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OI, DOW & MANIPULATION - Palantir $PLTR - Short Iron ButterflyWhen 400~ institutions are crowding a stock, and the biggest of names are playing MM. I want to use them as a shield, and poke out from behind them to stab little by little. This is my all-time favorite options strategy, and it can be used under very specific conditions.. 1. Accumulation/Distribution Phase is identified (Dow Theory). 2. Range-bound movement and a sharp fall in volatility is forecasted (Ascendance/Participation Phase, with clear indication of Ranging Market, Supply/Demand levels). 3. Breakout is forecasted, and there exists great momentum, high premia and implied volatility (Excess forecasted). 4. Personal trend bias (bullish long-term outlook on company, Value investing, Trend). It is the ultimate premium harvesting strategy... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Short Iron Butterfly Spread: "Goal: To profit from neutral stock price action near the strike price of the short options (center strike) with limited risk. A short iron butterfly spread is the strategy of choice when the forecast is for stock price action near the center strike price of the spread, because it profits from time decay. However, unlike a short straddle, the potential risk of a short iron butterfly spread is limited. Explanation: Example of short iron butterfly spread: Buy 1 XYZ 95 Put at 1.20 (1.20) Sell 1 XYZ 100 Put at 3.20 3.20 Sell 1 XYZ 100 Call at 3.30 3.30 Buy 1 XYZ 105 Call at 1.40 (1.40) Net Credit = 3.90 A short iron butterfly spread is a four-part strategy consisting of a bull put spread and a bear call spread in which the short put and short call have the same strike price. All options have the same expiration date, and the three strike prices are equidistant. In the example above, one 95 Put is purchased, one 100 put is sold, one 100 Call is sold and one 105 Call is purchased. This strategy is established for a net credit, and both the potential profit and maximum risk are limited. The maximum profit is realized if the stock price is equal to the strike price of the short options (center strike) on the expiration date. The maximum risk is the difference between the lower and center strike prices less the net credit received. The maximum risk is realized if the stock price is above the highest strike price or below the lowest strike price at expiration. Maximum profit: The maximum profit potential is equal to the net credit received less commissions, and this profit is realized if the stock price is equal to the strike price of the short options (center strike) at expiration. In this outcome, all options expire worthless and the net credit is kept as income. Maximum risk: The maximum risk is equal to the difference between the lowest and middle strike prices less the net credit received. In the example above, the difference between the lowest and middle strike prices is 5.00, and the net credit received is 3.90, not including commissions. The maximum risk, therefore, is 1.10 less commissions." - Taken from Fidelity ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPECULATION: - Why will SP rally 30%+ early in the week? - SP has just transitioned out of 2nd accumulation level, entering ascendance/public participation phase. - Price target upgrades from previously bearish institutions suggest they want to markup the SP. - Previous price action suggests that it opens strong on hype and positive catalysts, before entering a range to trap retail bulls. - There are Fib levels at 33~ and 35~ that must be tested for confirmation. - There is a gap to fill at 32~ for further confirmation. - Frenzied buying will soon come to an end, as the SP stabilizes. It is currently trending as "The top interest for WSB". IV will rise at first. - Large stopping volume will occur at key OI levels as Excess is sold off and we enter the 2nd distribution level. IV will quickly fall. - There is 16,286 OI on 40 strike calls for 2/26, so I don't foresee this level being broken for long next week... Above it is a gamma ramp that will take the SP to clear skies... I'm not sure the MM will allow that. - The broader market is uncertain, and a lot can change over the weekend, but judging from the low GEX, and DIX that seems to be bouncing, the market does not seem ready for a correction, yet... - Bitcoin is a good indicator for risk asset spending nowadays... Watch for huge selloff before market open, decide if it is profit-taking, or corrective. FA: - Please see my Jan. 8 Idea which documents the Fundamental Analysis I have been doing on this company. - Simply put, this company is unrivalled, and a near-future mega-company. 0.5-1T Mcap, very, very soon. SP500 inclusion without a question. TA: - Have very powerful bullish reversal indicators as support, based on my Feb. 18 Forecast. - This should take the stock price to the 60-70 levels that I forecasted in Jan. 8. QA: - Basis of the strategy is the complete control of MM's on the SP... Only a gamma squeeze can break through the key OI levels, Cohen is notorious for his put/call walls strategy, and he most definitely has a hand in the MM action here... As of Q4, his Point72 owns about 2% of the company. Much greater now, I speculate. - Historical analysis has shown that it is almost impossible for PLTR to break through the large put/call walls, and quickly reverts to the mean if it ever does. - The SP will tend to settle around the OI "valleys" at options expiration (OpEx), and quite often, it is even at the exact value to 2 decimals. - PLTR key open interest levels for 3/5/2021: $35 calls: 14,464 $35 puts: 11,776 $45 calls: 11,311 $45 puts: 8,667 $50 calls: 14,898 $50 puts: 