Profits Only, Please!!!

I have spent the last 2 years trying to figure this day trading with options thing out. I hit an ultimate low this past Tuesday and felt lost. With options, there are opportunities to make money on upward and downward movement. The 2 biggest problems is timing and expectation. You can be a little off with timing and may still be alright if your anticipation of the movement is correct.

Timing

How long will a move last? When will there be a change in direction? The key is going in direction of strength. There are upward and downward movements all day everyday. The overall market is inclined to move upward, but not every stock is going to move in that direction at the same time. Therefore it is best to look for the right times to buy calls and do not buy puts until there is a fundamental change. Many stocks look like they are changing direction when they are just gearing up to make a stronger move in the same direction. JP Morgan is a perfect example of this over the past month.

There are times of a bear market or recession. During that time, call options will not make sense and you should only buy put options. This occurs when there is a fundamental change in the market such as bank failure, rise in interest rates, decline in earnings, disaster, war...

Expectations

Most of the time, it is not realistic to expect a higher high. Many times a new high is not that much higher than the previous high. Many times a stock is approaching a new high but fails to reach it. I could keep going because there are so many reasons why a stock might change direction. There are times when a new trading range is established and that is when the new high is not only past, but blown away. This happened this year with Disney, Microsoft, Walmart and Home Depot.

How do you get timing and expectation right?

As I have mentioned many times, you do not want to buy options in the morning when the market opens. It is important to wait and recognize what direction the market is going and what direction the stocks you are watching are going. There are really 2 types of movement: Bounce and Breakout.

Bounce

Stocks will bounce off of a resistance level either on the upside to signal a move downward or on the downside to signal a move upward. Some days, mainly on Tuesday's, there is a V movement. It might happen early or midday, but either way is the harder one to trade because it doesn't double test the spot it moved off like a typical day. Sometimes this bounce doesn't happen until late in the day and sets you up for the remainder of the week. Boeing is great for having limited downward movement and making a clear bottom before moving upwards for most of the day.

Breakout

A stock breaks out when it has a sharp movement followed by additional green candles in the same direction. When there is a breakout, it is important to wait for a movement in the opposite direction before trading in the direction the stock wants to go. You should expect 2 more sharp upward movement with minor pullbacks after you enter.

Whether you are trading calls or puts, on stocks or ETFs, it is important to get the direction correct. One stock is independent of others and just because one goes up in a sector, doesn't mean they all will. The opposite is true about downward movement.

Do not get greedy!!!

Take your profits, but don't be alarmed if there is a retest when you see your option prices go back to where you bought it. If you picked the wrong direction, get out quickly to trade another day. Do not trade too many different contracts that make it difficult to keep tabs on and end of losing more money. Practice the KISS method. Keep It Super Simple. It's OK to go small until you are comfortable with your decisions. Small wins are always better than a loss. Huge losses will have you finding another career quickly.

Let Do This!!!

Many Opportunities to Profit

I typically narow in on one or two stocks daily to profit from options. I feel it is best to know a stock so good that you recognize patterns that occur with it on a daily basis. I like using JP Morgan, I quit using Alphabet, Verizon is a fun one to make money on daily, Boeing is another one that moves and looks predictable,... I could go on and on. You can make money with options based on news for the day too.

Apple

Apple got a justified downgrade today based on limited device sales moving forward. That only makes sense if their service revenue is based on products that you get free other places and I could go on from there, but the point is Apple was set to open lower and probably fall further today. It failed to move up at open, so it was profitable to buy put options with a strike price of 200. You would have made a nice profit if you sold them when it reached 198. You could have made some money with 200 calls if bought at the bottom and sold when it peaked around 200.34. I did not investigate the options on it, but should have. See my chart to the right.

Boeing

Boeing has continues to have negatice news as a result of the grounding of the 737 Max. If somethinng makes the market negatice, Boeing likes going down with it.

Boeing had some nice movement up from the opening price, but failed to go hgher on the retest which would have been a great opportunity to buy put options. Call options could hav been purchased at the bottom, but it most likely was not going to reach the morning highs like JP Morgan.

I strongly believe and found that holding an options day trade for more than 90 minutes creates a losing position. 

JP Morgan

JP Morgan opened lower from Friday's close. It found a bottom at 112.50 and shot up from there. It came within penny's of break even for the day. If you bought 114 call options when it wsas at 112.50 at .35 and when it made it close to break even, you could have sold for .55 at a nice profit. At that peak, you could have looked for a place to buy 113 put options and wait for it to come close to the morning bottom.

