We have a new Options trade up this week.

We're buying an $MMC April 170/200 Bull Call Spread for around a $7.50 debit all in. This means we’re long the 170 calls and short an equal amount of 200 calls..

Check out our short video with the thought process behind these trades:

During this morning's internal strategy session with the All Star Charts team, one theme we hit upon was that many of the stocks we want to be long have already had big runs making it irresponsible to get long here, and all the stocks we want to get short have already had big recent legs down and we don't want to chase those either!

I mean, to give you an idea, just look at the charts of healthcare ETF $XLV which is made up of many small-cap names, and $IWM -- the Russell 2000 small-cap index -- both are going in completely opposite directions! That pretty much sums up the predicament we find ourselves in right now.

It's a messy market out there!

So, naturally, we should look at companies that manage risk as their business!

With the S&P 500 wrestling with the 4700 level, I've been turning my eyes to some of our more favorable bullish setups.

On Friday, the ASC team published their latest International Hall of Famers List report. This list is composed of the 50 largest US-listed international stocks or ADRs. The team takes the 50 largest names each week and then applies technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

The name from this list that caught my attention just saw a dramatic collapse in options volatility, making call options cheaper. And with the stock above the trigger level, it's time for us to get involved.

There is always a silver lining to slippery stock markets like the one we experienced over the last couple of weeks: Stocks that are overdue for pullbacks get them -- and sometimes hard. Meanwhile, the stocks where there is strong institutional support and/or no real bearish case to take profits reveal themselves through relative strength.

The stocks that refuse to budge during broad market selloffs are the ones bulls need to pay attention to. Because by the time the markets signal "all clear!" (do they ever?) it's usually already too late to get in. You missed it. It ran without you.

With this in mind, one of the stocks in the recent 2-to-100 Club report caught my eye.

We have a new Options trade up this week.

We're Selling Puts Naked!

More specifically, we're selling short $XBI January 105 Puts for approximately $2.25 per contract

Check out our short video with the thought process behind these trades:

What a difference a couple of days makes!

The froth has definitely come off the $VIX spike over the past week. Does this mean we're all clear? Well, no. Not necessarily and not yet.

But it does give us a little bit of confidence that some short-term lows can be leaned against as good risk management levels when taking long directional bets.

There's still some juicy premium to be sold when looking at some sector ETFs and that brings me to the Biotech sector ETF $XBI.

Options premiums still remain elevated across the board and therefore I continue looking for delta-neutral premium-selling strategies to implement.

We have to take whatever the market is offering. The recent downward price action has created a bunch of resistance levels to lean against on the upside. So I want instruments that also have clearly defined support levels and high premiums for us to sell.

This leads me to...

While volatility remains elevated, I remain on the hunt for appropriate vehicles to sell premium in.

We sold premium in IWM earlier this week. Today, I'm going to drill in a little deeper into sector ETFs that are displaying the highest relative implied volatilities. This search leads me to the finance sector.

We have a new Options trade up this week.

We're selling an $IWM December 31 (weekly) Iron Condor. We’ll be short the 210 puts and 235 calls, while protecting the position $5 away in both direction with long 205 puts and 240 calls. This entire spread can be put on for about a $1.70 credit.

Check out our short video with the thought process behind these trades:

I got all excited when Russell 2000 -- as measured by $IWM -- broke higher out of the 8-9 month range back in early November. To me, that felt like a big sign that stocks on the whole were about to go on a big bullish run into year-end.

Well, the sad trombone has been played and the breakout was short-lived. And as you can see from this chart, $IWM in recent weeks has completely retraced the breakout and has fallen right back into the middle of the previous range:

Man, what a letdown --- for the bulls.

But us options traders over here smell an opportunity!

JC and I traveled to India together a couple years back to meet with Indian prop and options traders and to lead discussions at a few events. It was an amazing experience to be able to view risk through the eyes of traders that come from very different backgrounds than our own.

It should go without saying that we indulged (perhaps overindulged?) in the local cuisine. To be honest, we ate like Kings and it was wonderful. Everything we ate was fantastic and I want to go back as soon as possible. It was such a great time with great people.

So, when perusing the latest crop of new ideas cranked out by ASC team, one name with an Indian flavor caught my attention.

We have 2 new Options trades this week as our Thanksgiving Pairing. A Bull Call Spread in Unity Software $U and Bullish Risk Reversal in Cheniere Energy $LNG.

Here are the plays:

We're buying a $U February 200/250 Bull Call Spread for around a $10.00 debit.

And an $LNG June 90/130 Bullish Risk Reversal for an approximately 25 cents net credit.

Check out our short video with the thought process behind these trades: