The Running Of The Bulltards

6/12/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 16:07:56 GMT

The SPY is hammering over the 21 ema right now and is on the cusp of entering a new uptrend with a close here. That was a vicious 4 day move down when we last broke the 21 but in classic fashion President Donald J Pump stepped in yesterday with a save as we approached the 50 day. The thing with Trump is he is incredible for stock bulls, in his 6 years in office, he always manages to say the right thing right when the market needed it and right here we have this new “deal” with Iran. We will have to see how long this lasts and what the real terms are. For now, he has managed to save the market if this closes anywhere up here. These last 4 days are why I highlight the importance of the 21 ema, you don’t know how weak we’re going to get or how long we’re going to be weak but you know you’re going to be weak so you adjust your positioning accordingly. Eventually, we end back up over the 21 ema, in this case 5 sessions later and thankfully not months later like in 2022, and you resume your bullishness until the next breakdown.

Database Updates

As I’m constantly pushing new updates out, I wanted to highlight some of the small things you will see today.

Insider Buys - I took your feedback, alot of you wanted insider buys and now you have a tab with a daily updated list of insider buys. You can sort by date, value, etc and you can see all the insider buys on all tickers and clickthrough right to their page in the database. Insider buys are great to see because then you can plan your put sales below levels key executives bought shares at so it is relevant and I’m happy to add it for you. On individual stock pages, if there has been an insider buy you will see it, if not there will be nothing.
Novel Tickers & Structured Trades - On the daily chart tab in the database now if you scroll below today’s action you will see 2 new sections. The structured trades is where you will see the risk reversals/synthetics logged that day and the novel tickers will be names that I am logging for the first time in a long time. Below is what yesterday showed and today TENX is up 13%. Amazing how that works sometimes. The point here to be able to let you dig deeper into unique names which may actually be shady activity and its hard to say TENX yesterday was just a lucky guess right now with no trades ever and a $1.1M bet hours before it pops 13% the following day.
Show Math - On all trade ideas generated by the database you will now see an option to see the math for all of you who were confused by where the numbers were coming from. You have to click it to see the work but it is there for you to understand what was generated and how.
Date Stepper - This replaces the old date picker on the daily chart, it’s centered with arrows on either side to make scrolling through the database a little easier.

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today

INTC - I sold 109 puts for next week 300x for 1.48. This is breaking out on the daily chart today. It is breaking the downtrend from early May and I sold 300 puts just below the 21 ema incase it pulls back but this should be a relatively easy trade barring news or overall market meltdowns. Either way at 109 this is a buy and this remains my favorite name at the moment and I’m pressing it.

6/11/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:51:03 GMT

The SPY faded the move up this morning on that 6.5% PPI print and now approaches the 50 day at 720.83. This is pretty normal downtrend action, instead of every dip being bought now every rip is being sold and we are now on day 5 under the 21 ema. You’ll notice the 8 ema crossed down through the 21 ema on the daily and this is just a small period of weakness. I’d like to see that 50 day hold and hopefully we get a small bounce over the next day or so because at the moment we’re losing the 8 week as well. All in all, nothing too scary, just a weak market until we base and reclaim that 21 ema.

My Open Book

6/10/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:00:46 GMT

The SPY gapped up and is now doing what we do in a downtrend, selling back to lows. As you can see this is our first open below the 21 ema in a couple months as the last 3 days we closed below it but every candle there opened above it. This is officially a downtrend if you were still on the fence that it wasn’t. The chart can’t get much clearer, you have the 8 ema close to crossing down through the 21 in another 1-2 sessions. Is it SpaceX? Is it Iran? I don’t know, nor do I care, the weakness will persist for now until it doesn’t. That 50 day is creeping up and at 720 now. This chart is exactly why I always mention the 21 and its importance. In the history of markets no sustained weakness occurred above the 21 ema but 100% of prolonged weakness occurred below it. Understanding when to press things and when to step aside are key if you’re going to be trading short term. While the ai trade is our future, we have a major problem right now with this Iran situation and the inflation its causing. If you remember 2022, Amazon is a perfect parallel to what we’re seeing in megacap tech now, it went FCF negative at the same time inflation was ramping and it caused Amazon to fall 50% even though business was going otherwise well. If inflation really creeps in right now just as every hypercaler is going FCF negative, the market will not be happy at all. So you have to be on edge about that because as fun as it is with all these small ai components getting all this new business, almost 40% of the market is the megacaps.

On a brighter note, that MMM trade I highlighted 2 days ago worked beautifully today as the stock nearly hit 162 turning these into $5 from from the 1.47 entry. The point I wanted to make with this one is when I flag something expiring in a couple of days and its this much size, yes $690k expiring in 4 days is significant, you likely want to think of how to trade around that information. What made this one so special was it was a name with no data in my database combined with a large short term call buy. That is a recipe for success in the rare event you see it and this one was proof of the stars aligning even in a weak tape.

