Trade Management Going into the week ahead, let's start with the seven active positions currently held in the Premium Options Portfolio. Note that there are eight options listed in the above performance table, but the bottom GLD call expired on Friday, replaced by the Apr 19th entry on the top of the list, the result of rolling over half the proceeds from the 762% gains from the expired option. In addition, there are two other GLD calls in the table from earlier entries, Mar 1st and Apr 3rd, resulting in almost half the positions being in GLD calls. Before spring turns into summer, I expect about the same allocation in stock index puts, but let not get too ahead of ourselves, for now a nice profitable mix across multiple positions with more to come in the days ahead. Major Turn The charts below reflect a recurrent theme of intermediate term trading signals to the downside and for the most part, in early stages of development. Ergo my preference to go out two months to June for all recent new option positions. Behind this strategy is the expectation for a market low of some significance sometime around the beginning of summer, circa mid-June. That implies a rough 6-8 weeks ahead, led by technology stocks in general and in particular, the AI darlings that led the market up over the past few months. Note the common pattern exhibited in the three first charts below: NVDA SMCI AMD Pattern: Exponential run-ups into recent tops, followed by reversals, i.e., breakdowns lower, highlighted by fresh intermediate term sell signals (down red arrows). Those are three AI mania individual stocks. Now let's review the patterns of the three major stock index ETF's on which we trade options: SPY IWM QQQ Summary Led by a breakdown in AI stocks, the stock market has reversed lower and in so has generated new intermediate term sell signals in three major stock indices. In addition, geopolitical and financial concerns have worked in concert to propel Gold higher in a third wave to new all time highs, sending our GLD calls soaring in the midst of an EW pattern that suggests still higher prices ahead. Gold (GLD) VIX - Long Term (Weekly) This long term VIX perspective suggests increasing volatility into early summer, a doubling of VIX, minimum. That implies that the geopolitical angst we experienced the past few weeks isn't over, with high volatility and much lower stock prices ahead. Bitcoin Bitcoin on an Intermediate Term Sell Signal as of Apr 17 BITO BITO Puts Pending - Let's see if it can kiss trend signal line before reversing back down