Timing Summary

• Apple
• downside 25 minutes
• upside 1 hour and 20 minutes
• Boeing
• downside 1.3
• JP Morgan
• upside 20 minute
• downsie: from 11:20 to 3:05

Summary

It doesn't take all day to day trade. The key is to recognize when price is going to be spring loaded in one direction or the other, Do not expect it to continue throughout the day. Take profits quickly and do something else for the rest of the day.

Hopefully my blogs show you that there is money to be made with the market, but hopefully you understand there is a level of risk and if you don't time your entry and/or exit points correctly, you may be luck to break even or escape with a small loss.

Be paitent

Take quick action

Prepare to exit quickly if you are wrong

Prepare to exit quickly if you are right

And most important, sign up for a free papertrading account with Think or Swim, ETrade or Schwab. Learn the strategies and don't waste money.

Patience Leads to Profit When Day Trading

Money can be made on the market going up and down daily especially with options. There were sharp movements today with Boeing, JP Morgan and Home Depot. I tend to stick with these few stocks because they have decent daily movement and you can profit nicely with as little as $500.

Boeing

Boeing had more news over night as the FAA found another problem that needed to be addressed with their max airplane before being allowed to fly again. The stock moved sharply down almost 10 points from Wednesday's close. It popped at open, went down, came up a little and retested that low before rising up for most of the day. It had a sharp move up around noon as shown in a 1 minute chart.

What I have noticed it that when it has a sharp move up, it make get another move higher, but will have a sharp move downward by the end of the day. That is exactly what happened at 3:45pm when it was announced that Southwest Airlines is canceling their order of the max jet. This is too late in the day to expect to happen, but it has shown to happen multiple times in the past month. You could look at Wednesday's chart when it was moving up and then sold off in the afternoon. If only you held those afternoon puts until Thursday. But we don't do that when day trading options because it could have easily had good news that moved it up to 390 similar to what happened with the banks today. I drew up some notes on a chart for you to study.

JP Morgan

Today's movement with JP Morgan was similar to yesterday, but quite different in the pattern. To start the day, JP Morgan opened higher than yesterday's close. There might have been a moment near open when you could have bought calls, but I don't like it because there was no guarantee that it wasn't going lower as a retest. It ran straight up, topped and sharply moved downward. The move offered no retest of the peak and no retest of the lower areas as it moved sharply up from the bottom. I did not trade these movements because they did not show good entry points for day trades.

The afternoon high was not as high as the morning, but it did show that it was peaking around 109.30 as it moved downward before coming back to that area. When it was at 109.24 I bought 109 puts at an average cost of .43. I went to the bathroom while monitoring the stock on my phone and saw it went slightly higher for the second peak at 109.36. Unlike yesterday, I did not lose 10 cents an option this time. This was true mainly because I bought 109 puts that were closer to being in the money compared to yesterday when I bought 108 puts that were still 50 cents out of the money in the afternoon.

I was not worried because every time JP Morgan touched 109.36, it went down quickly and did not hold that price. After the second time, the stock started falling. I bought 3 more when it was at 109.31 at .41. I was hoping to be able to sell these options for .8 or .9, but realizing that they expire tomorrow, I knew the premium was going to decrease based on the less time to expiration. I decided to target my exit based on the morning drop and utilizing the Pivot Point of 108.65 from my trading software that displayed the Pivot Point.

Sure enough, JP Morgan made it to the Pivot Point of 108.65 which was slightly higher than the morning low. At this point my put options appeared to have topped out at .70. I placed my limit order for .75 and lowered to .72, but the stock appeared to make a reversal, so I finally got it sold for .69 which created a profit of $320 on my 13 contracts.

That might have been a good point to buy calls for the next day if I did not mind holding options over night. But that is not what I do. JP Morgan moved sharply to 108.90 before closing around 108.80 and those options would have been worth around .60. After the close, the Federal Reserve announce the results of their stress test and JP Morgan along with all of the other US banks moved upwards big time. JP Morgan moved almost 2 points higher. They also announce dividends and stock buy backs.

Friday Expectations

As we enter the weekend of the G20 summit and escalation of trade meetings, the market should open higher on optimism and on the back of the great bank news. It would be awesome if the market would close on the highs of the day, but given that it is also that last day of the quarter, we might see an afternoon sell off that drops us just above the flat line. We might not have a sell off, but just because Alphabet is near it's low point for the week doesn't mean it will automatically head higher and stay there. Buying expiring options is dangerous on Friday, but as long as you are making sure they are in the money, you can make money doing it. Buying options for next week is a safer bet and does not require you to buy so close to being in the money to make profit.

Profitable Options Trades on Friday

Friday marked the end of a long week of earnings. This also marked a year anniversary of when negative fluctuation began. We received the same news as last year from the FAANG companies of Apple, Amazon, and Google (Alphabet) where they produced strong earnings, but mentioned higher cost. This year it is different as we have a Federal Reserve that appears to be easing, trade war is simmering and stocks were far over sold in the last quarter of 2018.

Moving into 2019, companies started quickly providing earnings warnings. Apple was the first to do it on the first day of trading on January 2nd. They went down hard and shot up after that. Apple was the only one to actually drop after the warning. Skyworks went up after the warning and up further after annoucing lower than expected earnings. That doesn't make sense to me.

What also doesn't make sense in how Alphabet goes down either the day after announcing earnings and again for the rest of the week. Alphabet did report earnings on Monday, went down some on Tuesday despite falling hard on Wednesday and Thursday. I did see it bottom early on Friday and bought a call option expiring the following Friday. Check out my chart to the right.

Expedia was a big mover after reporting earnings on Thursday after the close. I saw it run up near it's
52 week high and when the market opened on Friday it came straight down. I noticed that it bottomed just above 129 by 9:45am to I bought a couple 132 calls for next week. I failed to sell them at the peak as I was greedy and expecting it to go higher. I would have been up 260 if I sold them when they were worth 4 a calls. I have that chart to the right also.

The third trade I took part in on Friday was Boeing calls. I bought next weeks 405 strike calls near open. I should have sold when it peaked quickly to take a quick profit because that is typically what Boeing does on a Friday. Or I could have bought a Put near the quick morning peak and sold it for a profit when it bottomed around 11:30am. That time would have been the best time to buy call options on Boeing as it went
straight up from there. I sold my calls earlier than I noted on this chart because I sold them at 1pm and did not expect it to go higher from there. If I held until close, I would have made the same profit as if I sold in the first 10 minutes of the day.

That brings a huge reminder to take your profits early and do something else for the rest of the day. The stock of your choice must go higher than previous morning high for your option less than 2 weeks out not to depreciate due to time decay.

/As usual, I hope this helps someone. I am still trying to refine my skills and be profitable in larger amounts every day. My main issue is buying too early and not waiting for a confirmation on the proper entry point. I did it on Alphabet and Expedia on Friday, but failed to do it correctly on Boeing which made taking the largest profit not possible since I got burned earlier when the MACD and the Stochastic Indicators peaked and I didn't sell.

IMPORTANT LESSON: Many times you can profit in less than an hour. You will not make more by holding longer. This is not a job and you do not make more watching it go down. You actually lose and will lose twice as much as you could have gained if you don't get out at the right time. Take your profit and run!

Crazy Start to 2019

I didn't see any reason why the market opened so low, but it was a good day to go long. I bought Call Options on QQQ, Netflix and Boeing at the end of the day. It is interesting that most of stocks had the same looking chart. I did sell my Calls on Netflix and QQQ at the number 2 spot instead of 3.

I bought Boeing on 2 different occasions. I sold the first set at the right time, but I should have set my limit higher for the second time as I knew it was not going to close in the negative for the day.

I am glad that I sell my positions every day because the bomb was dropped by Apple driving the market down after the market closed today.

Day After Christmas Boom

What a day! The market opened higher and most stocks retraced to Monday's lows

before taking off higher. I made a profit higher than what I lost on Monday, but failed to wait for the right time to buy and I sold around noon instead of expecting the run to last the whole day which is typical for Wednesday off of an over sold condition.

I didn't trade Alphabet (GOOGL) today, but I did use it for reference as it was one of the only stocks that did not go down to retest Monday's lows. I bought call options on Boeing, Tesla and Netflix on the way down. I was down bad by the time it changed and went higher. I ended up selling everything around 12:30 pm and missed out on the other half of the gains for the day. I made charts on each company below.

I would expect to see more upward movement on Thursday with some pull back for the second half of the day and it should give back half of today's gain. I hope I am wrong, but I will trade carefully tomorrow. Check out my market commentary below along with my favorite pick for 2019.

Turmoil to Profit in the Market... and Tesla

Everything opened lower this morning with the exception to Verizon and McDonald's who reported their third quarter earnings and were awesome. The huge drop was a carry over from the down Asian and European Markets. From open, everything went up for the first 20 minutes before retesting the downside. Most stocks dipped slightly lower than where they opened, but once they hit that retest point, everything went up.

You certainly could have profited by buying anything except Catepiller and profited today, but you would have been best to wait for that retest of the bottom. Buying Call Options on Apple and Netflix were very good to profit especially if you held them until the end of the day. Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon had great movement, but because they report earnings on Thursday, their options are too expensive to mess with.

Tesla options got very expensive from open because the company has elected to move up their earnings report to Wednesday which is a week earlier than scheduled and 2 weeks before normal. Obviously they must have good news to move up the earnings report like this as we expect them to produce the company's first profitable quarter in a long time. There was news today that notable short sellers have gone long on Tesla stating their new Model 3 is going to put them over the top.

I am very disappointed because I had 2 weekly Call Options with a 260 strike price that I closed out yesterday afternoon. Those 2 options would have been worth 3700 each by the end of Tuesday. If Tesla produces a huge profit, I would expect the company to trade up to 420 by the end of the week.

Something interesting happened today when Verizon reported earnings. Most stocks that move up before earnings announcement typically sell off the next day even when they beat their earnings report. Verizon has been steadily going up for the past month. After the earnings announcement, not only did the stock move up, but it continued going higher after the market opened. That has not happened since July of 2017. Since the 2nd quarter earnings announcement of 2017, every report has beat expectations but the stock reversed it's premarket gains to actually trade lower.

Apple was the first company to have this kind of positive stock movement after beating their numbers on the second quarter of 2018. McDonald's today had similar movement. This is completely different from Netflix which traded down every day since their earnings announcement until today. This trend appears to be reversing with bell weather companies like Apple, Verizon and McDonld's. On Wednesday before the market opens we will get Boeing and AT&T earnings. Boeing will be is expected to be awesome and AT&T won't. I would expect the market to be mixed on Wednesday with some late day upward movement.

Upward movement is expected when Amazon and Alphabet report earnings this week. Both companies are around 200 points off their all time high that was established 3 months ago. What will be interesting is if they move up after earnings, open the following day higher and if they can keep those gains and move higher to get closer to their all time highs. FANG companies tend to sell off after reaching a huge increase. They were making new highs the past couple of quarters post earnings, so this feels different. 

Market Update to Trends

The Dow finally hit a new high this past week on strength from Boeing and JP Morgan without help from Apple. Since Boeing was at $337 it has rallied to $372 which is only a few points away from its all time high. JP Morgan rallied within pennies of it's all time high established earlier this year on the back of a strong 10 year Treasury Note rate above 3%. This week everything is going to be tested if the Fed raises the Fed Funds Rate on Wednesday. If that rate goes up, everything will come down for the next day with a reversal happening mid day on Thurday.

It might be surprising that Apple is not participating in the rally especially since they just introduced the most innovative technology to come to wearables with their new watch being FDA approved to perform electrocardiograms. Those who still have a iPhone with a button will probably upgrade in the next few months so Apple's future looks pretty strong and even stronger as everything is funneled to their service business. I see Apple setting up to be a huge long term play although I would never own a Apple product because I feel Samsung is far superior. 

So what is going on with FANG? Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet all appear to be in trading patterns for the next couple of weeks. Facebook is floating between 158 and 165 and may trend further down after reporting earnings despite having no debt. Amazon passed a trillion in market cap and came down from there to trade in a range. I feel it is still over priced and we might get something funky from their earnings to show that they are not growing subscribers and earnings slow down. Netflix domination in subscribers will not be affected by other companies trying to take market share as Disney is not close. Alphabet's Google appears to be the beneficiary of problems with Facebook although you would not be able to tell it by the stock price. 

Alphabet (GOOGL) along with FANG is in a trading range. Netflix is trading between 350 and 372 while Alphabet is trading between 1160 and 1195. For the past couple of weeks we have seen Alphabet close around 1190 only to drop 15 to 20 points on Friday and a little further on Monday. Tuesday's have been up and Wednesday's have started down near the low for the week that was established in the last week but moving up for the rest of the day on Wednesday and Thursday only to fall again on Friday. This is almost identical to what happened last year when Alphabet was trading between 918 and 942. Last year it broke out higher 2 weeks before earnings as it passed the prior high and shot higher after the earnings for the 3rd quarter were announced. 

