Ok, I took some liberties with today's title. I can already hear JC groaning. Blog post titles are not my strength. I accept this.

A book I recently read (Number Go Up), and today's trade in $LIN inspired my thinking about lines going up.

Moving on, let's get into what we like about this stock and how we're playing it with options.

Me and Steve Strazza were kicking around ideas today on the Flow Show. And one solid idea we landed on was $IBM.

Good 'ole Big Blue looks like it wants to take on a shade of green.

We're getting involved!

The Analysts here are getting all bulled up on Nuclear energy. And for good reason -- some good clean charts.

One of the sector leaderss is showing signs of resolving a base that began forming in September after an impressive doubling off the lows set this Spring.

Objects in motion tend to stay in motion (I heard this once in a high school science class).

The stock is cheap and we can leverage into it to really juice our gains with out-of-the-money call options.

This is definitely a "hard" trade. Hard because it's already had a tremendous run this month. Hard because it's in a name that people often don't associate with big bull runs, in a sector that definitely isn't sexy.

And maybe we're early, positioning just about when it's about to take a pause or retrace to digest recent gains. Maybe.

The only way to find out is to get involved.

The hard trades pay precisely because they are hard.

[12/4/23: updated stop to 100]

Crypto is showing signs of a resurgence. With Bitcoin trading north of $35,000 this week, many of the old bulls are coming out of the woodwork calling for the next crypto run.

Well, if the next run is soon at hand, today's trade is in a company that is certainly positioned to benefit from any uptick in sh*t coin trading volumes.

What a difference a week makes!

The powerful rally in stocks shows where the "pain trade" is (higher), and now I'm on the hunt for strong, leading stocks that will continue to turn the screws on the bears.

Let's get after 'em!

The "pain trade" is always higher.

I say that often. And its usually true.

And nothing turns the screws harder on bears than rallies in Tesla $TSLA.

So let's get after them with a "double or nothing" bet.

The Junior Gold Miners appear to be temporarily stuck in the rocks. And with juicy options premiums to sell, we will take advantage of the range with a delta-neutral credit spread.

If/when the market can find it's footing, today's trade is in a name that I'd like to get aggressively bullish in for a long-term bet.

In the meantime, I'm not ready to be aggressive yet, but there is an opportunity for us to get paid to wait with a conservatively bullish bet that gives us room to be wrong.

I'm making the bet here the Bond Bears may have overshot here. And today's trading action feels to me like $TLT put in an actionable level to lean against for risk management purposes.

This is not a bet that the final bottom is in for bonds. Only that odds favor a bounce that might have some legs.

With this caveat out of the way, here's how I'm going to play it.

Well, every attempt I've made at wading back into the bull market pool has been swiftly met by a destabilizing splash made by a bear cannonballing off the diving board.

So, until further notice, I'm going to hang by the cabana sipping on my virgin daiquiri and waiting for calmer waters.

Meanwhile, I'm going to attempt to get paid while I wait by selling some delta-neutral premium in a (relatively) safer area of the market, as defined by a powerful bounce of recent lows in consumer staples.

I don't like this market. It can't make up its mind. Things were starting to look promising last week, then Friday happened. And even today, intraday, we're seeing weird, indecisive trading action.

So I know I'm a broken record, but as long as this sideways slop continues, I'm looking to stay delta neutral and sell premium. And with earnings event risk all over the place, it is probably best to stay with liquid ETFs.

Today's trade is in the Oil Patch.