Having a reason to get up and get after it helps keep me focused on the task at hand and often helps me from taking monster losses.

Each day, I tell myself, I want to keep as much money as I can to help my family! (Yes, it’s true, we got another puppy!)

I feel attaching a real emotion to a trade, like the love of family, can help keep me focused and not treat my trades like it’s some fun money or monopoly money.

Most people like me who trade the SPY will monitor the VIX or fear index when looking to buy calls or puts.

Next time you make a trade, consider adding something special to it, maybe like the desire to build up some funds for something fun for yourself, or your family. It might help you stay on task!

By the way, if you’re looking for one of my favorite books, check here. I just loved reading Toni Turner books.

Hope this helps and let me know if emotional trading is something you struggle with next time you’re in the Market Navigator chat room and I’ll do my best to share more tips and tricks I’ve used over the years.

I got started in the stock market at a young age. My parents always taught me to invest some of my paycheck into a retirement fund, even when I was just 16 years old. At the time I didn’t understand but now I couldn’t be more appreciative – you can see how my dad impacted me as we started a business together selling worms. Here is a photo back from 1988. Crazy how time flies but I used that money to help pay for part of my college education as well as save for retirement. Thanks Dad!

Fast forward a few years and I’m teaching in New York State, still with the strong desire to trade stocks, so I would try to trade during my breaks. This was difficult because my breaks were random. 

After 12 years of teaching, as much as I love working with kids, I knew I wanted to try something new.

My trading career really took off about 12 years ago when I started trading penny stocks and teaching traders just like you how I approached my trading day and my trades.

Trading penny stocks was a lot of fun, however, I noticed there were certain times of the year where volume would dry up. On top of that, I felt like my times of making the trades were very sporadic. 

You see, in my opinion, stocks run randomly. They randomly drop news and you wake up to a stock moving up or down 50% or some other type of unknown reason would move the stock. I felt I couldn’t really get an edge with this.

This is when I decided to make a change and since that change my success has dramatically improved.

So after years of trading stocks and getting frustrated with their lack of liquidity at various times of the year, I took a deep dive and changed the way I traded and the results have been dramatically different. 

Was there a way to trade year round without worrying about random drops in liquidity, without worrying about if markets were up or down but more importantly, a SPECIFIC time of the day to trade?

I finally found my answer, trading options on the S&P 500 or SPY. The most liquid ETF out there. One ticker that tapped into the TOP 500 companies in the United States. 

Markets up or down, it didn’t matter because options give me the ability to trade in BOTH directions. (Click here to review all my SPY trades and you’ll notice I’m making trades in all types of market conditions.)

Very quickly, Market Navigator was developed. A trading service that now focuses on my SINGLE HIGHEST CONVICTION trade idea between 9:30am and 10:30am. 

A set time that 9-5 working traders could look for each and every day, then focus back on their busy schedule. 

Each morning I study the world markets starting around 6am. I get a feel for how global markets and major economic new pieces could affect how the SPY could trade in the first hour of the day.

From here, I type up a 3-5 minute read email that I send directly out to members of Market Navigator. In the email it teaches trades what I see happening today and WHY I think markets will move up or down.

Then, most importantly, I conclude the email with my single highest conviction SPY “Trade of the Day” which includes the exact expiration date and strike price for either calls or puts that I plan to trade shortly after the market opens.

This email gets delivered at 8:45am each morning to their inbox. Plenty of time to take a look, learn and pull up my top trade idea for the day.

Then, at 9:25am, about 5 minutes before the markets open, I send an App alert to their phones detailing the exact trade I am about to make, just to confirm my email thesis. No guessing on what trade I am about to buy or sell! That’s right, I do the exact same App alert process BEFORE I am about to sell as well. 

My goal with my SPY “Trade of the Day” is to be in and out before 10:30am each morning. 

For those that have extra time, they can join me in a live trading chat room to literally watch and listen to me as I prepare the trade, break down the options chain and then buy and sell the trade. This isn’t required but it’s a great learning opportunity when you have some spare time.

New to options? No worries, Market Navigator also has an extensive, on demand video library that you can use to watch short lessons on the most important topics I feel every trader should know. 