13,168 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STRATEGY: - Deep ITM Bullish Short Iron Butterfly for 3/5/2021, then rollover to Deep ITM Bearish Short Iron Butterfly for 3/5/2021 for the expiration. - Goal is to capture the great premium of puts before the rally, then capture the premium of the calls + puts on the pullback, for expiry. - Wings will protect the trade from forecast failure and a massive gamma squeeze in either direction. - Why I am taking this trade, is because of the historical analysis I have done since Jan. 8, and I have gathered sufficient evidence of the manipulation on this SP, and I believe that I can predict the price action to a high degree of accuracy. I don't see why the MM's would suddenly stop the range-bound price action, unless a real gamma squeeze occurs... but the wings and core long positions protect against this. - Trigger 1: Stable broader market, positive catalyst, good sentiment, 32 gap fill, breaking out of 33 and 35 Fib levels for greater confirmation. - Butterfly 1: Strike - $49.00, Upper wing - $55.00, Lower wing - $43.00. - Trigger 2: SP reaches $49.00 on impulse wave. - Rollover: SP - $49.00, to Butterfly 2. - Butterfly 2: Strike - $41.00, Upper wing - $45.00, Lower wing - $37.00. - SL: $46.00 support level pin. - Expiration: 3/5/2021 - Timeframe: 14 days DEFENSE: - How to defend the position, if things go south? If the short call in a short iron butterfly is assigned, then 100 shares of stock are sold short and the long call and both puts remain open. If a short stock position is not wanted, it can be closed in one of two ways. First, 100 shares can be purchased in the marketplace. Second, the short 100-share position can be closed by exercising the long call. Remember, however, that exercising a long call will forfeit the time value of that call. Therefore, it is generally preferable to buy shares to close the short stock position and then sell the long call. This two-part action recovers the time value of the long call. One caveat is commissions. Buying shares to cover the short stock position and then selling the long call is only advantageous if the commissions are less than the time value of the long call. - This strategy has a heavy bullish bias, so the chances of being assigned on puts are much higher than on the calls... If the SP does reach beyond, this is good for my core long position. - The biggest risk in this trade that I foresee is the SP pinned at the $46 support level, which lies between the strike price and the upper wing, of butterfly 1. - However, high premia of deep ITM options mitigates this risk. - $46 Short Straddle would be a good defense to this scenario, (Sell call, sell put) since $46 is a high probability level for 3/5 expiry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This strategy can be high risk, depending on the long-term outlook on this company... For me, I don't mind being assigned at these levels, and I have a core long position, so it is low risk. The strategy is based on forecasting the price action precisely, not only the levels, but the time frame. That said, this is most definitely not financial advice. I am describing my own strategy. If you like the idea, please support by giving a like, follow, and sub!
PLong
by UnknownUnicorn1043646
5
Trading Stocks vs Options: Which Is Better? I’m Markus Heitkoetter and I’ve been an active trader for over 20 years. I often see people who start trading and expect their accounts to explode, based on promises and hype they see in ads and e-mails. They start trading and realize it doesn’t work this way. The purpose of these articles is to show you the trading strategies and tools that I personally use to trade my own account so that you can grow your own account systematically. Real money…real trades. Stock Trading vs Options Trading Stock trading vs options trading, what should you trade? What is better? Is it better to trade stocks or is it better to trade options? That’s what we’re going to talk about today. I will also show you practical examples from trades that occurred today, so let me jump onto the desktop. Now, I want to use an account size of $20,000 as an example here where I’m comparing whether it is better to trade stocks versus options. Depending on your account size, just multiply the numbers that I’m showing you by whatever your account size is and you’ll get the idea. So the idea is, on a $20,000 account, we want to risk 2% of the account. This would be $400, nothing more. Comparing Stock Trading vs Option Trading Now, as we are comparing stocks and options, here are the things that I want to compare. First of all, I want to write down how much we are risking stock trading vs options trading. I also want to write down the reward, how much are we planning to make on the stock or the option. Based on this, I want to write down the risk/reward ratio, and also very, very important, the buying power. What is the buying power? The buying power is the amount of your account that you need to reserve for this trade. It is not the risk and you’ll see this in just a moment. Let’s take a look at some very specific trades that happened this morning. INSW Stock Trading vs Option Trading The first trade that I want to discuss is INSW . So this morning (at the time of this writing) on the PowerX Optimizer, INSW came up as a trade, as a buy to open. And the idea here is that we are buying 239 shares based on a $20,000 account at $22.84. Our stop loss was at $1.67 and I was trading 239 shares. I want to keep it a little bit easier for all of us with the math so let’s round up and call it 240 shares. What is our risk? Per one share, we are risking $1.67 and we are trading 240 shares, meaning that our risk is exactly $400.80. So here let’s just round it to $401. Now, what is the potential reward that we are looking for? Here we are looking for a reward of $8.62 per share. $8.62 times 240 shares, so we’re looking to make $2,069. So we’re putting this into our table, $2,069. So the risk/reward ratio here, PowerX Optimizer is calculating it, it’s 1:5.16 so let’s just say 1:5.2. Now for the buying power. Again, we are buying 240 shares, and the cost per one share is $22.84, so we need $5,482 in buying power. So this is how much our buying power will be reduced when we enter the trade. Now, let me ask you, is this making sense thus far? Just so that you know what happens when you’re trading the stock? And again, we are trying to risk around 2% of the account here, $401. Now, let’s take a look at the option here. So I prefer to trade the in the money, I’ll do another article on the difference between ITM and ATM. But here we are talking about the $22.50 call, and the risk was $172 per one option. So if we want to risk $400 overall, we’re dividing this by 172 and we can trade 2 options risking $344. We’re risking a little bit less and this is just based on the price of the option. In terms of the reward, we’re looking to make $6.80, it’s $680 per one option and we are trading 2 options, meaning that if this trade works out, we would make at least $1,360. Now, according to The PowerX Optimizer, we were making a little bit less. So let’s take a look at the risk/reward, the PowerX Optimizer calculated for us. So the risk/reward was slightly lower at 1:3.95. Now we’re rounding it up so it’s 1:4.0. So as you can see, the risk/reward ratio when trading the option is slightly worse but here’s the deal. What is the buying power that we need for this? The buying power that the broker will deduct from the overall buying power in the account is our entry price. So here we were trying to enter at $2.16, we can round it up to $2.20, and since we are trading 2 options this means that our buying power is $440. Can you already see what the difference is between stock trading vs options trading here? Your buying power is less than 10%. Now, keep in mind, the buying power is not what you’re risking. The buying power is just how much of your $20,000 is being held in reserve for this particular trade. So you can’t use this money anymore. If you trade the stock, you would still have around $14,500 left. However, if you’re trading the option, you would still have $19,500 left. Is this making sense thus far? TVTY Stock Trading vs Option Trading The other trade that I want to show you is TVTY . Here we wanted to trade 392 shares, so let’s just round it up to 400. Now let’s discuss the risk first. So the risk is $1.02 per one share. We’re taking $1.02 times 400 shares, meaning that we would risk $408, which is still within our parameters. We were planning to risk around $400 so here it would be a little bit more, it would be $408. Now, if this trade works out, here is what the reward would be. So the reward is $5.61, that’s how much we are trying to make on this trade. And if we take the $5.62 times 400 shares, we are trying to make $2,248. So the risk/reward, if we look at this, is 1:5.5. Now, here is the buying power that we would need. TVTY is trading at $11.30, so this is where again, $11.30 times 400 shares, we need $4,520 in buying power. Again, not a big deal if you’re trading a $20,000 account, it will be reduced and you’ll have less money to trade right now, around $15,500. Very, very, very important, this is not the risk. This here is the buying power that is needed. Our risk is $408. Our risk here per one option is $141. So if we want to risk $400 overall, we’re dividing it by $141, it’s 2.83. Now, in order to make it all a bit easier to compare apples with apples here, I am actually saying that we would trade 3 options, and $141 is what we are risking per one option, so $141 times 3. It’s a little bit more than our $400, but I think we are still OK here. So we would risk $423. Now the potential reward per one option is $444. So this is where we take $444 times 3, and again, this is where we are looking at $1,333. As you can see, the risk/reward ratio here is worse than if we would trade the stock. It is 1:3.15 so we are rounding it again to 1:3.2. Again, it would be better to trade the stock, but you’re using quite a lot of your buying power. For the option, all you need, all that is reduced, is your entry price, and the entry price it’s $2.47. So let’s say $2.50 times 3 is $750. As you can see you need less buying power, but you also have a smaller reward. But this is why I say usually on a smaller account, it makes sense to trade options instead of stocks. Now the other important thing, especially when you trade a retirement account, is that you don’t get a margin account. This means that you cannot leverage the money that you have in the account and you cannot short stocks. So in the US, in a retirement account, you cannot short stocks. However, what you can do in a retirement account is that you can trade put options, and with put options, you can bet on a falling market. So this brings me back to the question… What is better, stock trading vs options trading? Well, this is why I wanted to show you a direct comparison using a real-life example. This way you see exactly when it is more advantageous to trade stocks, and when it is more advantageous to trade options. Long story short, often for smaller accounts, since you use less buying power, it makes more sense to trade options. And now you have a direct comparison between stock trading vs options trading that will hopefully help you decide what is best for you.
