The ASC team published an Under the Hood report last week in which there were a bunch of interesting opportunities to choose from. But I held my fire -- until now.

After letting these ideas marinate a bit, I've been liking the pullback and solid support holding in one of the names. 

Let's get right to it.

Anything gold-related has not had any fun 2021. I can only imagine the disdain gold bugs must be feeling as they watch governments print money around the world, all things crypto soaring, and all the while their precious shiny little rocks doing jack squat.

If you've been long gold, I'm sorry.

But there's good news...

JC and I were chatting yesterday about what appears to be an opportunity in the Gold space.

Maybe, just maybe, gold has found a short-term bottom? We're not going to go out on a limb and declare THE bottom, but recent price action suggests to us that a bounce might be in store. As such, we want to get involved for a quick little hit-and-run play.

In last week's Follow the Flow report, there was a name that caught my attention, but it felt to me the stock had gone too far too fast and I didn't want to chase it.

Well, perhaps my patience is being rewarded as today I'm able to get in with the stock 9 points off last week's highs -- but still sitting right above the level in which we'd like to be involved on the long side.

I love it when that happens!

The mostly sideways slide into autumn is continuing, which has kept me on the hunt for more delta-neutral credit spreads to take advantage of during these slow times.

I generally prefer to do these types of trades on sector or index ETFs. But occasionally, I'll take a flyer on a large cap name which isn't likely to suffer any serious price gaps (especially with no nearby earnings events on the horizon).

In the latest All Star Charts Monthly Conference call, the team mentioned a familiar name that is setting up for some continued sideways action that looks like a really good candidate for an Iron Condor trade.

The team had our weekly internal strategy session this morning where we go over things we're seeing in the markets. What's moving? What's not? Where is there hidden risk? What's the market missing or not pricing in?

One of the things I brought up is: "Is anyone paying attention to this breakout in Apple?" I hadn't seen or heard much chatter about it and it seems to me few are aware this is happening or thinking through the implications of what this might mean for the broader indexes.

The team did highlight the move in our recent Monthly Conference call, so it's not happening in a vacuum. But it feels that outside our walls, few are paying attention.

The All Star Charts team is once again focused on financials, recently publishing a bullish piece on banks all around the world.

We've already got some exposure on the books in the financials sector, but with participation broadening, there are additional opportunities to participate.

And one opportunity in particular offers an opportunity to really leverage into a big win if we get it right.

JC has a short post up today about "The Oil Dilemma." He and I talked about this situation yesterday and I like the way it is setting up for a little premium collection to complement an existing position we have on the books.

The latest Follow the Flow report is out, and as always there is a play therein that caught my attention.

It's a bullish idea, but I'm going to play this one in a unique way in order to hedge myself a bit in a tape that feels a little sluggish at the moment. I want to get paid to wait out the slow times we're likely to "enjoy" from now until Labor Day weekend, and possibly beyond. So this will involve a calendar spread, but with a twist...

As always, there are a number of interesting investment ideas in the latest 2-to-100 Report published this week.

The one that most caught my eye has seen a recent collapse in options volatility resulting in cheap calls for us to play for an extended breakout. Cheap calls on stocks printing all-time highs are my absolute favorite play to make. So as you can imagine, I'm eager to jump right in.

There's a reason long-time investors are invested in low volatility household names that pay steady dividends: because over the long run, they work! The steady dividends and low volatility can be counted on to take care of us in retirement. This is a lesson I've been trying to teach my 7-year old Son. We created a small account for him and we're teaching him the power of investing in what you know (or in our case, in companies we spend money on as a family) and in companies that pay dividends which teaches the power of compounding.

One of those names we're invested in is also now showing up on All Star Charts momentum scans and may be set to accelerate its price price action.

This is the video recording of the August Options Conference Call with Sean McLaughlin & JC Parets.

Once again this month, I’m going to share info on positions that were closed in the month of July. As a reminder, our exit plans are always laid out ahead of time in each trade idea we publish. In every case, the exits mentioned below were all in accordance with the plans as laid out.

As we head towards August expiration, we only have one open position remaining with expiring August options. But July was certainly a busy month for exits -- both profitable and not -- as a couple of market whipsaws shook the trees and knocked us out of a bunch of positions.

Positions with August options that need monitoring: