$10,000 Tuesday – One Trade To Make Your Month

How would you like to make $10,000?

If the Russell can finish this option period (24 days) 2.5% higher, at 1,178 or higher, we can turn net $1,000 or less cash into $10,000 for you. After all, if the Fed is going to give away money – why shouldn’t we get our share?

Chart by Dave Fry

I’ll preface this by saying that our Members are already long on Russell Futures at the 1,150 line, as we made that call in our live Member Chat Room (click here to try Phil’s Stock World) earlier this morning.   

If the market is going to remain bullet-proof (and missile-proof too, it seems) then the RUT is now the lagging index and we can construct a play to take advantage of it breaking back up by making a play on TNA, the 3x Ultra-Long Russell ETF.  

Chart by Finviz

Very simply, if we buy the August $72.50 calls for $3.45 and we sell the Aug $76.50 calls for $1.70, we have a net cost of $1.75 on the $4 spread that’s $4.64 out of the money (at goal) and that’s 6.4% out of the money so, to be safe, we’ll need a 2.5% gain on the Russell, from 1,150 to 1,178.75 to make the full $4. 25 contracts at $4 = $10,000 so we can work with that.

But what about the cost of the 25 contracts (at $1.70 x 2,500, that’s $4,250)?  

There’s a couple of ways to offset that. One way is to sell 25 TNA Aug $65 puts for $1.70 to offset the cost. The danger there is, if the Russell goes down 2.5% (to 1,121) or lower, we’ll be assigned 2,500 shares of TNA for $65 ($162,500) – that could be unpleasant. 

Instead, we can commit to being long TNA at $45 in 2016 by selling just 5 2016 $45 puts for $8, and that raises $4,000 and commits us to owning “just” 500 shares of TNA at $45 per share ($22,500).  

Now, if you don’t want to be bullish on the Russell when TNA is down 37% (Russell 1,006), then why are you long on it at 1,150?  

Another fun way to offset the cost of a speculative spread is by selling puts on a stock you REALLY want to own anyway. Today, in our Chat Room, we were discussing the merits of STNG, which is in the midst of a stock buyback at $9.74 per share (so far) but are still trading at $9.92.