As January gets under way, it’s time to review positions with January options that remain open (haven’t already hit profit targets or been stopped out). I'm getting started a little earlier this month because January expiration is on the 15th, and we're currently only 18 days until expiration. I don't want to wait through another long weekend before taking action. That's cutting it too close to expiration for my taste.

Most trades I put on for All Star Options tend to have a minimum duration of 30 days (short premium plays) and often as long as 6-8 months (for long premium plays). As options approach expiration, greeks like theta and gamma start to become my enemy and whipsaw my P/L. Therefore, as options and spreads get into the expiration month, my best practice is to put each position on notice — it’s time to take action.

Wow, after a few months in a row of not much to worry about heading into expiration, this month will keep us busy. At the time of this writing, I've got 5 positions that need continued monitoring (thankfully they are profitable) and a few that need to be closed now.

The rest have already hit our profit targets or stop loss levels. In...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Louis Sykes @haumicharts

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to this exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it’s a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

Seeing as the year is coming to a close, here's a short list of some lessons I'm taking away from this hectic 2020:

1. I know a lot less than I what think I do.
    
2. Relative strength is a lot more important than what I thought it was. People who followed relative strength in 2020 were the big winners. Seeing those names keeping their heads above water in March lead markets higher.
    
3. To not be scared of new highs and the danger of the attitude that something's "gone too far too fast". Where do you draw the line on whether something's gone too far? 20%, 50%, 100%? These are emotional levels, not rational ones.
    
4. You're never chasing if you're buying a breakout.
    
5. Don't try to be smarter than what I really am. Popular momentum names were continually showing up in my scans, but I refused to buy them. Instead, I was looking at names that didn't have as much coverage thinking it made me somehow intellectually superior (spoiler, it...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

We recently held December’s Monthly Conference Call which our Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll provide a summary of the call by highlighting 5 of the most important charts/topics we covered along with commentary on each.

Let’s dive into it.

This week we're looking at a long setup in the IT sector that is witnessing a good move. 

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in mid-July to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

"JC, how can you be buying stocks up here?"

"JC, stocks are overvalued"

"JC, stocks have gone too far too fast"

"JC, aren't we due for a correction?"

I've heard some version of this every single day since the Spring.

These are the types of questions that come my way during bull markets. I don't get them when stocks are in downtrends, that's for sure. Different types of questions come in those environments (How low can we go? Aren't we due for a bounce? etc)

It's a new year right? The holidays are over. Make your donations, help whichever causes are most important to you, and now dedicate a little bit of selfish time to improve your own life.

Social Media can be a very valuable tool. It can also lead to frustration, misallocation of time & energy, and in many cases even depression.

Unfortunately these days, I hear more negativity about social media than I hear positive things. But that's not the platform's fault. It's your fault. We curate our own streams. We decide what we want to read and who we want to follow and interact with.

If your social media experience is causing you anxiety, then you're doing it wrong.

If your social media experience is anything other than inspiring, educational and rewarding, then you're doing it wrong.

If you find yourself constantly getting angry at something you read or someone you follow, then you're doing it wrong.

If you're not learning every day from the people you follow, you're doing it wrong.

Social Media should be a very selfish endeavor. We're here to help ourselves and we're here to help others. If anything else is...

We held our December Monthly Conference Call on 22nd which our Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we'll share five of the most important charts along with JC's commentary of them and a brief explanation for each.

The team at All Star Charts has launched a new report called the Minor Leaguers Report. This report will highlight small stocks showing signs of making the jump to the Big Leagues!

If the success of the Under the Hood report is any indication, I for one am very excited to have this expanded universe to pick stocks for making options plays.

Have you noticed that Consumer Staples are working on their lowest levels relative to S&Ps in over a decade?

Remember, underperformance from Staples is a classic characteristic of strong uptrending stock markets, which I'm not sure if you've noticed, we've been in. 

Last week I went into detail about what we're looking for as a sign of a market correction. In fact, I showed 4 important factors we're watching. Make sure you're caught up on those here.

Today, I'd like to point out how one of those 4 signs continues to flash Green, meaning: Buy Stocks.

Here is the relative strength of Consumer Staples inverted. When the black line is moving up, Staples are underperforming. When the black line is moving down, Staples are outperforming. As you can see, underperforming Consumer Staples is consistent with higher stock prices and the opposite is also true, when Staples are outperforming stocks are usually under pressure.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

In a further effort to identify individual equities that fit within our larger more Macro thesis, we couldn't be happier to roll out and share our latest bottoms-up scan: "The Minor Leaguers."

We'll also be writing a post every other week where we outline some of our favorite setups from the watchlist. This is the first edition.

Moving forward, we'll be rotating this column with "Under The Hood" each week.

In order to make it onto our Minor League list you must have a market cap between $1 and $2B. There are also price and liquidity filters.

Then, we simply sort the stocks by their percentage from new highs. Easy.

And what better time than now to launch a small-cap focused column!? We've seen very strong evidence of a structural rotation down the market cap scale, suggesting a new period of outperformance from small-caps in recent months/quarters.

This should be a great way to take advantage of that trend. Let's dive right in!

Here'...

It's that time of the year again. This is when we hear things like the "January Effect", the "First 5 Days of the Year Indicator", "Santa Claus Rally", "January Barometer" and all sorts of seasonal-type conversations.

Remember, we're right in the heart of "The Best 3 Month Period of the Year". You always hear, "Sell in May and Go Away", but as we pointed out on Nov 6th, it's waaaay more important to "Remember to Buy in November", or "Buy in October and Get Yourself Sober". Either one of those works.

Wall Streeters have all kinds of silly sayings to help remember important things. "The trend is your friend", "Don't fight the Fed", and "Bottom Fishing Can Be Hazardous To Your Wealth" are all good ones that you've probably heard before.

Today I want to talk about the significance of the Santa Claus Rally, and the fact that it might not even come at all. And that in and of itself would be the signal.

Let me explain.

This week Howard and I discuss what "Technology" actually means. With companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook representing ZERO PERCENT of the Technology Index, people continue to group them into Tech regardless.

Is that right? Should we ignore Dow Jones and their weightings? Or is it important to acknowledge which stocks are in these indexes and which ones aren't?

When asked about underperformance from Europe and Emerging Markets, Howard says "I filter the world to only see what's working. I'm all about investing for profit and joy, not misery and pain"

This was a fun chat.

Here's the video in full:

We've liked the Consumer Durables space for several months now and the sector is finally accelerating to the upside in December.

Today we're highlighting major breakouts in two of the sector's top names, Havells and Titan.

Let's get into the charts and how we're trading them.

This is the video recording of the December 2020 Conference Call.