Recent Feature

I just crossed my 4th year on substack and I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who make this place what it is. Someone published a piece recently about the top converting substacks here and it was really surprising to me to see myself at the top and how far this place has come in such a short timeframe. To be the 4th ranked finance substack is crazy to me, I’m just a guy with a very small audience sharing musings on the market. The fact so many of you trust me means alot to me. Thank you.

My Open Book

6/9/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:45:36 GMT

The SPY is going for its 3rd straight close below the 21 ema today and that would not be ideal. Really nasty action breaking below friday’s lows. Of course cpi is tomorrow and can change everything but I think its safe to say most people think the print will be quite hot tomorrow with the move in energy we’ve seen. If we’re being objective, this is a bear flag forming under the 21 ema and we’re near an 8/21 bear cross down. So short of some really good news on inflation cooling tomorrow, it looks like we’re in for a period of weakness in equities. After that 2 month run we had, that shouldn’t shock everyone and it doesn’t mean a catastrophe, it just means weakness below the moving averages. The next big level for us is that 50 day down around 720, we need to see some basing and a move back about the 21 before we can talk about a new uptrend. Energy keeps going down and the vix is still sub 20, so there are positives out there but from a technical perspective, this is not a good look in any way and that’s why the 21 ema is so key in everything. When you break below it, you never know how long you’re going to be weak for, but you know you’re going to be weak until you reclaim it so it gives you a chance to lighten up where you want incase it is a bigger breakdown.

Over the weekend I said the below about us likely to test the 8 week, and that being the spot we need to hold if this is to remain an uptrend.

Right now we are coming right into it as you can see below. We need to see it hold and turn up tomorrow, if we lose that for the first time since the ceasefire, it is worrisome but not catastrophic. The next level would be that 21 week just over 700 but for now I want to see us hold this 8 week we’re pulling into.

Database Updates

We’re now 2 weeks in and I want to go over some confusion I saw in the discord yesterday. So for starters, these aren’t AI generated trades in the sense that claude is generating trades at random. These are all trades based off a deeper set of inputs and rules that I’ve built in. I have rules and the trades generated are based on those rules and beliefs, they are as follow

every stock is a buy somewhere, that somewhere is based on moving averages and option flow.
every trade can be built better meaning at a higher probability lower strike and/or using short calls to turn it into a call spread
every trade can be turned into a credit by selling puts at key levels and/or utilizing unbalanced ratios to make a trade 2x1, 3x1, whatever

So what the AI is doing is taking 150+ names daily and applying my rules to them, note the audit you see below, if it doesn’t pass my rules, it doesn’t get built. Meaning what you’re seeing on every trade is a trade that is generated within 20 seconds of me logging a trade in the database, the options pricing is live, and the database builds you a trade idea that can be implemented for a credit. So take MSFT today, it drew up 3 trade ideas: defined risk reversal, income trade, and a ratio. Those 3 are for 3 different objectives. They are all built around the same parameters and the income trade takes all the data in my database and builds a higher probability put sale. We already know 80%+ of the puts I log expire worthless, so building a better trade at a lower strike increases that probability even more.

The part some of you were confused about was the credit and I want to make sure you understand more clearly what you’re looking at. Take the risk reversal below, the credit is $21 for the following reason. When you sell the August 350/330 put spread for 5.39-2.96 you get 2.43 in credit. Then you turn around and buy the August 450/460 call spread for 13-10.78 which leaves you with 2.22 in debit. Now you subtract the 2.22 debit from the 2.43 in credit you got from the put spread and you end up with .21. Being that options contracts are all 100 shares, that .21 x 100 is where the $21 in profit above stems from. As you will see the max loss is $1979, where does that come from? That comes from a total loss on the put spread meaning the stock closes under $330 so you lose the entire distance of the 350/330 put spread but since you got a $21 credit that is why the loss is $1979 instead of $2000 on 1 lot of each. On the flip side if MSFT goes through 460 by August your max gain is now $1021 because your 1 lot maxes out at $10 per which is $1000 on 100 shares and you got a $21 credit on top.

Does this clear up things? Each trade shows you the max you can gain or lose, now these trades are built within seconds of me logging the trade so yes by the time I send it out, the pricing may be a little different than the people in the live part get but sometimes you get a better entry, sometimes a worse one, there really isn’t much to say but this is one of the best trading tools you will find because it is extrapolating my notions on markets to every name in my database. There’s plenty of simple AI trade generators out there but this is building some really cool trades on a defined set of rules built off of a curated option flow database. Below you will see the put spread sale idea and the 2x1 ratio idea. It also gives you a great thesis on why the trade was built including which of the past trades, fibonacci levels and moving averages all including in the reasoning. So please don’t think this is some random ai trade generator, this is me and my philosophies built out to be applied to any ticker.