Want even more trade ideas? No problem, our live trading chat room shares about 5-10 trade ideas per day with hundreds of members all over the world. The chat room atmosphere is welcoming, friendly and full of education. 

If you’ve been struggling to find your trading direction, then I think Market Navigator could change the way you trade. I know it did for me and I’m confident it’s helped members just like you feel more confident in their trading and sharpen their skills. 

I look forward to teaching you more about the service very soon → please click this link to learn more about Market Navigator!

While I’m not hunting Apes (which I AM doing TODAY at 2pm EST so please check that out if you haven’t yet + AWESOME TRIAL AVAILABLE)…

I’m riding in on my horse to save you from one of the toughest lessons a new options trader could be facing right now!

“How do you interpret an options chain?”

In today’s lesson, I’ll show you how I calculate the potential opening price on SPY using theta, delta and some basic options chain numbers. By the end of this email I hope these terms are no longer foreign for you.

First, let’s take a look at the options chain below and identify a few starting components.

In yellow, you’ll see “May 3 ‘23” which is the Expiration date for the SPY options chain I am looking at. That means, I have up until May 3rd for this trade idea to work. Holding past May 3rd would convert any options that I am holding (assuming they had any value) into SPY stock. Please note, I almost always sell BEFORE expiration because holding up to the very last minute can be risky. So, if today is April 28th and I buy May 3rd expiration SPY options, that means I have about 5 days for the trade to move the direction, and the amount that I want. I can sell before expiration if I want.

Next, in red, you will see two boxes for “Puts” and “Calls.” Playing puts means that you believe the entity you’re trading will go DOWN. It would be like shorting a stock but when you short a stock you have unlimited risk which is extremely dangerous. Playing puts still allows me to hope for a downward move but it limits my risk to how much money I put into the options trade (unless I hold past expiration and my options have some value left which will be converted into stock, which again I try to avoid at all costs.)

On the flip side, playing calls means I believe the entity I am playing will go higher. This is similar to going long a stock. If the price moves up quickly, then I have a good chance of making profits. If the underlying security I am playing calls on goes down, then I will lose money.

Next, in the middle of the image below you will see a blue rectangle around the “Strike Price.” The strike price is where I believe the underlying security will stay above (if I am in calls) or below (if I am playing puts) by the time I want to sell or to the expiration date. It’s good to note that many people will play options that are far away from the underlying securities current price. This is called playing “OTM” or out of the money options. I’ll explain more on that at a later time.

Lastly, on the top of the image below is an orange box which shows the last trade of the underlying stock and how much it is up or down at the current moment.

Now, let’s take a closer look at two other KEY components of an options chain and usually the hardest two for most people to understand and they are Theta and Delta.

The column is green is Theta, that means “decay” or how much the option will lose in value overnight (also slowly as the day goes on.) Theta happens overnight no matter what, even if you pick the right direction. I love to look for options that have Theta in the low $.20 area.

 Next is Delta, which is the “rate of change” on options. If the SPY moves $1 dollar and the Delta is $.60 for example, the option will move $.60 cents. If the SPY moves $1 dollar and the delta is $.43, then the option will move $.43 cents.

So let’s wrap up this very valuable lesson with a complete example. Below you will see I am spotlighting the May 3rd, $406 CALLS.

The trade here is “calls” meaning I am looking for the price of SPY to go UP. The strike price is $406 which means I want the price of SPY to be higher than $406 by May 3rd. Don’t forget, I ultimately want to sell these BEFORE May 3rd but I am able to hold them up to May 3rd if I wish. The Theta, or decay is $.279 meaning if I hold the options overnight I will lose $.279 cents just for holding. The Delta is $.529 meaning if the SPY increases $1 dollar I will gain $.529 cents on my options. If SPY moves up $2 I will gain $1.06 and if we move up $2.75 on SPY then I will gain $1.45. If we drop $1 I will lose $.529 per contract also.

We just scratched the surface here on “What is an options chain” but I really hope this sheds some light on the subject.

Please don’t forget, I am LIVE trading and LIVE teaching each day in the Market Navigator service about options chain, charting, market analysis and a lot more.

If you would like to learn more about Market Navigator then I am now offering a TWO tier pricing option for you. Simply click here now to take a look on which of the two options fits you best.

I’d love to keep educating you on options and how I trade them daily.

PS If you have any questions about any of my services, call Jeff Brown @ 800-585-4488 or (jbrown@ragingbull.com), and he would be happy to talk about any special offers, payment plans, and help you in any way possible.

Cheers

Jeff Williams

With a week of heavy economic data coming up, I’d like to share with you my single favorite indicator I use when day trading the SPY during volatile market conditions. 

Besides using this ONE indicator to help me with my entry and exits on the SPY, I also love how I can see market data coming up and then prepare my trades around that. It’s one of the unique aspects of trading the SPY or S&P500 that stock traders don’t necessarily have. Being able to see the pitch coming a day or two in advance can really help give me an edge on my trading. 

For example, I see that Wednesday and Thursday have some really high impactful pieces of market data. ADP employment (or the change in private employment) is coming up before markets open Wednesday. Fed Powell speaks that same day at 10AM, followed by Job openings and then Jobless claims on Thursday. 

How can we not forget about Fed Waller on Thursday??? His last live event ended “prematurely” when he supposedly got hacked and started to stream porn (or something along those lines!)…

Either way, seeing these softballs being lobbed ahead of time allows me time to prepare for the next day or two. This might keep me from taking overnight swing trades in hopes of protecting my capital where some traders might hold blind and wake up to a total market mess. 

That being said, I LOVE volatility. I mean isn’t that what most traders want? I think it’s safe to say most of us don’t trade speculative stocks with the goal of holding them for 1 year and seeking a return of 2% – boring to me, at least!

So, once I spot a trade setup I like, what’s my #1 indicator to help guide me in my entries and exits?

Bollinger Bands. 

Take a look at this chart from last Friday the 3rd of March. You see the thick solid blue lines on top and bottom of price action (look like clouds) and the dotted middle line running up the middle? Those are the bollinger bands. They essentially represent volatility. 

Here is how I use them. When the price action is above the dotted middle blue line (which is simply the 20 SMA) I like to buy calls on SPY. If price action is below the dotted middle blue line then I like to buy puts. 

Assuming the price action stays above the middle dotted blue line, I might look to stay long my calls, maybe “trim and trail” meaning sell some to protect capital and reduce risk or maybe sell all and move on. Once the candle drops below the dotted blue line then I might consider selling and moving to a new trade. 

Friday was a great example of price action staying ABOVE the dotted middle blue bollinger line almost the entire day, right up until about 3:30PM where I circled in red the price action finally falling below the middle bollinger band.

Think about that for a moment. Had I only used the middle bollinger band, I really didn’t get a sell signal until right before the close. I had a shot at a near $5 move on SPY, amazing!

I use these bollinger bands mostly on 1 and 3 minute charts during the day. I often will look for price action to be BELOW the middle bollinger band then look to buy if we cross above that line (my signal line) and then target 10 to 20% or trim and trail if the trade appears to be working for a while like Friday’s chart showed. 

Matter of fact, I used the bollinger bands to make 2 trades on the SPY Friday. One in the morning on the dip and one in the afternoon before the fall late in the day. You can line up the times of the images below with the chat above and you’ll see how I bought the dips and sold the rips higher. 

While I never recommend using just ONE indicator nor will I say the bollinger bands help me win every trade, I do feel they are a great simple to use indicator that can surely help guide me in making more educated, real time entries and exits and that’s all I can hope for. 

If you would like to learn more about my trading techniques or actually watch me trade live during the day, I am offering a $1,000 savings right now to my flagship service Market Navigator.

I’ve taught thousands of traders just like you over the last 12 years (click HERE for reviews) and I am confident that I can teach you a lot about markets and how they work (click here for my trading record).

So…I’m hopeful you’ve learned something today…

And if you’d like to learn MORE, simply click here to see how you can pocket $1,000 now yet still get a full learning experience with me.

It should be going GREAT since I showed you the buying opportunity that SPY was giving you as it dipped down to its rising 20-day moving average the other day.

The question now, however, is where does the market go from here?

Ever since retail traders showed evidence that they were panic selling late last year, it’s pretty much been a straight line higher for SPY in 2023.

Unfortunately, we are starting to see signs that the market may be getting a little too bullish.

After 20+ years of teaching folks like you how to trade these crazy markets, trust me when I tell you that THIS is when you need to learn how to sift through the noise of all the talking heads to see if the trend has what it takes to continue.

Here’s what I mean.

Sentiment is a powerful trading tool.

Wall Street’s biggest traders and institutional players love to wait patiently for periods of extreme fear and greed to enter the market so that they can take the other side of the trade against uninformed retail traders (don’t be one of them!).

Sometimes, however, periods of fear and greed can persist, so I make it a point to teach my Market Navigator members how to decipher between major market reversals and simple pauses. 

With this next chart, I am about to let you in on a CRITICAL part of the analytical process that I go through with my Market Navigator members when sentiment is near extremes. 

What this chart shows in the middle panel is a 10-day moving average of the Equity Only Put/Call ratio. Specifically, it is showing the level of Put buying divided by the level of Call buying. 

When the ratio is at high extremes, it signals extreme fear as the amount of Put buying FAR EXCEEDS the amount of Call buying, which you can see was the case late last year (see SPY chart in top panel).

At the other end of the spectrum, when the level of Call buying far exceeds the level of Put buying, it is a sign that greed is becoming extreme.

Recently, the MACD study at the bottom of the chart shows us that the momentum behind the recent Call buying has become so extended that traders now need to be on the lookout for a possible pause in the rally.

Like I said earlier, this is not necessarily a great timing tool for telling traders when to get in and out of the market.

But it is great at telling us when we need to be careful about simply piling into the existing trend, which is STILL higher for SPY. 

Now, I don’t want to put too much on your plate today by showing you another KEY ratio that I am using RIGHT NOW to gauge the strength of SPY’s trend.

But I will tell you that this indicator is giving me important insights into the strength of the market’s overall risk appetite. 

If you are ready to make your next side hustle trade, I urge you to come see how I am using my 20+ years as a trader and market educator to position RIGHT NOW.

As one of Inc.’s most TRUSTED educators, I hope you’ll recognize the value in how I help folks like you plan and place trades in a way that fits your lifestyle.

Over the past two years I have seen many of my Market Navigator members take on trading as a side hustle, with all the extra time they’ve found with their new hybrid working arrangements.

As an innovator in this industry, RagingBull has THE BEST platform for getting trade ideas in front of retail traders from every angle, at all hours of the day. 

Just look at this SMALL sample of alerts that came from my Market Navigator service alone yesterday: 

From instant app alerts…

To the LIVE chat room…

To the Market Navigator trading feed…

To non-stop email alerts…

Even if it’s for one trade a day during your busy schedule, there is always an opportunity to quickly take the plan I have hand-crafted for you and execute on it.

I beg you, don’t be another retail trader that falls victim to HORRIBLE market timers like Jim Cramer.

I’ve been trading for 20+ years, and I am about to drop my next trade idea based on what I am seeing in the market’s risk appetite. 

Access to EVERYTHING you need to get started is right HERE!

I’m not holding anything back.

• My Daily SPY Trade of the Day Member-Only Email
• The Trade of the Day: ONE stock (SPY) at ONE time (9AM ET)
• Alerts via the RagingBull App
• My Elite Educational Suite. New or experienced, there’s virtually nothing you cannot learn about trading from me. This alone is worth double your enrollment rate. From options terminology to my favorite two chart patterns, this is where the fundamental learning takes place.
• The Market Navigator LIVE trading room, where I put my own capital to work while teaching and trading with members – every trade paired with a pre-alert so you can immediately benefit first!

Every Trade of the Day comes with a 30 minute “HeadsUp” and can be made from your phone.

So if you do have a smartphone, I have your trades of the day…

DAILY at 9AM (ET)!

Easy as that.  Don’t miss another day – start your trading journey with me TODAY!