All Star Options Articles

Today's trade is in a $39B leading provider of software solutions for the global life sciences sector that is on the verge of breaking multi-year highs with an eye towards making a run at all-time highs.

There is an earnings release coming up soon which I think will be the catalyst to get the move underway.

Like the rest of the All Star Charts team, I spent last week in New Orleans. It was hot. It was muggy. But the food—oh man, the food—made it all worth it.

I think I hit all the cornerstones of New Orleans cuisine:

Crawfish. Muffuletta Sandwich. Gumbo. Jambalaya. Shrimp Ettoufee, Alligator Po-Boy sandwich. Lousiana Fried Catfish. Red Beans and Rice. Grilled Oysters. Andouille Sausage. Beignets. Bananas Foster.

I even enjoyed a non-alcoholic Hurricane. I was told it was a "Category 1". LOL

This trip was also a first for me: my first time visiting New Orleans sober. And let me tell you, it didn’t change my love for the city one bit. I still soaked in the music, the architecture, the culture, and that ever-present sense of celebration that pulses through every corner of the French Quarter.

But being clear-eyed did sharpen my awareness of some of the more absurd—and uniquely American—aspects of the experience. Lets just say I raised my eyebrow more than once at some of the things I observed...

The contrast was never more apparent than on the days we held our Portfolio Accelerator meetings in our hotel, right on Bourbon Street.

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I talk all the time about how the options market makers are not stupid. Options are priced the way they are, when they are, because options market makers know what they are doing. Usually.

But once in a blue moon, they can get caught sleeping. 

I think I may have found one such opportunity and I want to pounce on it today.

Going to keep this post short today. I'm writing live from the Portfolio Accelerator event in New Orleans. Our friend Riley Rosebee is presenting as I'm typing and he is talking about stocks in companies The Jetson's would invest in.

One he brought up caught my attention because the chart looks ripe for a big pop.

Today, I’m headed to New Orleans for our tri-annual Portfolio Accelerator event.

There’s always been something about this city that resonates with me—not just the food, the music, or the unmistakable soul of the French Quarter—but its relationship with risk.

New Orleans understands risk. And more importantly, it understands how to manage it.

From levees and dikes to advanced pumping and drainage systems, the city doesn’t ignore the dangers it faces. It builds around them. It plans for them. It respects them. Just like we do as traders.

That’s part of why this city is such an inspiring backdrop for a room full of portfolio-focused minds. Like New Orleans, we try to hedge our exposure. We use long options, smart position sizing, and strategic overlays to reduce our downside risk. And like the levees, those hedges give us peace of mind—until the water starts to rise.

Because here’s the truth: sometimes, Mother Nature throws a punch you just can’t fully dodge. In markets, that’s when volatility explodes and our carefully calibrated short-vol trades face the full wrath of a panicked tape. Sure, we might technically...

I just checked the app, and my car is rounding the corner. 

He's picking me up for a rocket ship ride to the moon!

Stretch your legs and call this THE RE-AWAKENING TRADE. Implied volatility is through the floor in today's name, as traders have been bored to sleep on this former high-flier, making long-term calls cheap and a great potential reward-to-risk. 

My gut’s been talking lately—and it’s telling me that the odds of a market pullback are on the rise.

After a string of strong sessions, it’s only natural that the market might need to catch its breath. But it’s not just that. If we do head back toward the recent lows, I don’t expect it to be quiet. There will be noise. A lot of noise.

Some voices will shout that we’re “retesting the lows”—a technical inevitability, they’ll argue. Others will pound the table that this whole bounce was nothing more than a dead cat bounce, and that the real drop is just beginning.

I’ve got my own hunch about how this might play out—something I discussed on this morning’s Options Jam Session (watch below). But regardless of how far we pull back, I’m increasingly focused on one specific area of the market: housing stocks.

If things get slippery from here, I think the housing sector is particularly vulnerable. That vulnerability could come from multiple angles: rising rates, shifting consumer sentiment, or simply relative underperformance catching up with absolute price.

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My gut tells me the odds of a pullback in the markets are increasing. And the next pullback in the direction back to recent lows will likely come with a lot of noise. There will be lots of shouts about "retesting lows," from some camps, and other shouts of "this was just a dead cat bounce, we're going much lower!" from other camps.

I have a hunch of how that plays out, which I discussed on this morning's Options Jam Session.

But if the market gets slippery here, and especially if the shouting class gets it right, I think housing sector stocks are vulnerable.

In trading, we’re taught early on that risk management is everything. “Use stop losses!” they say. And I agree. But what I’ve come to learn—especially when trading options in volatile markets—is that stops aren’t always about a precise line in the sand. Sometimes, they’re more like zones. Areas. Regions on the chart where you start paying close attention, rather than pulling the trigger at the first sign of trouble.

This came into sharp focus recently as volatility spiked. When the market threw its “tariff tantrum” and everything went haywire, we saw stocks and indices swinging wildly in both directions. On any given day, the same stock could be up 5% in the morning and down 5% by the afternoon. It was chaos. And chaos doesn’t play nicely with rigid stop-loss levels.

I had several long positions on during that time—mostly defined-risk spreads with expirations a few months out. The kind of trades that allow for a bit more breathing room. Yet many of these positions would repeatedly dip below my stop levels… only to recover just hours later. Over and over. A less experienced version of me might have panicked and bailed the moment my mental stop was breached. But I’ve...

Today's trade is a similar trade to the one I did in Kingsoft Computing last week. It's a bet on a previous highfligher, who had it's legs kicked out from under it during the recent market turmoil, that appears to be setting up to resume its former prominence.

Well, here we are. Both $SPY and $QQQ are stuck in a weird place -- above their 50-day moving averages, and below their 200-day moving averages.

What now?

My gut tells me some sloppy digestion will be the rule of the day for the next several weeks. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind pending whatever Amazon says tonight when they announce earnings.

We did a quick Options Jam Session today due to technical difficulties rendering a late start. But this means I get to the point quickly about what I'm seeing and what I'm trading.

Check it out here:

Sean McLaughlin | Chief Options Strategist, All Star Charts