It was a short week on Wall Street, but far from a quiet one.
Some choppy action on Tuesday and Thursday gave way to a big shakeout on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 falling as much as 1.5%.
But on Friday, markets recovered. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 set new highs, with the Nasdaq not far behind.
What to make of all this?
To me, this suggests it’s not a buyer’s market or a seller’s market. It’s a trader’s market.
I doubt we’re due for the one-way-higher action of 2017 and the second half of 2020. This is a market where it pays to be strategic, opportunistic and unemotional. And this week in True Options Masters was all about preparing you for this…
· We kicked off the week with Chad’s Unusual Options Activity radar spotting some HUGE long-term bets on tech and gambling stocks.
· Michael took to the charts on Tuesday to tackle the small-cap chop we’ve seen over the past six months. He reckons a major breakout is ahead… And while that hasn’t played out just yet, we do see the Russell 2000 outperforming all the big indices in today’s recovery.
· Wednesday’s letter had Chris deliver a peek behind the curtain of his own development as a trader. And the one thing that completely changed the game for him, which allowed him to start pulling in consistent, big gains from the market.
· Thursday saw Chad deliver his trademark Bank It or Tank It analysis on a company finally bringing some true electric vehicle competition to America’s highways.
· Yesterday’s dispatch saw Michael Carr highlight a layer of complexity in options trading that many don’t recognize. Then he showed how to apply it to a strategy that handed dedicated readers a 76% gain in one day on July 2.
You’ve likely noticed by now that I’m not your usual weekend editor Chris Cimorelli. I’m filling in for him as he’s taking off a couple days for a long weekend. (And good on him — he’s a hard worker and the break comes much deserved.)
So this gives me the opportunity to introduce myself…
I’m Mike Merson, the new managing editor of True Options Masters. I come to you with over five years’ experience editing and writing trading newsletters.
In that time, I’ve read plenty of great options trading research, and plenty bad.
Worse, I’ve read plenty that feel flat. Over-complex, wishy-washy stances. Fundamentally disconnected from, and useless to, the everyday investor.
What I love about True Options Masters is it makes a real effort to counter that.
We’re here to demystify Wall Street’s most powerful trading tools. Our goal is to empower you with these ideas and techniques that seem out of reach, but are really just waiting for you to grab hold of them and take control of your financial well-being.
I’ve been talking a lot with Chris about how to deliver on this mission. We keep coming back to two things.
1. Constantly deliver great trading ideas. We want to provide ideas that you can put in your pocket and take with you into your trading day. Whether it’s a new trading strategy, a chart with an ominous pattern or even the odd direct trade recommendation.
If you’re not learning something at the end of each issue, or taking away some opportunity to profit, we aren’t doing our job right.
You can always expect Chad and Mike’s expert insights to fill this role. But we’ll always strive to do more. Chart of the Day is just one way we’re thinking about expanding this, with much more to come.
2. Foster a strong community. True Options Masters is small right now. This email is only going out to about 24,000 people (that’s smaller than it might sound, for a finance newsletter).
But big or small, our goal is to make you as big of a part of this project as any one of us. We want to hear your feedback. Your options-trading war stories. Your questions about obscure chart patterns or multi-pronged trade setups. Your own unique ideas.
The True Options Masters mailbag we introduced Wednesday is just the start. We’re thinking about ways to get you interacting with our in-house Options Masters that nobody else is doing. Live trading webinars, where our experts take you through chart setups and share their latest ideas, are at the top of my mind. What’s on yours?
This may be more than you bargained for on a weekend read. If you’re still with me, I appreciate you taking this ride.
But I felt it was important to show you what’s in store for you as a subscriber.
I’m of the mind every industry is only a couple good ideas away from out-and-out disruption. We want to find what those ideas are for trading newsletters and push them to their absolute limit.
All this is to say, we mean business at True Options Masters. We’re here to move fast and break things and, most of all, make you money.
We’ll be back to our usual beat on Monday. I hope you’re looking forward to it just as much as we are. And on behalf of the entire team, have a great weekend.
Best Regards,
Mike Merson
Managing Editor, True Options Masters