more time to pass some implied volatility to contract See we got a nice contraction on Thursday But looking for a little bit more a little bit more time to pass to benefit that piece talked about FXI talked about GLD IYR real estate ETF. Okay, so if we go to the analyze tab here This is a strangle that we had adjusted and so now we're just waiting for a little bit more time to pass here These options have in April have at 21 days to expiration So look for a roll of this position early next week anytime. We're you know, we're trading short naked options short strangles We like to roll those once we get around, you know under 21 days So early next week, we will be looking to roll that out from April to May Assuming price is right where it is right now. We will probably keep the strikes exactly the same So the 74 put 76 call will simply just roll that from April to May Collect another credit and and just continue to give ourselves more time in the trade. I Mentioned cues XLE is the energy ETF So we've got a little bit of profit in that just looking for a little bit more profit before we take that one off. I Mentioned XL K XL use the utility ETF pretty centered there So nothing to do in XL you and I already mentioned XRT. So that's all the alerts That's all of our current positions. Hope everybody has a great Easter weekend and we'll talk to you next week