Awesome!!

There aren’t any buy signals for the Nasdaq 100, which is doing its own thing as it is in an uptrend making new highs on a near-daily basis. For the other indices, like SPY & IWM, I have been highlighting potential breakout levels such as the recent multi-month sideways range on the broad market, 146-146 on IWM, etc.. I’ve also shared my thoughts on how likely those buy signals will stick, if we get them. As of today, SPY has moved above the top of the trading range but the DJIA hasn’t nor have the small-caps cleared 145/146.

and the VIX is showing some relative strength here (AAPL and AMZN both upgraded today shocker) welcome to 1999?

I’m not a big fan of options. As I like to say, it’s one thing to get the call right on WHERE a stock or index is headed but it brings in a whole other level of difficultly when trying to also nail the timing on WHEN it will get there. Hence, my preference for trading individual stocks, ETFs, & futures as you can be wrong on the timing but as long as the trade doesn’t move beyond your stop, you can be right on the trade, even if it takes longer than expected to get to your target.
We did get what appeared to be solid sell signals on the market back on June 11th but since then, SPY never took out the next support levels & has traded in a multi-month sideways range. As of today, it has popped above the range (breakout) in what appears to be a potential blow-off top in the beloved FAAMG stocks plus a few other crowd favorites like TSLA & NFLX. I highlight suspect this will end badly & that end will come shortly but as of now, we just don’t have any sell signals in order to me to say with confidence that those SPY puts will start to pan out shortly. Basically, you’re approaching the theta-burn period on those July contracts so unless the market reverses & reversed very hard soon, they will likely continue to bleed down at a rapid clip.

Cocoa offering an objective entry on the recent test & reversal off the uptrend line from the early 2017 lows on NIB (cocoa ETN) with /CC (futures) coming off a divergent low on the 60m chart.

IWM not confirming the move up

Buy signals are much harder to come by when the Nasdaq reaches all time highs and the market has run this far this fast. A “sell signal” doesn’t mean the market is going down, it means if the market makes a turn, this is a good place to do it. If you are shorting when Randy says “sell signal”, I don’t think you are interpreting his analysis correctly.

I totally agree. Long with stop below TL. Where have you been when it kissed that up TL? :) Also bear flag on your chart, but disregard it cuz it ain’t happening. Keep in mind that JPM has earnings on July 14.

I am not sure I follow, but I think the premise is that we can say the market has been flat on a longer time frame but then it swings about 40-50% in between. But we’re talking 7/27 puts here, so I thought maybe it’s important to consider a shorter time frame (I’ll explain below).

What I was trying to say, SPY has been bouncing between 300 and 317 since June, and more of 310 – 318 lately – tight range but that makes you $8 (loads of money) a contract if you buy at the top of the range sell at the bottom.

If you intend to buy a put option with 7/27 strike, you really want to nail your entry since you don’t have much time on those contracts. So if you buy puts, buy them at the top of the range. At least when it swings down to 300, you can compensate a theta burn on the contracts and make some extra.

Don’t get me wrong, there is enough volatility, SPY moves $3-4 you make good money, but those contracts are usually priced in to perfection anticipating that move, so you sacrifice to theta unless you have a good entry and better somewhere at the extreme reading, i.e top range – puts, bottom range – calls.