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Andy Crowder

Senior Analyst

Andy Crowder is a professional options trader, researcher and Senior Analyst at Cabot. Formerly with Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, Andy has leveraged his investment experience to develop his statistically based options trading strategy which applies probability theory to option valuations in order to execute risk-controlled trades. This proprietary strategy has been refined through two decades of research and real-world experience and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Seeking Alpha, and numerous other financial publications. Andy has helped thousands of option traders learn and implement his meticulous rules-driven options trading strategies through highly attended conferences, one-on-one coaching, webinars, and his work as a financial columnist. He currently resides in Bolton Valley, Vermont and when he’s not trading, teaching and writing about options, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters, backcountry skiing, biking, running and enjoying all things outdoors.

From this author
Nvidia (NVDA) is due to announce this week and has the chance to significantly move the market over the short-term. We have two positions that are both bearish-leaning at the moment, so a short-term move to the downside would be welcome. However, if that doesn’t occur, no worries, as long as we the market doesn’t rally significantly higher. If it does, we will need to adjust or close out our SPY iron condor. Shortly after the NVDA announcement I intend to add several new positions to the mix.

We locked in a 17.1% gain in DKNG at expiration on Friday. The gain in DKNG and GDX pushed our total return to all-time highs at 143.5%. I plan to continue our wheel-based approach in DKNG by selling puts early last week. As for GDX, we bought back our calls and sold more calls the week before (2/12).

Hopefully, we have the opportunity to add to our total with two trades due to expire at the end of this week. We sold puts in XLU and KO in mid-January and as it stands, both look to expire out-of-the-money. Of course, we need to see how the week plays out, but given our income wheel approach, with the exception of a crash, we are perfectly fine with whatever occurs. Our ultimate goal is to bring in options premium in a continual basis.
Cabot Options Institute Quant Trader is focused exclusively on creating consistent returns using high-probability options strategies including bear call spreads, bull put spreads, iron condors and more. Whether you have questions about the strategies, or even about setting up your account, or how to make your own trades, Andy will answer all of your questions
Cabot Options Institute Income Trader is focused exclusively on the creating consistent income through a variety of options selling strategies. Whether you have questions about selling puts, covered strangles, jade lizards or our income wheel approach, Andy is more than happy to help you steepen your learning curve in this live event.
Okay, it’s time to start rolling the remainder of our February 16 short calls. I’m going to start with our GLD position in All-Weather and then move on to the Yale Endowment Portfolio followed by the various Dogs of the Dow Portfolios.
I’m selling more call premium in GDX today. We’ve reaped most of the call premium from our February 16, 2024, 29 calls so I’m going to buy them back and sell more premium going out to the March expiration.

I plan on ramping up the positions in our actively managed portfolios (Buffett and Growth/Value) over the next expiration cycle. My goal is to have a minimum of 5 positions per portfolio, but I’m not going to race to get there. I’ll continue to pounce when the opportunity presents itself. We’ve taken our time adding positions since initiating our portfolio and, so far, our patience has served us well.
Volatility continues to remain low as a result of the seemingly never-ending market rally. While all of our bullish positions in our other Cabot Options Institute services (Fundamentals, Income Trader, Earnings Trader) continue to thrive in this environment, anything with a bearish-leaning or hedge-based trade has struggled. But as I’ve stated numerous times in the past, that’s why we always want to diversify our strategies when approaching the market.

The plan remains simple. I continue to focus on balancing out the overall deltas of our current positions by adding a trade, most likely a bull put spread. I’ll be concentrating on sector ETFs and individual stocks as the major indices continue to see low levels of volatility.
We should be able to add to our total return of 124.9% at the end of this week as our GDX and DKNG positions are due to expire. The jump in our total return should be notable as we have the potential to add 17.1% through our DKNG position and 1.6% in GDX.

I plan to add one more position next week so stay tuned for a trade alert, possibly two as we move through the week.
We made our fourth straight successful trade for this earnings cycle late last week. We were thankful to take quick profits in Amgen (AMGN) Wednesday morning. All went as planned as AMGN opened well within the chosen range of our iron condor and, as a result, we were able to take off the trade for a nice one-day gain of 5.6%. Our total return for this earnings cycle stands at 28.8%, one of our best performing earnings cycle since we initiated Earnings Trader back in mid-July 2022, smack dab in the middle of the most recent bear market.
As I stated yesterday, I’ll be rolling our February expiration short call positions into March expiration over the next few days. Moreover, per usual this time of year, I’ll be selling our LEAPS in the passive portfolios (All-Weather and Yale Endowment) at March expiration and buying new LEAPS going out to the January 2026 expiration.
I’ll be sending out alerts for several of our Fundamentals portfolios over the next several days, most likely stretching into early next week, as we stay mechanical and roll our February 16, 2024, calls into various March expiration cycles.
I will be exiting our Amgen (AMGN) trade today. I will discuss the trade in greater detail in our upcoming weekly issue and within our subscriber-only call this Friday.
Amgen (AMGN) is due to announce earnings today after the closing bell.
Like most of our bullish-leaning positions, our AMGN trade has moved sharply higher since the onset of 2024. We are up over 18% on the trade since we initiated it on January 5, 2024.
We made our third straight successful trade for this earnings cycle late last week. We were thankful to take quick profits in Microsoft (MSFT) Wednesday morning. All went as planned as MSFT opened well within the chosen range of our iron condor and, as a result, we were able to take off the trade for a nice one-day gain of 11.1%. Our total return for this earnings cycle stands at 23.2%.
Not much to say this week. The plan remains simple. I continue to focus on balancing out the overall deltas of our current positions by adding a trade, most likely a bull put spread. I’ll be concentrating on sector ETFs and individual stocks as the major indices continue to see low levels of volatility.

As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me at andy@cabotwealth.com.
We were able to sell some call premium in PFE and put premium in BITO. As a result, we now have 6 positions in the portfolio with the hope to add a few more sources of income over the next week or two.

January offered us another good month as we brought in over 12% worth of premium. Let’s continue to keep it simple, stay mechanical and allow the strategy to do the heavy lifting. Our total returns now sit at all-time highs of 124.9%. We introduced the portfolio in June 2022 and continue to be impressed by the resilient and consistent nature of the income wheel strategy during all market environments.
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