TVC:NDQEducation
by rockwelltrading
JETS ETF Bullish inclined naked Puts - 19 Mar expiryAs the Primary trade, this is aligned to the larger market direction and is deemed less risky. I'm bullish inclined for JETS as it is considered one of the COVID19 recovery sectors. The strike is also at a resistance point of the range Overall the market seems to be bullish especially after the US inauguration. Sold 200 Puts @ 0. 36 Strike 21 BP block: 48k Max gain - est $7057.54 (Minus comms) Once my Feb JETS options expire, I will add on to this position
AMEX:JETSLong
by Ronin_trader
2
TOL Bearish inclined naked calls - 19 Feb expiryFebruary's Secondary Trade This trade is slightly riskier and is the opposite of the general market movement (bullish). Residential Construction as a category has done generally well through the pandemic, at this point most of the companies in this sector have a very similar chart movement (Downward range) which is great as it shows a level of predictability in price movement. Toll brothers is US's leading builder of luxury home. They have done well in the pandemic with their Q4 earnings breaking past estimates. For Q4 the company's home sales revenue was up 9% year over year with home building deliveries growing 10%. Despite the positive results price is currently ranging with no spikes. I'm positioning a neutral to bearish outlook as I expect the vaccination and the world getting used to the pandemic to see trading cash flow towards larger growth opportunities in COVID-19 impact sectors that are super beaten down and will see price climbing up Sold 40 CALLs @ 0.6, Strike 49 BP block: 17k Max gain est: $2374
NYSE:TOLShort
by Ronin_trader
SPX500-Bear Setup (Update)This is an updated trade plan based on my last published trade setup (SPX500-Bear Setup)-posted yesterday. Just reading price structure and making some adjustments on where I think this correction might end. 3870 is going to be descent support and would complete a measured abc move from the local top. This would give us the correction we need to proceed to 4k+....nothing has changed with my longterm view on sp. We are still in a very strong uptrend and have key fib extensions at 3960 & 4k+. Please let me know if you have any questions but for now im leaning towards taking most of my profit @387 may lets some ride just depends. Thanks, and Happy Trading!
FX:SPX500Short
by wstchse
5
The Poor Man’s Covered Call ExplainedWhat Is The Poor Man’s Covered Call? Questions we’ll answer in this discussion: - What is it? - Who is it for? - When to use it? The Poor Man’s Covered Call is a very specific type of spread. As you know, we’ve been covering option spreads for several Coffee With Markus Sessions. We’ve also covered the Covered Call’s strategy in-depth on our YouTube Channel. In this article, we’re discussing the difference between trading stocks, covered calls, and the Poor Man’s Covered Call. Trading Stocks Let’s take a look at trading stocks first. Let’s say that you’re bullish on a stock like Boeing BA . If you were bullish on this stock, you might purchase a decent amount of stock, let’s say 100 shares. At the time of the original writing of this article, this stock’s strike price was $180. If you purchased 100 shares of BA , at $180 dollars each, this would require $18,000 in purchasing power. If the stock increases by $10, to $190, you stand to earn $1,000 in net profit. So you’ve risked $18,000 to earn $1,000. If the stock price increases to $200, you’ll earn $2,000 and so on. This is pretty basic and you probably understand this concept. A profit picture is a sliding scale that moves to the right as the stock price increased. It is a visual representation of your profits. or losses depending on the movement of the stock. In this example, the price of the stock is increasing so the scale is moving to the right. Selling Covered Calls In this example, let’s say that you’re still bullish on BA . And in the short term, you expect an upward movement in price. Since you already own the 100 shares of BA stock, you can sell a $200 Call Option against these shares (again, this is based on the price of BA at the time of writing this article). If the stock price increases to $190 like you expect, you’ll earn an additional $450 on top of the $1,000 you’ve already earned. If we see a decrease in stock price, the covered call acts as a hedge. In this example, if we saw a downward movement to $170 you would lose $1,000. But because you sold a $200 Call option contract and received a premium of $450, your net loss would only be $550. Covered Calls VS Poor Man’s Covered Call Poor Man’s Covered Call When would you trade a Poor Man’s Covered Call? That’s easy! When you don’t have the $18,000 to buy 100 BA shares! And When do you trade a covered call? When you expect the stock to stay above the current price and move slightly higher. Instead of buying a stock, you would purchase a deep in the money call option at a later expiration. When looking for a call option deeper in the money, we’re trying to find one with a Delta of 0.95. his means for every dollar the stock moves, the call option is gaining .95 cents in value. Deep “In The Money” Calls For this example, We’re buying a deep ITM call at $71 which means the capital required to take this position is only $7,100. As you can see this is a fraction of the price to purchase the stock outright. At the same time, we will sell the $200 Call option. Similar to the covered call. But instead of owning the stock at a price of $18,000, we purchased the ITM call option and sold a $200 call option. if the underlying stock price moves from $180 to $190 you would make $1335 because the Delta is 0.95, which means it’s only increasing 95% of the value. The profit on this type of position isn’t as high as a covered call, but it’s much more than owning the stock outright, with much less risk and less capital. This sounds too good to be true right? The perfect strategy! BUT… there’s a downside associated with this strategy. Your profit is limited. If you see a huge movement in the underlying stock, you’ll only benefit from a portion of the total gains. In this example, if the underlying strike price gained $40, the stockholder would earn $4,000. The covered call would earn $2450, and the Poor Man’s Covered Call would earn $2,320. Many traders use this strategy because of the limited capital involved with taking on a position, and the limited risk associated with a potential downward movement of this stock.
NYSE:BAEducation
by rockwelltrading
2
AMD: Stock Market AnalysisHello everyone, long time no talk. I hope you all are doing well, I took an extremely long break from trading and decided to take some time to learn from all of my mistakes. Sadly, I went through a really rough streak in the past but we will see if I am capable of learning from my mistakes and if I am capable of being a profitable trader. Enough talk, lets get to business. I have many reasons as why AMD is a solid buy right now and where the price target is to sell. Please bear with me since I do have a thorough explanation. 1.) Structure: -Ascending triangle formation -Confirmed double bottom on the daily/weekly time frame -Clean break on resistance on daily/weekly chart. Each one of these reasons show why we are in a bullish position to buy, and now is the time to enter the trade. 2.) 20/50/100/200 EMAs: -100 day EMA shows as a strong region where many buyers enter in. -We are in a true up trend and Golden cross formed on 23 May 2018. I believe we are still on a bullish upward trend. 3.) RSI/Divergence Indicator: -Bullish Divergence did form on the four hour and is confirmed. -Still have plenty of room on the daily time frame before reaching the over bought region. -There also seems to be many buyers in the 40 region of the RSI in the past. (This paired up with the 100 EMA shows a strong bullish trend.) -When the 40 region showed a strong bounce up and a mixture of this stock touching the 100 EMA, there was a very strong break out for AMD. Could see another one forming again soon. 4.) Conclusion: -From a scale of 1-10, 1 meaning sell, 10 meaning buy, I give AMD a solid 9. -Quarterly earning was very strong but sell off occurred due to a possible over reaction of AMD losing market share to Intel. -Their quarterly earning showed an increase in revenue as well as they had destroyed their EPS. -From their last quarterly around this time they have increased their revenue by a whopping 58%. ~I am not a financial advisor, but BUY THIS STOCK. ~GL and wake me when we sell, Master Chef out.
NASDAQ:AMDLong
by MasterChef23
6
$SPY: All time highs everywhere and not a dip to spare...AMEX:SPY The market is already rampant with speculation but here's my two cents. I know the danger that exists and trying to call the top but at this point, it almost seems inevitable that the time is near for the S&P 500 to retrace. Many of what I would call legitimate bearish signals have been rejected repeatedly leading to higher price levels. This, though frustrating for technical traders, isn't unfathomable considering that the perceived risk in the market is extremely low unlimited QE coupled with low-interest rates and an increase in individual investors has led to the markets having a level of liquidity that supports this growth and current bullish sentiment. In fact, when examining the chart it does look like the S&P 500 actually does have some more room left to the outside but at this point that room is limited and it coincides with the psychological price resistance level of $400 ($392-$408 is what I predict to be the reversal point range). At that price, $SPY will be in the range of fib extension levels that commonly signal the completion of a cycle - and looking at the chart, it does appear that the S&P 500 is possibly completing the third impulse wave of a larger multi-year cycle. At the moment, there are several divergences on multiple time frames and much of the rise in price over the last week (five days of positive price movement ending with a 4.7% gain for the week) is contrasted by reducing volume with sell volume often higher the buy volume. CBOE:VIX has returned to a strong support level which could mean another pop in volatility around the corner which could trigger a sell-off driving SPY lower into April . That being said, lack of bearish catalyst and influx of individual investors into the markets could extend the rally well into the year before wave completion. I would suggest treading carefully here trimming position and building a hedge. Puts on $SPY do not have a track record for being profitable so I would recommend rather buying AMEX:UVXY as a hedge or if not deterred by the past performance of SPY puts, ITM puts with expiration dates at least 3 months out could sufficiently counterbalance any incoming market turbulence. Short-term calls may be on fire this week but with limited upside, as it is hard to imagine the S&P 500 can extend this run after a five-day streak without any significant pullback. (Believe it or not, this is actually the abbreviated version of my analysis but it is Sunday morning and I should probably be doing other things besides charting right now tl;dr SPY will likely overextend itself on the push to $400 before volatility returns. Margin Debt, 10yr Treasury Rate, Inflation, CBOE:VIX , S&P 500 PE Ratio all on watch. Sharp correction possible by April.
AMEX:SPYShort
by myceliium
2
Pattern Day Trader RuleI’m Markus Heitkoetter and I’ve been an active trader for over 20 years. I often see people who start trading and expect their accounts to explode, based on promises and hype they see in ads and e-mails. They start trading and realize it doesn’t work this way. The purpose of these articles is to show you the trading strategies and tools that I personally use to trade my own account so that you can grow your own account systematically. Real money…real trades. Now I want to talk to you about the pattern day trader rule because this rule requires that you have at least $25,000 in your trading account if you are day trading. Here’s the tricky part. The tricky part is that you could trigger this rule even if you’re only swing trading, and not day trading, which is why it’s important that you are aware of what the pattern day trader rule is. I will give you examples of what can trigger it, even if it’s accidentally, and I’ll break down what then happens if you trigger it. Most importantly, I want you to be aware of how you can avoid it. What Is The Pattern Day Trader Rule? So what is the pattern day trader rule? According to FINRA, who set the rule, a pattern day trader is a trader if you execute 4 or more day trades in 5 trading days. So if you execute 4 or more day trades in 5 trading days, then you’re being flagged as a pattern day trader. This is not a good thing. So what actually is a day trade? A day trade is a trade that you open and close, during a trading day. So as an example, if you buy a stock at the open, at 9:30 Eastern Time, and then sell it before 4:00 pm Eastern Time, you are placing a day trade. Now, very, very important: this whole rule only applies to stocks and options. It does not apply to futures, forex, or binary options. It only applies to stocks and options. How To Trigger The Pattern Day Trader Rule How can you actually trigger this rule even if you’re swing trading? Well, it actually happened to me very recently. My head coach, Mark Hodge, and I, we were trading with our Mastermind members. I asked Mark to place a trade in my account, but he accidentally placed it in the wrong account. When something like this happens, I have a rule. “When you make a mistake, liquidate.” So I asked Mark to close the position, and when he did that counted as a day trade. So we opened the trade, realized we made a mistake and closed it right away. This lead to me having one strike in this account. And again, if we would get 4 strikes within 5 business days, then we are flagged as pattern day traders. Now, here’s another scenario. Let’s say that we enter a trade tomorrow and it hits the profit target or stop loss on the same day. So this would be another strike because now we are also entering and exiting during a trading day. So as you can see with this, even if you’re not day trading, it is possible that this could happen a few times. If this happens 4 times within 5 trading days, then you’re flagged as a pattern day trader. What Happens When You Trigger The PDT Rule? What happens when you trigger this rule? Well, first of all, if you have more than $25,000 in your account, nothing happens. This is because the pattern day trader rule says, if you are a pattern day trader, then you need to have $25,000 in your account. Now if you don’t have $25,000 in your account, then you will be restricted to trade on a cash basis only for 90 days. What does this mean? Well, see, as a day trader, you actually do need a margin account, and when you trigger the pattern day trader rule and cannot put $25,000 in there, this means that now you are restricted to trading with cash only. So let me give you an example. Let’s say you are trading the Wheel trading strategy, and you put $20,000 in an account. This means if you put it into a margin account, that you get $40,000 in buying power. So when you trigger the day trading pattern rule, you no longer get this buying power here, the 2:1 leverage. You are now basically going back to whatever cash you put in there when you trigger this rule. How To Avoid Triggering The PDT Rule? Now the question is, how can you avoid this? Well, and I want to give you three tips for how to avoid it. Number one, have $25,000 in your account because if you have $25,000 in the account, then triggering the rule won’t matter. What about if you don’t. Number two, you want to make sure that you count the number of day trades. Leave the date you placed a day trade on a sticky note, and count the number of day trades that you do even if it is accidental, so you can keep track of how many strikes you have. Number three, you can avoid it here by trading a cash account. So if you’re not trading a margin account, you don’t have to worry about it. Then, of course, if you are trading futures, forex, bitcoins, so cryptocurrencies, or if you are trading binary options, this is also when the day trading pattern rule does not really matter. Summary Now you know what the pattern day trader rule is, how you can trigger it, even if it is accidentally, what happens when you trigger it, and how you can avoid this. So let me ask you this, at this point, was this helpful at all? If so, feel free to share this video on Facebook, on Twitter, and I’ll see you for the next article.
NASDAQ:NDXEducation
by rockwelltrading
1
Put Option Plan for $GMEI invested in $GME and Initially when I first heard it trended massively, My instant thought was to short the stock because of the obvious overvalue of the company. I went into the situation oblivious to what was actually the WSB's community moving in on the stock. After a lot of research I learned what was going on and gained a complete understanding of the situation at hand and decided to move in. I believe the stock will end its shine by the end of this week, with that thought I came up with my strategy to purchase 2 put option's. I've been day trading for about 4 to 5 months now, and what I have noticed some of the time in the market, is that; Say when the price of a stock is increasing rapidly, there's spots of selling pressure that occur in between Long Bullish sticks. The opening/ Closing price for these moments of selling pressure in a underlying Bullish trend, are points in price where the stock reacts differently around these resistance lines. I am planning on placing my puts strike price $37. The yellow lines represent the range I believe it will be traded in based on selling pressure points and movement around the resistance line off of the first initial Pump. Off Topic: My first time uploading a post here. Let me know what you think of it! Thanks for reading!