My Open Book

6/28/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:35:20 GMT

The SPY gapped up over the 21 ema and we’ll have to see where this closes today but this very well could have been a 1 day breakdown after 2 months to just shakeout alot of people. We have CPI coming up on the 10th and the Iran/Israel war seems to be picking up again. We need to keep an eye on the vix and oil to see how serious that is getting. Bulls would like to see us close over the 21 and slowly begin to reclaim the 8 ema overhead as we head into the big Space X ipo this friday. The close is the most important thing at the moment we don’t want to see repeat closes under the 21 where momentum starts building to the downside.

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today

We Broke Down, Now What?

James Bulltard — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:56:29 GMT

Yesterday was a very violent session for anyone who was in any of the recent leading names. Every name that outperformed over the last 60 days was thrown out with a double digit move down. So if you lost alot of money, congratulations, you probably made alot over the last 2 months because you were in the right place. Yesterday’s move was an all timer. The VIX was up 39%, the SMH was down 9.2%, the Korean market was down 14%, and the Nasdaq was down just under 5%. So considering the lack of really bad news like covid or a war kicking off it was one of the most surprising moves you will ever take part in. Now it’s over, and we look to what’s next.

You have to look at all timeframes: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly to get the real story. On one hand we are breaking down on the daily chart, that is never ideal, but if you zoom out and look at longer term charts, we haven’t seen any real long term technical damage as of this moment. We’re going to look at the QQQ because that is the whole market at this point, the SPY is important but with how that is weighted and where most people are allocated, the QQQ is what we will discuss.

The daily just knifed through the 21 yesterday without even a test. You figured the first test in 2 months would give you maybe a couple tests before potentially breaking down but it just broke through and the computer triggered selling kicked in. This is now a downtrend in the short term and the 50 day below is the next level of support over 5% lower. So all those people cheering for us going up everyday, this is what happens, you get so extended that the 50 day on the Nasdaq was nearly 15% lower just 3 days ago. So when you move down, it is a very sharp move down. Stairs up, elevator down, but when you go up pretty much every day for 2 months that is life. Make no mistake there is nothing bullish about this chart, now we need to find a base as quick as possible and turn up hopefully before that 8 ema crosses down through the 21.

The weekly chart is far more constructive, we have not even pulled into the 8 week, the blue line below. If you notice, most of last year we just trended along that moving average and life was fine, we were so extended from that sharp move up that even this nasty pullback couldn’t bring us back to the 2 month average price. Think about that. I suspect we test this next week and bulls would like to see this hold.

The monthly chart is even less terrifying, look at the last 2 candles, this is just an inside candle forming so far, nothing really bearish unless we go all the way down and slow below last month’s open and even then it still would not touch the 8 month which again the market rides on for the vast majority of time. Think about, stocks don’t get too extended from their 8 month average price, this is the entire tech market we’re talking about not a single penny stock that deviates from the norm but because of how silly things have gotten the last 2 months, the overall tech market did get nutty.

So what now? Under the 21 ema like we closed yesterday you always want to lighten up to whatever you’re not scared holding longer term. It means it will be rough for a little bit, at least until we are back to trending over the key moving average. From a fundamental standpoint earnings are great, that isn’t a concern now. Google spooked the market a bit with their big raise and that was followed up with Meta floating news of a big raise yesterday, where do you think those funds go when both raise money? Back into this circular economy spending on more infrastructure. Is there a real chance all these companies are overbuilding? Sure it is possible, but what do you want them to do? They view ai as an existential threat, they all have a ton of money and serious cash flows to work with, so why not throw every dollar at this war because losing could mean you are potentially irrelevant.

Bottom line, yesterday was ugly, unless you were living under a rock or bought these names way too late, you probably made alot over the last 60 days. They say things don’t go up in a straight line, well, they did, and now we have a pullback. Was yesterday about yields or really just an excuse to pullback? I think it was everything all at once. People were raising money for the SPCX ipo, you had a strong jobs report which spooked investors looking for rate cuts, and you had Korea implode all at the same time. We are not in a bubble, we could be in a couple years, but we are in the 3rd inning of a baseball game right now. This is nowhere near the peak. Every company is spending today to see where ai can go. Could it all be a bubble in 18-24 months? Sure, we could hear about it costing too much, the returns not being there, etc and we’re already hearing rumblings about that now. 3 years ago this was all an idea, now it is finally unfolding into serious revenue, in 18 months either that revenue declines because people don’t see the value or this is here to stay but crashes don’t happen this early. This isn’t 2000 where webvan or mamma.com were going public with nothing, these are real companies building real things with good earnings. Something like Anthropic is growing revenue at a rate we’ve never seen before, everyone wants to be involved int his revolution. We are barely into what is the largest infrastructure buildout of our times. We’re not going to crash until we see what this actually yields and if we overdid it, then yes there will be a crash. Yesterday was just a routine pullback, just relax, pull up a 100 year chart of the market if you need to be comforted right now, we always resolve higher.

