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Help Wanted: Unifier-in-Chief

Wanted: Renovator-in-Chief
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The Politics of Division has put our country in a bleak, dark, and scary funk. Where is Reagan’s “shining city on a hill?” What happened to Obama’s “There are no Red States, no Blue States, just the United States?” We desperately need a national Unifier-in-Chief for 2024.

Hiding in darkness that will continue to spread,
chasing away our fish,
draining life from the island
until every one of us is devoured
by the bloodthirsty jaws of 
inescapable death!

Grandma Tala (Movie: Moana)
(or DNC campaign strategy for the 2022 Mid-Terms)

Help Wanted: Unifier-in-Chief

Grandma Tala
(Movie: Moana)

I am Trade Trudging this 4th of July week. Feeling a bit patriotic (being Independence Day week and all), plus a shortened 4-day trading week, plus a host of other priority time commitments – I’m going to spend my little time this week ranting about our nation’s lack of optimism.

Commentary Content

Biden’s Pessimism

There is an ever-deepening pessimism that has been metastasizing throughout the core of our society over the past three years. The mood of the country is bleak, dark, and scary. We have deep voter cynicism, patriotism is unpatriotic, we are replacing law and order with social justice, high gas prices are intentional to goad us green, and our media’s overt contempt for the constitution has extinguished national pride. Our country is in a deep funk.

There appears to be a covert movement with our nation’s highest leaders to push the US to a new “Liberal World Order.” To achieve this nirvana level for our society, inflation across all sectors needs to be as high as possible, as long as possible, and as painful as possible to goad Americans to transition from fossil fuel to green energy – so says National Economic Council director Brian Deese. This is the Biden Administration Climate Change policy that cannot be announced.

The Democrat’s intentions are good, and I can agree with many of them, but their messaging SUCKS! The “Liberal World Order” (aka Marxism) has honorable intentions and worthy goals. Balancing our economic activities with material conditions sounds great, but with one problem – it can’t be done in a free society. Thus to have a successful Marxist economy, we must have a totalitarian form of government akin to Communism to make it work.

And so, my fellow Americans:
ask not what your country
can do for you –
ask what you
can do for your country. 

– President Kennedy for the inaugural address on January 20, 1961

I wonder what President Kennedy would say about the Democratic Party of today?

When Biden demanded via a tweet that gas station owners must lower their prices, he got support from the China Daily EU Bureau Chief, Chen Weihua. Weihua tweeted back, “Now US President finally realized that capitalism is all about exploitation.” I’m not sure what direction the Biden Agenda is taking us, but I’m pretty sure he was not elected to take us down this path.

Reagan’s Optimism

Where is Reagan’s “shining city on a hill?” What happened to Obama’s “There are no Red States, no Blue States, just the United States?” We need to start stoking our country’s self-worth and national optimism. We need leaders who will inspire confidence and restore America’s morale. We need a national Unifier-in-Chief for 2024.

I will not stand by and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose.

The time is now, my fellow Americans, to recapture our destiny, to take it into our own hands.

– Ronald Reagan’s Acceptance Speech to the 1980 Republican National Convention

Who Should It Be

Historically, in times like these, America comes up with a national figure who campaigns for change. Reagan did it in 1981, and Obama did it in 2008. The pursuit of happiness is our unalienable right.

The national leaders who, I believe, are the most divisive and the antithesis of national optimism and that I would not want to see in 2024 are Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer.

People want to be proud of their country, optimism is a winning strategy, and pessimism never won any battle. 

The people you love will change you.
The things you have learned will guide you.

Chief Tui (Movie: Moana)
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This Week’s Market Sentiment

This Market Sentiment Section is typically completed by midday Monday morning. By the time this journal is published, it will be a week old.

(As of 06/27/2022)

This section reviews five indicators: Ecopolitical events, VIX, Put/Call Ratio, Consumer Sentiment Index, the S&P 500, and how these could affect the market’s direction. Then, I will use these indicators to help guide my trading decisions for this week.

Each of my five indicators will “vote” on a DEFCON (Damocles Options Trading Readiness Signal) level, exclusive to that indicator. Then, In the final sub-section, “My sentiment for this coming week,” below, I’ll compile the votes into a DEFCON level for the week.

Ecopolitical Influencers

Ecopolitical (Sociopolitical-Economics) Influencers (EPIs) can be breaking news, political machinations, Federal Reserve musings, or even Twitter Trends. They are events that can abruptly change the dynamics of the current markets. U.S. political polarization’s impact on Wall Street cannot be glossed over.

EPIs are like a lit fuse to a bomb. The fuse can be fast or slow, and the bomb can easily be a dud. But I need to watch this closely as an indicator. The EPIs can significantly disrupt all the other indicators at the drop of a tweet.