NYSE:GMEShort
by GreenDayTrade
1
Should I Buy GME Stock Right Now?I’m Markus Heitkoetter and I’ve been an active trader for over 20 years. I often see people who start trading and expect their accounts to explode, based on promises and hype they see in ads and e-mails. They start trading and realize it doesn’t work this way. The purpose of these articles is to show you the trading strategies and tools that I personally use to trade my own account so that you can grow your own account systematically. Real money…real trades. Let’s talk about GameStop GME because the stock’s gone absolutely crazy. I mean, yesterday, January 25th, it was up 144% before swinging into negative territory. Then it reversed again and closed up more than 18%. And today, it’s up another 22% to trade at $93.50. One month ago, it was trading around $20! So, today, I want to look at exactly what’s happening with GME, and let you know if it looks like a good time to buy the stock. What is Happening with GME? GME made its first big move in mid-January after adding Ryan Cohen to its board. This guy is the co-founder and former CEO of Chewy CHWY — the online pet supplies store — so he knows a lot about retail. The stock jumped from $20 to above $40 when that news hit, and this caught a lot of short-sellers off-guard. In fact, according to one CNBC article I read, GME is the most heavily shorted U.S. stock. The article states, “GameStop has been a popular short target on Wall Street. In fact, more than 138% of its float shares had been borrowed and sold short, the single most shorted name in the U.S. stock market.” What’s a Short Squeeze? For those that don’t know, short interest is when a trader bets against the stock, meaning they want it to go lower. To do this, they’ll borrow shares from their broker at one price. If the stock price falls, they can buy the shares back at a lower price to repay their broker and keep the difference as profit. But if the stock rallies, short sellers will have to buy back the shares at a higher price to limit losses. For stocks that are heavily shorted, this can create a sort of ripple effect: Because how do you close a “short trade”? Well, you SOLD the stock earlier so now you have to BUY it back. So when more shorts start covering, i.e. BUYING, the stock climbs higher and higher. This is the short squeeze. And in GME’s situation, as the stock rallied on good fundamental news, shorts started to cover. Then the Reddit crowd got involved. There’s a forum on Reddit called “WallStreetBets”, and their purpose is to, “make money and being amused while doing it.” Their words, not mine. As GME was rallying, online traders on Reddit began posting about the stock and buying it to manipulate the shorts. And as they bought the stock, the price soared, forcing more shorts to cover their positions, and again: This means that more people are BUYING. It’s not surprising there are a lot of traders upset about this manipulation. Famous short-seller Citron Research is one of them and said it would no longer comment on GME because of the “angry mob” on Reddit. Is GME a Buy or a Sell? Now, you could make an argument for GME stock to keep going higher. There are probably some shorts still hanging on. And fundamentally, the company did report solid holiday same-store sales and digital sales growth a few weeks back. But in reality, it’s dangerous to trade GME right now. For starters, look how overbought this stock is. And a lot of times, when these stocks fall, they fall fast. Remember Eastman Kodak KODK last summer when it went from $2 to $60 in two days. And then back down to $6 a month later. And implied volatility is all over the place. This means options premiums are crazy high right now for options buyers. But it’s not a good time to sell options, either, because it’s hard to pinpoint levels of support or resistance. So, yes, you could have made a lot of money trying to trade GME stock, but you could’ve lost a lot of money, too. And whenever I see a parabolic move as we’ve seen in GME , I leave it alone. The risk is simply not worth it. Because at some point, the Reddit traders might lose interest in this stock. So they would just sell it and move on to the next stock, and that could make the stock crash. After all, there are 2.3MM people in this group! More Stocks to Watch Before we go, I just want to check out some more of these “short squeeze” stocks that have been volatile this week. The first is Palantir PLTR , which ran from $26 to almost $40 in two days. Today, the stock is down 3% at $35.12. Another is BlackBerry BB . BB stock ran from $7.50 in mid-January to above $20 yesterday — its highest level since 2011. Today, the stock is up 3.6% at $18.60. And here’s Bed Bath & Beyond BBBY , which was trading around $18 earlier this month, but hit a three-year high near $48 yesterday. Today, BBBY is up 0.1% at $30.68. Finally, there’s AMC AMC . It was trading below $2 at the start of the month and hit a high of $5.19 earlier today. While I’m not going to be trading these stocks because of the risk involved, I’ll certainly be keeping my eye on them.
NYSE:GME
by rockwelltrading
4
Covered Calls For BeginnersI’m Markus Heitkoetter and I’ve been an active trader for over 20 years. I often see people who start trading and expect their accounts to explode, based on promises and hype they see in ads and e-mails. They start trading and realize it doesn’t work this way. The purpose of these articles is to show you the trading strategies and tools that I personally use to trade my own account so that you can grow your own account systematically. Real money…real trades. Covered Call For Beginners For good reason, the covered call strategy is one of the first option strategies that new traders start trading. This is an effective strategy that options traders often use to provide income on stocks they already own. Questions to be considered in this article: - What Is A Covered Call? - Should You Trade It? - Specific Example Can You Do It In A Retirement Account, EG, IRA? What Is A Covered Call? A covered call is an options strategy used traders to produce income on stocks on long stocks held in their portfolio. This strategy is used by traders who believe that stock prices are unlikely to rise in the short term. A covered call strategy is defined as holding a long position in stock while simultaneously selling a call option on that same asset. This strategy can provide income to a trader who is long term bullish on stocks but doesn’t believe there will be a significant increase in price immediately. A covered call will limit a trader’s potential upside profit if there is a significant move in the price of the stock upwards. This strategy provides little to no protection if the asset price moves downwards. Covered Call Example For the specific example that we’re going to cover today, we’ll take a look at JP Morgan JPM . The price information reflects the price of JPM back in July at the original time of writing for this guide but is just being used as an example If you were holding JPM stock in your portfolio before the pandemic, chances are that you are currently underwater. DISCLAIMER ***For the purpose of full transparency, I do not own or hold any JPM stocks*** I typically only hold stocks between 5 and 25 days. Stock Price Movement Recap For this example, we’re going to assume that I own 100 shares of JPM . If I were to purchase 100 shares for $96 it would mean that the capital requirement for this position is $9600. You’re probably familiar with the way profits move in relation to stock prices… but just to be safe: - If the stock increased to $106, or $10, I would earn $1000. - If the stock increased to $116, or $20, I would earn $2000. - If the stock decreased to $86, or -$10, I would lose $-1000. How Does A Covered Call Work? Sell one call option contract for every 100 shares of the underlying stock in your portfolio. The contract selected would ideally have a short expiration date of 7 days. You would choose an “out of the money” call at a higher strike than the current price of the stock. When choosing this strike price, you would typically choose a price at least one standard deviation away from the current strike price. In other words, choosing a strike price that you do not believe the current strike price will exceed before the date of expiration. If you’d like to learn more about this options strategy, or options in general, I have an awesome Options 101 Course. What’s the benefit of having a Covered Call for the stocks in my portfolio? It’s simple really. When you sell a call option contract, you will receive a premium. This strategy generates income when you don’t expect to profit from the movement of the underlying stock price. In this example with JPM , I received a premium of $55 for selling a call option contract at the price of $116. Provided that the underlying strike price does not move above $116, the contract will expire worthlessly and I will keep the premium I collected by selling the options contract. Let’s take a look at how a covered call will affect your portfolio with the same stock movements. - If the stock increased to $106, or moves $10, I would earn $1000 plus the $55 - If the stock increased to $116, or moves $20, I would earn $2000 plus the 55 - If the stock decreased to $86, or moves -$10, I would lose $-1000 but keep the $55 for a total loss of -$945 Why does this work? If you take the entire amount of premium you received and divide it by the number of days between no and contract expiration, you come up with a number like this: $55 dollars in 7 = $8(ish) per day. This covered call contract is paying us $8 dollars per day. If you take the $8 dollars, divide that by your total capital investment of $9,600 it equals 0.08%. This may not sound too incredible, but… If we do some basic arithmetic and take 0.08% and multiply that by 360 trading days per year, you end up with a return of over 30%. This is in addition to what you earned from the growth of the stock. On some stocks, it’s possible to earn upwards of $20 per day. This could increase annual returns in excess of 40% to 50% Does this sound a little more exciting? YES! Should you trade it? ABSOLUTELY! BUT…. There is a risk associated with this strategy. If there is a large movement of the underlying stock price that surpasses the strike price of your call option contract, you will be forced to sell your shares at this price. This would limit your upside potential to the difference between the current stock price and the price of the call option contract. Example: If the price of the stock went up to $117 (past the $116 call option) and the options contract expires, your stocks will be sold $117. This means you would earn $1,100 + $55, or $1,155. In other words, you would lose $100 for every $1 the strike priced moved above your call option contract. The silver lining is that you can probably buy your stock back the next day if you wanted to hold them long term. This type of trade can be taken inside of your retirement account such as an IRA, which provides you with another way to grow your account conservatively.
NYSE:JPMEducation
by rockwelltrading
DKNG split chart 4hr and WeeklyBullish. Let me just lead with that. I've played numerous calls over the last few months. Huge fan of the stock, the chart, and the company. So of course I am back ready for more calls. $DKNG follows $PENN a lot don't forget that. Right now I am watching: jAN 22 $55 WEEKLY CALL FEB 19 $60 CALL Most of my target calls I will not even think about until Thursday or Friday. On the top chart, the 4 hour, top resistance setting it at the $55.19. Bottom support should be around the low $44 area. The moving averages are packed very tightly - they appear to have flattened out and are trying to turn sideways. Bottom chart, I went with the weekly, because I wanted to show the volume trend over the life of the stock. Notice the peaks between Sept-Nov an the gradual cool down since then. Would like to see some of that range come back. $DKNG.
NASDAQ:DKNGLong
by BradWeber82