I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year!

As we move through another holiday-shortened week, it should be no surprise that there is little in the way of earnings announcements the first week of the year. But the action will pick up in earnest in less than two weeks.

I hope everyone had a joyous and memorable holiday season!

As we move into the last trading week of the year, it should be no surprise that there is little in the way of earnings announcements this week. As a result, let’s take a moment to appreciate the time spent with loved ones, the delicious meals shared, and the special traditions celebrated. Wishing you all a happy and prosperous New Year!

We have officially entered the earnings doldrums, but that certainly doesn’t mean that opportunities won’t present themselves. For instance, this week Micron (MU), FedEx (FDX) and Nike (NKE) announce earnings and offer a decent opportunity for an iron condor. I’ve gone over a detailed iron condor example in the “Weekly Trade Ideas” section below.

We’ve made 39 trades in total with a win ratio of 76.9% (30 out of 39 winning trades).

We have officially entered the earnings doldrums, but that certainly doesn’t mean that opportunities won’t present themselves. For instance, this week Costco (COST) and Oracle (ORCL) announce earnings and offer a decent opportunity for an iron condor. I’ve gone over a detailed iron condor example in the “Weekly Trade Ideas” section in this issue. Enjoy!

We have officially entered the earnings doldrums, but that certainly doesn’t mean that opportunities won’t present themselves. For instance, this week Lululemon (LULU) announces earnings and offers a decent opportunity for an iron condor. I’ve gone over a detailed iron condor example in the “Weekly Trade Ideas” section below.

We are officially entering the earnings doldrums, but that certainly doesn’t mean that opportunities won’t present themselves. For instance, this week Marvell (MRVL) announces earnings and offers a decent opportunity for an iron condor and is potentially a candidate for a short strangle, a strategy we haven’t used in a while. I’ve gone over a detailed iron condor example in the “Weekly Trade Ideas” section. Details inside.

Earnings season is mostly behind us as we enter the week of Thanksgiving and a holiday-shortened week of trading. There are still a few opportunities lingering ahead, but the potential trades are few and far between until another round of fresh earnings announcements starts anew around the middle of January.

I expect to see a busy week this week with several key positions on our watch list due to announce earnings.

I expect to start the week with a trade in Home Depot (HD) which is due to announce prior to the opening bell tomorrow. The other announcement I’ll be focusing on is Walmart (WMT) which is due to announce prior to the opening bell on Thursday. I fully anticipate making trades around both announcements, as long as Mr. Market cooperates, so stay tuned for several trade alerts this week.

Sometimes the best trade is the one not placed. While we’ve seen a few slow earnings cycles for trading, we never want to force trades. As always, opportunities will pick up. Until then, I still expect, well hope, that we will have 6 to 7 trades under our belt before the earnings season is behind us in a few weeks. And this week is a slow one, with DIS and WYNN at the top of the list. But the following week, the last “big” week of earnings, brings on big retail as Home Depot (HD), Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT), among several others, report. The potential opportunities are there, it’s just a matter of what the market is giving us at the time and if it’s enough to meet our criteria.

We decided to place our third trade of the season in Mastercard (MA) by using a 47.5-point range, with our short strikes at 360 (puts) and 407.5 (calls). We felt comfortable with the range as it was not only well outside of the expected range (370 – 400) for MA, but covered, on a percentage basis, almost every earnings move going back to November 2011. These are the type of setups we prefer to trade.

The first full week of earnings season arrived last week and we decided to place our second trade of the season in American Express (AXP) by using a 20-point range, with our short strikes at 140 (puts)and 160 (calls). We felt comfortable with the range as it was not only well outside of the expected range (144 – 156) for AXP, but covered, on a percentage basis, almost every earnings move going back to October 2006. These are the type of setups we prefer to trade.

Earnings season kicked off late last week with the big banks leading the way. We decided to place our first trade of the season in JPMorgan Chase (JPM) by using a 14.5-point range, with our short strikes at 152.5 and 138. We felt comfortable with the range as it was not only well outside of the expected range (141 – 151) for JPM, but covered, on a percentage basis, all earnings moves going back to October 2006. These are the type of setups we prefer to trade.

I will be exiting the Mastercard (MA) trade today. I will discuss the trade in greater detail in our upcoming weekly issue.

I will be exiting the American Express (AXP) trade today. I will discuss the trade in greater detail in our upcoming weekly issue.

I will be exiting the American Express (AXP) trade today. I will discuss the trade in greater detail in our upcoming weekly issue.

I will be holding a subscriber-only webinar tomorrow at 12 p.m. ET. Click here to sign up. No worries if you can’t make it, we archive everything here at Cabot. You can find all the archived recordings here.

I will be exiting the JP Morgan (JPM) trade today. I will discuss the trade in greater detail in our upcoming weekly issue.

Okay, everyone, earnings season is finally upon us. I suspect we are in for an interesting earnings season, and to get us started, I will be holding a subscriber-only webinar tomorrow at 12 p.m. ET. Click here to sign-up. No worries if you can’t make it, we archive everything here at Cabot. You can find all the archived recordings here.

I will be exiting the Home Depot (HD) trade today. I will discuss the trade in greater detail in our upcoming weekly issue.

I will be exiting the ConocoPhillips (COP) trade today. I will discuss the trade in greater detail in our subscriber-exclusive webinar at noon ET Friday, August 4.

ConocoPhillips (COP) is due to announce earnings Thursday before the opening bell.

I will be exiting the Visa (V) trade today. I will discuss the trade in greater detail in our subscriber-exclusive webinar at noon ET Friday, July 28.