Yikes – Yawns – Yays


Geopolitical


Socioeconomics 

The systemic issues keeping pressure on the markets have not changed: War in Ukraine, high/rising inflation, China shuttered, oil price high, and sucky Consumer Sentiment. So, I’m keeping with the DEFCON 2 until one of these five starts to let up.

ETS votes an optimistic DEFCON 2

VIX: Broad Market Volatility

The VIX is an emotion-gauge for the general investing population. It is thought to be driven by the Marketeers’ current level of greed or fear. As one-month forward-looking volatility, it is not designed to tell us which direction the market will move but rather how fast it can get there.

A VIX of 15% is assumed to be a market at rest. Since the intrinsic nature of the Stock Market is to move up, a VIX close to 15% or below will correspond with the market’s innate tendency to rise.

ThinkorSwim Chart: CBOE Market Volatility Index (VIX) – 07/03/2022

The 4-week trajectory of the VIX Regression Channel continued its track towards more volatility but has moderated over the past three weeks.

The VIX’s high volatility is good for collecting premiums or pushing the Short-Strike further out. However, this still confirms that a bear trajectory is likely for the next few weeks.

VIX above 30% is my demarcation for a DEFCON 2. But to get back to a DEFCON 3, the VIX needs to be below 30 and the 14-Day trajectory needs to move towards less volatility (which it is)

Being blind to all other indicators, I will vote for an optimistic DEFCON level 2

VIX votes a cautious DEFCON 3

Put/Call Ratio

Put Options are frequently used as protection against existing investments falling. When the ratio between Put Options bought and Call Options bought rises, this indicates that the Marketeers are buying insurance for what they may see as declining markets (or a pending market collapse). Conversely, when the Put/Call Ratio falls, there is a general sense that the broader markets will increase, and more investors are buying more than selling.

ThinkorSwim Chart: S&P 500 Put/Call Ratio – as of 07/03/2022

The Put/Call Ratio spiked early last week but recovered to the mid mark between trouble and safe.

Being all so slightly in the Good Shape region (or more specifically, not in the Nervous region), I will give this week’s indicator a cautious DEFCON 3.

Put/Call Ratio votes a cautious DEFCON 3

Investors’ Sentiment

Marketeers are people too. And when the economy is humming, investments are smoking. Conversely, when the economy is threatening their portfolios, they tend to run for cover.

Consumer Sentiment Index

A low Consumer Sentiment Index is a general dissatisfaction with our current management of U.S. economic policies. This dissatisfaction will imply that something has to change. A high satisfaction rating suggests approval of the current policy management and implies market stability. Surveys of Consumers (umich.edu)

Consumer Sentiment Index as of 06/24/2022

June’s final results weren’t too much different from the preliminaries reported two weeks ago. But it is still over 14% down from last month and over 41% down from last year. As a trajectory, these levels continue to showcase the doldrums of Biden/Progressive financial policies.

Misery Index

With the copious amount of economic pressures throughout the nation this year (inflation, employment, interest rates, etc.), knowing what the Misery Index is, and what direction the index is moving can cast a long shadow on Marketeer’s sentiment. Numbers are coming from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov).

Misery Index = 12.2% (8.6% + 3.6%). Slightly up from 12.1% last month.
(Note: Ideally, the Misery Index should be well below 10% for a growing economy.)

The Misery Index continues to climb as half of all consumers believe our economy is moving in the wrong direction.

CSI votes a dismal DEFCON 2

Market Trajectories

The S&P 500 is a stock market index that tracks the 500 largest companies in the U.S. This index represents about 80% of all the capitalization for the country. The S&P is widely considered the best indicator of how all the U.S. markets are performing.

The Russell 2000 Index is commonly considered an indicator of the U.S. economic direction due to its focus on small-cap companies. The growth potential of small-cap stocks is attractive to Marketeers when economic expansion is expected. These same small-cap stocks are also the first to be jettisoned at the start of economic turmoil.

S&P 500 (SPX) = 3825 – down 2.2% from 3912 last week. (4 weeks deviation: 150 down from 184 last week)
Russell 2000 (RUT) = 1728 – down 2.2% from 1766 last week. (4 weeks deviation: 80 down from 91 last week)

ThinkorSwim Chart: Daily S&P 500 Index
Four/Two Months Trend (Updated 07/03/2022)
ThinkorSwim Chart: Daily Russell 2000 Index
Four/Two Months Trend (Updated 07/03/2022)

Market Performance

4 Weeks Thrashing of SPX = +/- 150 points or 3.9% of the market’s volume is down from 4.7% last week.
4 Weeks Thrashing of RUT = +/- 80 points or 4.6% of the market’s volume is down from 5.1% last week
(Market Thrashing below 1.0% might be a confirmation of the markets moving mostly sideways.)

Dropping 2.2% was a correction to the 6% pop from the week before. All told, for the volatile past two weeks, the trajectory is still bearish.

