Not much to say as we enter another holiday-shortened week, so I’m going to keep the message consistent with last week. I intend on introducing a new position in WFC, or another fairly low-priced big bank stock, by selling puts early this week. My hope is we get a short-term pullback before entering a new position.

As we enter the last and one of the slowest trading weeks of the year, I wanted to wish everyone a happy, prosperous and exciting year ahead!

Since all of our current open positions are in great shape with several weeks left until the January 19 expiration cycle, I’m going to keep it short today. While I might add one new position this week, I don’t really plan on making any other trades.

We allowed our PFE calls to expire worthless at expiration last Friday, locked in some decent premium and plan to sell more call premium early this week. Expect to see a trade alert either today or tomorrow.

We also allowed our DKNG puts to carry through expiration and as a result, per our income wheel approach, we were assigned shares of DKNG. Now that we are in the covered call phase of the income wheel approach in DKNG, like PFE, we plan to sell calls against our newly acquired shares today or tomorrow.

Additionally, I intend on introducing a new position in WFC, or another fairly low-priced big bank stock, by selling puts early this week. My hope is we get a short-term pullback before entering a new position.

The Income Trader service is oftentimes viewed as the tortoise approach. Among many investors today, the slow and steady “tortoise” approach just isn’t sexy. But really, who cares? I certainly don’t, I’m just a nerdy options trader who prefers to sell options with every opportunity, so “sexy” isn’t really in my vocabulary. I care about returns…and more specifically, long-term returns. Returns that offer not only steady growth but sound risk mitigation. And that’s what Income Trader and our income wheel approach offer during both bullish and bearish markets.

As we move into the month of December all of our positions continue to thrive. Even if we see a pullback over the next month, unless it’s sharp, we should see some nice gains as we progress through the month. I also hope to add another trade to the portfolio, but I would like to see a reprieve before I sell a few puts. Implied volatility is currently quite low across the board and the market sits in an extreme short-term overbought state.

I hope everyone had a well-rested couple of days from the market. Early last week we started the income wheel process over again in BITO and DKNG by selling a few puts. Both have offered wonderful sources of income since being introduced to the portfolio, so I plan to continue to try and eke out as much options premium (and capital gains) as I can from both sources as long as they will allow.

As we enter the holiday-shortened week, we have five open positions. My intent is to sell puts in BITO and DKNG this week, so we have at least seven positions headed into the December/January expiration cycles. Both stocks allowed us to prosper, earning more than 13% in total at expiration last Friday with DKNG being the big winner, as we locked in 9.6%.

There isn’t much to discuss at the moment so I’m going to keep it short this week. We have several positions to due to expire each of the next three weeks. If all goes as planned, we should have the ability to lock in some really nice premium which should push our returns to new highs.

Oh boy, if things hold at current levels, or even push back a tad, we are in store for some nice returns across the board. In fact, this could be one of our more profitable periods over the next few weeks.

I intend to add one more position to the mix this week, so be on the lookout for a trade alert or two coming your way early this week.

As discussed over the past few weeks, we finally added the SPDR Utilities ETF (XLU) to the portfolio, which now gives us seven total income-producing positions. My goal is to have 8 to 10 positions, so we’re almost there. I plan to add another position this week, but I’ll be taking the opposite approach. I plan to add a stock or ETF with a little higher IV to give us the opportunity for greater options premium. As I’ve stated in the past, I like to diversify by not only using uncorrelated assets, but to use assets with varying levels of implied volatility.

We allowed our three remaining October 20, 2023, positions to expire.

Our DraftKings (DKNG) puts closed in-the-money and as I discussed last week on our subscriber-only call, I plan to sell calls against our newly issued shares in DKNG on Monday.

Both our Wells Fargo (WFC) and Pfizer (PFE) call positions expired worthless, so we locked in all of the premium and we needed it to offset some of the losses in both stocks. I plan to sell more calls against both positions on Monday.

Expiration is upon us, and three of our six positions are due to expire this week.

I plan to buy back our calls in WFC, as they are essentially worthless, lock in some profits and immediately sell more call premium.

As for our GDX covered call position, the current probability is basically 50%, so we are in coin toss territory. I’ll update my thoughts on the position, with any necessary alerts, as the week progresses.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There is little to no value left in our XLU December 15, 2023, 56 puts. As a result, I’m going to buy them back, lock in profits and immediately sell more premium. I’ll be doing the same in a few other positions as we move throughout the week.

As part of the Income Wheel approach, we allowed our KO calls to expire in the money at expiration last week. As a result, our shares were “called” away at the price of 55.

Since we introduced our GDX position back in early June 2022, we’ve managed to bring in 14.97% worth of premium and capital gains by using our simple income wheel approach. Comparatively, the stock is down 11.1% over the same time frame – once again proving the power of taking the patient, disciplined and conservative approach of the income wheel options strategy.

Since we introduced our PFE position back in early June 2022, we’ve managed to bring in 25.7% worth of premium and capital gains by using our simple income wheel approach. Comparatively, the stock is down 23.1% over the same time frame.

We allowed our calls to expire worthless, thereby reaping all of the call premium. Now it’s time to start selling more call premium.

Today I want to buy back our PFE October calls and immediately sell more call premium.

We allowed our BITO calls to expire worthless last week. As a result, we locked in a return of 3.4%. Now it’s time to sell more call premium against our BITO shares. We have managed to reap a total return of just over 105% since introducing Income Trader 16 months ago.

As part of the Income Wheel approach, we allowed our Wells Fargo (WFC) puts to expire in the money at expiration last week. As a result, we were issued shares at our chosen put strike of 45. So far, we’ve managed to lock in 18% worth of premium in WFC.

DKNG continues to trend higher, so we are going to buy back our September puts, lock in profits and immediately sell more puts for the October expiration cycle.

I’m selling calls against our newly assigned shares today, per our Income Wheel strategy. I will be sending out another alert shortly to sell calls against our GDX and KO positions.