What Happens on Expiration Day when I'm holding long options?

I’ve gotten some questions recently about what happens to an open options position if we’re still in it when the contracts expire. 

Caveat: I will rarely hold an options contract in ASO trades into expiration unless it’s a winning position and it's going my way. Profit targets or stop loss exits will usually get me out far in advance of expiration day.

Let’s dig in… 

It's Saturday Morning Chartoons time. 

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

You can find the whole list of trades here.

Below you'll find the full PDF of this week's charts:

I promise this isn’t a “Go-Have-a-Baby” post that talks about how the greatest thing a human can do is procreate.

I’ve recently come to somewhat believe that. But I won’t be that guy here.

My friend Michael Nauss (@michaelnaussCMT on Twitter) just welcomed his first child into the world – a beautiful baby boy – and I couldn’t be happier for him.

And it got me thinking about all the ways my perspectives on things have changed since becoming a father myself nearly 8 years ago.

The biggest change for me is that I’m only now beginning to fully appreciate the hard work and sacrifice my mother had to go through to raise me and my two younger siblings.

My father left our house and the divorce process began when I was about 7 years old. At that time, my mom was a stay-at-home mom with no source of income. And my dad, while well-intentioned, was pretty much a deadbeat when it came to finances. So she was basically left to fend for herself with no money and no family around to help out.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that, which you can check out here.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.

Here’s this week’s list:

And here’s how we arrived at it:

• We filtered out any stocks that are below their May 10, 2021, high, which is when new 52-week highs peaked...

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley  

Following some explosive moves earlier in the year, the past few weeks have been full of sideways action for commodities.

Energy contracts are correcting. Copper continues to consolidate. And gold is chopping around in the middle of its multi-year range.

But when it comes to commodities, there’s always an opportunity right around the corner. 

Last week, we pointed out the burgeoning strength in natural gas futures despite the corrective action in crude oil and its derivatives.

Today, we’re going to outline a few developing setups with a focus on ags.

Let’s dive in!

First up are corn futures:

Since last November, we’ve had our eyes on the grain markets, and corn has been one of our most successful trades. It completed a larger basing...

This week I joined Tyler Wood and David Lundgren on Fill The Gap, the official podcast of the CMT Association.

Being asked to come on to this one was a real honor for me.

Since day 1 I've been a huge fan of the Association and the members who came before me. I can tell you honestly that I don't know where I would be today if it wasn't for the CMT Association and more importantly, the community of members all over the world.

It truly has been one of the best experiences of my entire life and for that I will forever be grateful.

In this conversation talk about how I became a Technician, the first books I started reading, who my mentors were, starting a business, becoming a Wine Sommelier and the new technical tools and strategies that technicians are now able to incorporate into Crypto and other digital assets.

This was a lot of fun.

Hope you enjoy!

[audio mp3="https://media-allstarcharts.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/episode-16-jc-parets-cmt.mp3"][/audio]

Are you noticing?

Energy stocks continue to push up against new highs.

The Integrated names, Oil Services, the Explorers & Producers.

They're all still at or near new 52-week highs.

The kicker? It's all happening with Crude Oil in the midst of a 26% drawdown:

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley  

Benchmark yields have moved in a vertical line higher since the beginning of March. This isn't just the case in the US; we're seeing similar action all across the globe.

But as rates rally higher and higher, more and more classic intermarket relationships are failing to confirm the move.

Yes, commodities and commodity-related stocks remain resilient, and bonds are an absolute dumpster fire.

Most other assets we would expect to do well in a rising rate environment simply aren’t. This is especially true for the banks!

Meanwhile, those groups that we'd expect to underperform in this kind of environment, such as utilities and other defensive stocks, are actually outperforming.

All of this speaks to risk-aversion, not risk-seeking behavior.

Let’s take a look at some of our favorite intermarket ratios and put these bearish divergences into perspective....

We discussed this at length on Tuesday night (re-watch here).

Large-cap Healthcare.

And there's an element of defense to it as well. Let's not get it twisted:

You see how large-cap healthcare does when stocks are under pressure?

Pretty good huh?

Look at the size of some of these bases:

As sophisticated as public markets can be, they often have little quirks.

Everyone's heard about the McRib indicator: The S&P 500 has a higher daily return when the McRib is available at McDonald's than when it's not available.

Or how about the magazine covers? That's another classic anecdotal indicator.

Another one is the conference dip.

It's said that when all the traders are out at conferences, the market dips.

The annual CMT Association Symposium was notorious for this. Later on, we saw this during the big SALT conference in Vegas.

The old thought was that if all the big players are at a conference, who's left to buy?

It's funny because now we're seeing the dips during crypto conferences.

The talk of the town in the world of crypto is the recent Bitcoin conference taking place in Miami.

This just seems to be the latest iteration:

For this week's trade, we're selling an $XLI May 97/105 Strangle for approximately $2.85 net credit. This means we're naked short both the 97 puts and the 105 calls.

Get the full details, risk management procedures and targets for this trade here:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as a market of stocks.

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions… but there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club. We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

We'll...