This brings me my next blog as to what happened with the 4th quarter earnings, the first half of 2018 and the Trump policies. 

Upward Moving Market

Tesla appeared to have bottomed last week after their newly hired accountant left and Apple appeared to have a short term bottom last Thursday as it did not go below 217. This presented a huge opportunity to capitalize on this movement back up. I don't believe that Apple will react positively to the new iPhone announcement on Wednesday, but you could have made some nice profits from Thursday to Tuesday with Call Options. Apple could go higher and pass it's all time high recently established, but think it will be resistance first.

I took advantage of Boeing opening on Tuesday below 340 as it went to 337 and bounced off of it. Boeing moved up to 346 which made for nice profits in one day on Call Options.

Alphabet (GOOGL) opened lower Tuesday and dropped to 1166 where it bounced off and moved up to 1188 very quickly in the first hour of trading. Alphabet moved down while Amazon continued moving up. Alphabet bounced off 1180 to go higher and touched 1190. Those were 2 nice movements that could be profitable as this is what I call an up week for technology stocks as last week was down. 

Friday Tariff Flustered Market

The August jobs report came in a little softer than what the market was looking for as everything went down after it was released before the market opened. Most everything moved up during the day until around 1pm when Trump announced more tariffs on China. Everything immediately sank to the lows of the day and most rebounded from there with the exception of Apple. In the last half hour of trading it was announced that the tariffs will affect Apple more than expected which knocked 3 points off Apple. I expected Apple to move down before moving higher. I don't think it is done moving down as it should get below 218 before taking off to new highs next month.

Boeing was doing well this week until Friday when it went down after the jobs report. It bottomed for the day after the tariff announcement as it moved up from there. Verizon got a downgrade earlier this week that appears to be wrong as it dropped a point and made it up in a day. Verizon is a stock to hold and unfortunately not one to use with options unless it had sharp movement in one direction and expects to bounce.

EA was down and looked to have bottomed at 111 where it bounced. Today it moved sharply higher to 116 before giving back a point. Based on where it fell from based on a delay of a new game and the new games that have been released between Madden, NBA Live and this weekend's Overwatch turnament, EA should move up further by Monday and possibly for the rest of the week. I would expect it to hit somewhere between 118 and 122 by Tuesday if not Monday. I bought 115 Calls for September 14 when it was at 114 on Friday.

Facebook appears to have bounced off 160 and I would expect to see it move higher next week but may come back to retest that base if they have any negative news. I would expect positive news regarding Instagram advertising coming very soon and push Facebook above 180 in the next month. Twitter on the other hand may be close to a bottom and should bounce from this current level of $30/share, but unlike Facebook, Twitter doesn't have an additional platform to use as a wildcard like Facebook.

On to my day trade... Alphabet appeared to have bottomed yesterday as it didn't go past the bottom. It was a learning lesson as you don't expect it to reverse until you see a bottom has formed. You should never attempt to time the bottom as it will be obvious if it is to bounce. I mention this because Thursday I was early to buy a Call Option as I expected it to bounce higher, but should have waited and could have bought at a better price. I sold at a loss because it was going down further and did not have proof that it was reversing. If I did not sell that Call Option earlier, I could have sold it for a profit by the end of the day because it moved up above 1180 as that was the strike price that I bought when it was around 1173.

Now I will reference my 1 and 5 minute chart numbers with the following descriptions:

1. It might have been better that I did not make that kind of profit on that one Call
   
   Option on Alphabet on Thursday because I might have held it to be higher on Friday. Higher is where Alphabet moved after if opened below 1170. 
2. Based on how it appeared to be done moving down on Thursday, I waited for a sign that it was going up and bought 2 1175 Call Options when it was close to 1175. 
3. It appeared to stop moving up when it got to 1189 and I got out of my Calls as it moved down from there.
4. Based on the upward movement 2 weeks ago, it appeared that Alphabet dropped to 1183 where it closed on Thursday and would move much higher than the prior day high of 1189. I mentioned 2 weeks ago that this is dangerous to expect that to happen as it doesn't happen like that too often especially on Fridays. I lost a little of my gains on attempting to relive 2 weeks ago miss. As a learning lesson, there is not enough movement downward to expect upward movement unless the stochastic indicated that it bottomed with little price movement downward. I sold that call for a loss when I saw it move further downward below 1181. 
5. From the tariff news, Alphabet moved down 10 points very quickly and
   