Last week’s drop of 2.2% did not take away the nice run the week before. This might be a sign that the Marketeers are seeing a slowdown in the bear trajectory in the near future. But I would not count on that until I see a high volume of cash returning to the markets.

Being blind to all other indicators, I’ll go with an optimistic DEFCON 2.

Market Index votes an optimistic DEFCON 2

My sentiment for this coming week:

Of the five indicators:

All my technical indicators showed depressed Markets.

Trading Readiness Level for this week

Optimistic DEFCON 2

This Week’s Guidance

  1. Open one Vertical Bear Call Credit Spreads (limited to OBP)
  2. Open one Iron Condor (limited to OBP)

Entry Rules

Vertical Bear Call Credit Spread (DEFCON 1, 2):
Iron Condors (DEFCON 2, 3, 4):
Vertical Bull Put Credit Spreads (DEFCON 4, 5):

Exit Rules:

(Note: The markets have been collapsing for over four months, and I do not think we are toying with the bottom yet. Therefore, it will be unwise to roll any Bull Spreads.)







Profit and Loss Statements

(As of 07/08/2022)

Cash Balance Sheet

Year
2022
Month
Jun
Week
#27
Beginning Account Balance$28,000.00$16,656.05$16,656.05
Deposits (Div. & Int.)$1.29$0.00$0.00
Withdraws1, 2-$3,152.19-$0.00-$0.00
Premiums on Open$11,975.00$0.00$0.00
Premiums on Close-20,083.20-$0.00-$0.00
Fees Paid (total)-$84.85-$0.00-$0.00
Ending Account Balance$16,656.05$16,656.05$16,656.05
Total Gain/Loss-$11,343.95$0.00$0.00
ROR0.0%0.0%
ROC-40.5%
1 Paycheck = 22.5% of initial investment paid out monthly
2 Margin Interest Payments

Note: no new Spreads opened this week.

Cash Flow Chart

YOD Vertical Credit Spreads Cash-Flow Chart – As of 07/08/2022 (Excel Chart)

Note: Negative weeks 4, 8, 12, and 25 were solely from withdrawing my monthly paycheck. The other negative weeks are from losing positions plus monthly paychecks.

My Performance vs. SPY

Hypothetically, instead of depositing $28,000 in my Options Trading Account, could I have done better if I bought $28,000 of the ETF/SPY instead?

Options Trading
Account
SPY
(Fictional)
Initial Investment
(As of Jan 4, 2021)
$28,000.00
(Cash)
$28,000.00
(58.9523 shares @ $474.96)
Funds Added$11,976.29
(Premiums)
0.41 shares
(Dividends Reinvested)
Funds Removed-$20,168.05
(Early Close & Fees)
$0
(Fractional Shares Sold)
Market Changes-$777.00
(Open Spreads’ Fair Market Value )
-$5,230.45
(Gain/Loss)
Ending Balance$19,031.24
(Mark-To-Market)
$22,749.55
(59.3596 shares * $383.25 CV)
ROI-32.0%-18.8%
As of 07/07/2022, 06:19 AM







Schedule for this Week

Goals for this week: (07/05/2022 – 07/08/2022) (Week #27)

Monday:

Tuesday – Thursday:

Friday:

This Week’s Trade Activity

(As of 07/08/2022)

Spread Count Summary:

Year
2022
Month
Jul
Week
#27
Vertical Bull Put Credit Spreads2500
Vertical Bear Call Credit Spreads1300
Iron Condors300
Total4100

Note: no new Spreads this week.

Current Dollars at Risk:

Year
2022
Month
Jul
Week
#27
Vertical Bull Put Credit Spread$0.$0.$0.
Vertical Bear Call Credit Spread$11,185.$0.$0.
Iron Condor$2,387.$0.$0.
Total Dollar Risk$13,572.$0.$0.
Max Risk Allowed$28,000.N/A$4,000.

Note: no new Spreads this week.

Options Buying Power:

Unallocated dollars available to open new Vertical Credit Spreads:

Current Cash Balance$16,656
Set-Aside Dollars for Existing Spreads-$14,000
Cash Available for New Spreads$2,656
(Options Buying Power)







Vertical Spreads Opened This Week

(06/27/2022 – 07/01/2022)

No new Spreads opened this week. The primary reason is the lack of available at-risk cash (Options Purchasing Power = $1,656).

Note: this is the place I got into when I had such a massive losing month in May.

Vertical Spreads Currently Cooking

(As of 07/08/2022)

QQQ:320c/330c/X2 – Open 06/29/2022 – Expires 08/19/22 – Max Gain = $158.00 – Open Price = 281.85
(Vertical Bear Call Credit Spread)
At Open: Prob. OTM= 89.8, Headroom= +13.5%, Max Loss= $1,842, AROR= 60.6%
Now: Prob. OTM= 87.3%, Headroom= +10.8%

QQQ:325c/335c/X2 – Open 06/21/2022 – Expires 08/19/22 – Max Gain = $162.00 – Open Price = 282.21
(Vertical Bear Call Credit Spread)
At Open: Prob. OTM= 90.3, Headroom= +15.2%, Max Loss= $1,838, AROR= 53.9%
Now: Prob. OTM= 90.8%, Headroom= +12.5%

DIA:335c/345c/X2 – Open 06/30/2022 – Expires 08/12/22 – Max Gain = $120.00 – Open Price = 307.90
(Vertical Bear Call Credit Spread)
At Open: Prob. OTM= 91.3, Headroom= +8.8%, Max Loss= $1,880, AROR= 53.3%
Now: Prob. OTM= 91.7%, Headroom= +7.9%

SPY:415c/425c/X2 – Open 06/23/2022 – Expires 08/05/22 – Max Gain = $160.00 – Open Price = $376.95
(Vertical Bear Call Credit Spread)
At Open: Prob. OTM= 89.8, Headroom= +10.0%, Max Loss= $1,840, AROR= 72.9%
Now: Prob. OTM= 91.5%, Headroom= +8.3%

IWM:190c/200c/X3 – Open 06/15/22 – Expires 07/29/22 – Max Gain = $148.00 – Open Price = 379.29
(Vertical Bear Call Credit Spread)
At Open: Prob. OTM= 92.7, Headroom= +15.1%, Max Loss= $2,859, AROR= 41.0%
Now: Prob. OTM= 94.6%, Headroom= +10.8%

SPY:420c/430c/X1 – Open 06/15/22 – Expires 07/29/22 – Max Gain = $74.00 – Open Price = 379.29
(Vertical Bear Call Credit Spread)
At Open: Prob. OTM= 91.2, Headroom= +10.7%, Max Loss= $926.00, AROR= 65.4%
Now: Prob. OTM= 96.3%, Headroom= +9.6%

SPY:445c/455c/355p/345p  – Open 06/08/22 – Expires 07/22/22 – Max Gain = $145.00 – Open Price = 415.60
(Iron Condor)
At Open: Prob. OTM= 87.8, Headroom= +7.2%c/-14.5%p, Max Loss= $857.00, AROR= 138.4%
Now: Prob. OTM= 99.8%c /89.0%p, Headroom= +16.1c% / -7.0%p

QQQ:345c/355c/255p/245p  – Open 06/07/22 – Expires 07/22/22 – Max Gain = $122.00 – Open Price = 310.16
(Iron Condor)
At Open: Prob. OTM= 90.5, Headroom= +11.3%c/-17.7%p, Max Loss= $880.00, AROR= 110.6%
Now: Prob. OTM= 99.9%c /92.8%p, Headroom= +19.5c% / -11.7%p







Vertical Spreads Closed This Week

(As of 07/08/2022)

SPY:440c/450c/355p/345p  – Open 06/01/22 – Expires 07/08/22 – Max Gain = $134.00 – Open Price = 409.59
(Iron Condor)
At Open: Prob. OTM= 89.3%, Headroom= +7.3%c / -13.4%p, Max Loss= $868.00, AROR= 150.4%
At Close: Prob. OTM= 99.9%, Headroom= +15.4c/-7.4p, AROR= 150.4%

Income to open: $1.34 premium collected * 100 shares * 1 contracts = $134.00
Cost to close: $0.00 premium paid * 100 shares * 1 contracts = $0.00 (expired worthlessly)
Net Profit = $134.00 to open – $0.00 to close – $2.00 fees = $132.00
AROR = ($132.00 / 37 days in play) *365 / $868.00 = 150.0%

Conclusion

Can selling options for income be considered a Home Business? Can I make money at home by selling Vertical Bull Put Credit Options Spreads? These are questions that I am trying to answer for myself.

Three years ago, I set out on a task to see if I could make a retirement income from home by trading Stock Options. I was an Options Trading Beginner, began with NO knowledge of Options mechanics and only $8,000 to risk. And because I learn best when I write things down, I have documented every step of the way (every bonehead mistake, process epiphanies, interconnecting events, externalities, and so on).

This blog is my Options Trading Journal for beginners (me). I will record my weekly Options contract buys and sells in hopes of gaining experience.

Experience is the ability to recognize that
I’m about to make the same mistake again.

– Damocles

Disclaimer

Even though I have tried to make it clear that this blog is my personal trading journal, it has been suggested by others that I, nevertheless, include a general disclaimer. So here goes…

“This blog and the information contained herein are not intended to be a source of advice or analysis concerning the material presented. The information and/or documents contained in the blog do not constitute investment advice.”







OptionsTradesByDamocles.com

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