   appeared to want to bounce off that which it did. Based on my belief that it is going to move up for the next week since the bottom was formed on Thursday, I thought this might be a great opportunity for a bounce. Unfortunately option prices are priced higher on movement upward than when it settles even if higher on the last day of the option contract. 
6. It did move back to 1181 which is 10 points off that tariff low. Once again, I bought a little late or early and sold early as I did not trust it to move up higher. 

Next week I would expect to see Alphabet to move higher and probably back to 1260, but don't know that I would care to hold any options over night next week as more tariff news or regulation movement from Washington could push tech to open lower before moving higher. 

Tech Hit Hard While Dow Jones Moved Up

Micron led chip stocks lower as Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet went lower also. They dropped lower than yesterday, but appeared to have bounced off the bottom and I would expect a strong move up by next week. Home Depot and Boeing moved up as they seem to catch all of the money that was leaving tech. In the afternoon it appeared that money returned to tech as the big Dow Jones stocks sold off a little in the afternoon.

There were some big moves down that I expect to see a reversal in the next week.

• Alphabet (GOOGL) was 1269 last Thursday and today's low was 1263
• Amazon was 2050 2 days ago and hit 1945 today.
• Apple was at almost at 230 and was under 223 today.
• Facebook was 177 last Thursday and today 160.
• Micron was over 51 last Thursday and today was 44.

Micron appears to be the lowest cost of all of them with a Price to Earnings ratio under 5. Apple has proved to have a strong following since Warren Buffet investing in them so I don't know that it will drop further. These could go lower with more tariff talk over the next few days, but lately we have seen moves up despite tariff talks. If there were going to be a drop due to tariffs I don't believe that we would see as much upward movement in Boeing and Home Depot.

Alphabet is what I like to trade options due to the great movement. I found today's chart was similar to yesterday's, but looked to be the opposite from last Thursday. It appears to be a sign that tech is reversing as Netflix got an upgrade before the market opened. Nonetheless GOOGL moved sharply down from open and bounced off 1163, then moved up and quickly dropped to 1165 where it gained footing and moved above 1183.

On Friday I would expect to see a small movement down followed by strong upward movement for Friday. It could move down on Monday ,but I would expect to see large upward movement on Tuesday if we don't get it on Monday.

September Trading Down

Markets were closed in the United States for Labor Day on Monday. On Tuesday Amazon opened to another new high with news on entering the India market to compete with Flipkart. Amazon became the 2nd company to one trillion dollars in market capitalization. Boeing bottomed early today at 339.50 and went up 7 from there. AMD was up over 10% today as excitement is moving towards AMD and away from Intel. I find this funny when Apple computers ,Chromebooks and Windows tablets use Intel processors.

Retail stocks moved up as predicted today with Best Buy moving back above 80 and Home Depot moved sharply up within 2 points of it's all time high established back in January. Apple moved up a little which was nice to see as Samsung announced that they will be releasing a foldable phone this year. In the past Apple would drop on any competition news. Apple has shown a negative impact from iPhone announcements and that day is coming soon.

Alphabet (GOOGL) continued to sell off on Tuesday as it opened lower than Friday's close. In the first few minutes it went up from 1222 to 1228 and went down from there. Alphabet appeared to find a bottom at 1211 as it bounced off and moved up to 1221 before back peddling the rest of the day and found a new bottom at 1209.

Hindsight is 20/20 and I actually missed my exit point as it was found on the 1 minute chart which I had on my screen next to the 5 minute chart. As I indicated in my 1 minute chart and in past blogs that you should look for movements of approximately 10 points when trading Alphabet. Tomorrow is a new day with Facebook and Twitter testifying for Congress with Google being left out because Congress wanted a higher up instead of their qualified representative. I would expect to see some sort of positive news before the market opens for Alphabet where it will open 10 points higher and fall from there as the testifying begins.

Profiting From Options in Boeing, Apple, Alphabet and Tesla

Yesterday's run up in Tesla was huge but as I mentioned yesterday, if Elon Musk does not follow through, he will go to jail. I will follow up up on that in a separate blog later. Boeing was affected by more tariff talks this morning with China imposing more tariffs on US goods. It opened down, came up momentarily and that is where to buy a Put Option today.

Tesla opened lower, ran up quickly and then sold off from the 382 area. Tesla has a tendency of moving one direction and switching during the day. Here is the chart.

Apple opened below 107 so that is where you look for a bottom. The bottom was in around 105.30 and from there you should buy a 205 Call Option to hold or just make a quick profit if the expiration is for this week. You definitely would have made some good money with it.

Alphabet (GOOGL) was also a great way to make a profit from Call Options today. With Alphabet I have found that you wait to find the initial direction and buy an option for that direction when it comes back to the starting point. I saw it ran up to 1258 and come down to 1252 in the first couple of minutes. To me it appeared to go up, but I waited as it went up again and came back to 1256 where I bought 2 Call Options. When going up, I expect it to go around 12-14 points higher. With that in mind you can set a sell limit order and it should get hit typically around twice of what you paid for it.

Today Amazon hit a new high. I would expect Alphabet and Amazon to be higher tomorrow, but will wait for tomorrow to find out what is going on.

I showed 4 different stocks to make money on options, but I would recommend only using one or two at most when shirt term trading. 

Fed Meeting and How to Trade It

With the Fed meeting ending today, stocks have a tendency of being flat or down. Before the market opened, the 10 year Treasury Note moved above 3% which is a positive sign for banks and JP Morgan moved higher at open. It did trade lower from there but it is a positive sign for the banks over the next couple of days which should lead the market higher.

Boeing opened down from Tuesday's close and pointed to moving up from open until about 10:40am. At that point it went down for most of the day. I prefer to make money quick and would have preferred to buy Call Options on Boeing and be done before 11am.

Alphabet opened up from 16 from where it closed on Tuesday due to news that Google is going to censor their search engine to be allowed to operate in China. From history I have found that when it opens higher like this, it will try to return to where it closed the prior day before going higher. Buying Puts near open would have been scary but profitable. Buying Calls at 2:10pm would be a great deal also today.

Unfortunately I did not trade Boeing today and didn't trade Alphabet correctly. I was mad at 2:10pm, but didn't panic as I knew it was going back up to 1236 by the afternoon. I escaped the day with a loss, but not as bad as if I sold at the worst time. I write this blog daily in hopes that it helps someone but more importantly I learn how to be better because I am confident that you can make money in thousands every day if you trade properly based on technical indicators and knowing tendencies.

Elon Musk and Tesla had a great conference call after releasing earnings from the second quarter this afternoon. The stock shot up after hours over 30 points. I expect to see it come down in the first 10 minutes and shoot higher for most of the day tomorrow. I will trade it if the technical indicators make sense. 

Alpha Delivered!

• Today marked CNBC's Delivering Alpha Conference where we got to see Jim Crammer interview the president's chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow. The FANG erupted up and came down quickly before finding footing and moving higher. They did end the day flat. The banks moved up nicely and Boeing opened up, came down hard and took off again to the upside. 
• I found Boeing has some great morning movement this past week similar to FANG. Boeing was $3 higher in the Premarket trading, fell on its face and took off when the Stochastic indicator was at the bottom. I will be looking forward to trading Boeing next week as Alphabet options will be too expensive for me to mess with. 
  
  
  
  
• Alphabet did a typical Wednesday where it opened up, traded down and moved higher by the afternoon. 
  
  
  
  

Bad Earning Report =Buying Opportunities

• Goldman Sachs had a great earnings report, but went down during Tuesday's trading session. Boeing started up  went down a little and back up a little. Home Depot and Best Buy were strong today as they were lead by positive news from Walmart joining forces with Microsoft to combat Amazon. The Fed Chairman gave a testament to Congress this morning where he was grilled about the treatment of the banks. 
• Netflix subscription miss caused their stock to get over sold in yesterday's after hours session. Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon were drug 20 points lower yesterday after the market close which clearly didn't make sense as they both moved up past their recently set all time highs by lunch time. Netflix went up taking back more than half of what it lost yesterday. I would not be surprised if it went down for the rest of the week.
• Pick a Call Option out of the money below the all time high for either Alphabet or Amazon at market open and you would have tripled your money if you had the guts to hold on until noon. Brings me to another learning lesson, but first the chart:
  
• LEARNING LESSON: When one of the FANG stocks has bad news, it will create a buying opportunity for the unrelated others. 

FANG is Struggling but not Dead!

• The Dow Jones was up today which was surprising given how so many people do not like how friendly President Trump was when meeting with Russian President Putin today. Boeing had a nice move upwards today and Amazon opened above it's all time high that was just set on Friday. It moved up sharply and at 3pm when Prime Day starts, they had website issues and it went down along with the rest of FANG. Facebook did hit a new high this morning also.
• Netflix was downgraded again today. They opened to the downside, moved up, but the big news was their 2nd quarter earnings report. It was announced after the market close on Monday and it went down over 50 points due to not increasing their user base as expected along with the expectations of new competition. 
• Alphabet (GOOGL) initially opened down and moved up sharply this morning. After it's peak around 10:20am it went down and further down. There was a nice move upwards in the last half hour after the big drop from Amazon. I do not like holding options over night because you have no control of your contracts in the after hours. Alphabet dropped down below 1180 in the first half hour after close and came up a little. There is no telling what is going to happen tomorrow with the FANG names as it could depend on Amazon's Prime Day success, what is said on the Netflix earnings conference call and if money leaves other FANG names to go into a more stable Alphabet. There were some opportunities using Call Options with GOOGL today that I will illustrate below: 
  
  
  
  
• Bank stocks lead by JP Morgan moved higher on Monday. It was strange how JP Morgan didn't move up after reporting earnings on Friday. It may move even higher on Tuesday if Goldman Sachs produces favorable numbers before the market opens on Tuesday.

Everything Good but Banks Today

• Today the big banks reported earnings before the market opened. Wells Fargo disappointed  Citigroup was lame and JP Morgan was held back by the others despite producing great numbers. Retail stocks were up lead by Home Depot and Best Buy. Boeing shot up, came down to where it started and ran up for the rest of the day. 
  
• The FANG stocks were good with the exception to Netflix like yesterday. Amazon and Alphabet (GOOGL) opened above their all time high that was set yesterday. Amazon was consistent going up for most of the day while Alphabet went down initially and made a turn at 10am to shoot higher. It took another turn about mid day that would cause it to go negative but turn around at 1200 and finished the day positive. There were some nice trades that you could have profited from if you followed the technical indicators as shown on the chart below.
  
• Amazon Prime Day is next week and I would expect to see Amazon and Alphabet go higher on Monday and Tuesday with a possible turn around on Wednesday afternoon. I think Netflix will reverse higher as it seems to do every time someone has something negative to say about them. 

FANG Goes Bang and Boom

• President Trump news from NATO paying more to defense reduced trade issues and drove everything up. Amazon opened above it's all time high and ran further along with other FANG except Netflix which got a downgrade. Credit card companies ran along with defense stocks. Retail stocks were down for the most part.
• Facebook and Microsoft moved to new highs, but if you follow me you know I enjoy trading options on Alphabet (GOOGL) and it ran and ran today. The one minute chart indicated that it was going higher, but everything else indicated that FANG was over bought. I waited for a turn down and never got it  but I did take advantage of what upside was left since I got in so late. I was very leery and took profits and as soon as I saw it was going higher I bought back in. 
  
• I am expecting more upside on Friday  but will be ready to sell to take profit as soon as I see it turn down. When you have lost money waiting on it to continue in your direction you will take profits and buy back in. Don't fall in love with this style as this happens about once every other week. You just want to make sure you are on the right side. 

How to Turn a Down Day Positive

• With President Trump's tariff announcement yesterday afternoon sending most everything down today presented huge buying opportunities if you were ready to move at market open today. 
• Boeing had a huge day yesterday and gets affected big by tariff talk. Today it opened down $6 and shot up immediately to be short lived by 9:40am where it started its turn down. Ten minutes to make a profit is good, but turns ugly if you keep holding expecting it to come back up. Unfortunately I experienced the ugly going from a profit of $450 to a loss of $550 today.
  
• Alphabet (GOOGL) on the other hand gets sold off on trade news even though it doesn't have any direct business that would be affected. It was down from open and took off from there. I bought Calls when I saw it was going up and sold where I thought it peaked on the first 2 peak. I was not in on the 3rd peak that occurred at 10:30am, but did take advantage in the afternoon pop for a small gain over $100.
  
  
  
  
• LEARNING LESSON: When the Option you bought went up big came back to where you bought it, sell it ASAP before it goes down further