Have a good weekend, I will see you monday

6/25/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 16:12:59 GMT

The SPY gapped down under the 8 ema for the second straight session and you can see the small downtrend we’re in right now the last 4 sessions with lower highs each day. The Nasdaq is down nearly 900 points and this is what I was talking about 3 days ago saying this is where you get a big red candle out of nowhere.

It looks like we have a date with that 21 ema just below at 743.95 and what we do there will be critical to what happens next. Do we bounce off it and continue this run we’re in or are we flipping to our first move below it in 2 months. That’s not a call you make now but you have to be very mindful that for now we’re still in a bigger uptrend, but that could change very quickly in the next few sessions.

Today’s move down is on a multitude of things, first Korea was down big overnight and that has a ton of our names that have run so hot recently. Secondly, we had a very strong NFP number today. A stronger economy means the likelihood of us having to raise rates and not cut them as planned. We know the President keeps wanting rates cut, made a big fuss about Powell’s refusal to appease his wishes and now he has his pick in at chair. The data is not supporting a cut right now but is Warsh really going to upset the man who handpicked him? The market doesn’t like that uncertainty and is throwing a fit like it always does when uncertainty is present. Bottom line there is no major technical damage for now. These rate fears hit the high growth names that have run the hardest recently hence the bloodbath you see today across the growth spectrum.

My Open Book

6/4/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:52:21 GMT

The SPY gapped down below the 8 ema for the 2nd time since the ceasefire in April today on the disastrous ER from AVGO. The entire semi complex was hit hard and rightfully so, you had a $2T company that is one of the 10 largest in the world down 15% and that spooked alot of people. I mentioned the other day only 3 things could derail this market: oil prices ramping, inflation ramping, or some hiccup in the ai trade and that’s what we got but luckily, so far in the session it seems somewhat contained. We need to see where we close today but bulls would rather not see us close back under that 8 ema. If we do then our next level of potential support is that 21 ema down at 743.31 right now.

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today

6/3/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:06:51 GMT

The SPY is pulling back into the 8 ema with oil and the vix up. Nothing too concerning as of now, but something to keep an eye on. We still have no resolution on Iran, you have oil executives saying oil is about to rise 50%, meanwhile Trump says everything is under control and inflation is minimal. Who knows what’s coming but these moving averages will tell you the truth, the next time we lose that 8 ema lighten up and if/when we lose that 21 ema really lighten up. Until then the rest of this back and forth on the war is just noise. Watch this 753.67 level for today, you don’t want to see a close below it if you’re a bull.

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today

6/2/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:13:25 GMT

The SPY continues this stairstep higher, you can’t really say anything other than lighten up where you want into this strength. We are just cruising 3% over the 21 ema with seemingly nothing to stop us. That’s usually when you get this big red candle out of nowhere, but even then, we are fine as long as we’re over that 21 ema but nobody would ever fault you for selling into this incredible 2 month uptrend we’re in. Right now the big risks would be either inflation ramping or some sort of negative AI news or oil spiking because of Iran, those would be the 3 major concerns that could derail us at this moment. We’re up nearly 20% in under 2 months, that is an all time move.

One of the big questions I get all the time is about the 21 ema and why it is the indicator I value most. Take a look at this INTC chart below, hard to say anything negative about INTC, the stock went from $40 to $132 in the span of 2 months. Now though, yesterday was its first open and close under the 21 ema, look how hard it fought to stay above and it just couldn’t. What happened next? A followup gap down. Does this mean INTC is in trouble? Not long term, no, it just means its going to be weak until its not. It means that until it reclaims the 21 ema, the computers have flipped are now net sellers and you probably shouldn’t be in it, unless you enjoy pain potentially because down here it can go lower. Again, it doesn’t have to, but now that door is open. When you’re above the 21 ema you’re in a position of strength because your name is over the 1 month moving average and short of some overnight surprise you don’t have much to worry about. So your objective in markets if you are positioning yourself short term is to always be in strength. If you remain in a chart like the one below, you’re asking for it so to speak near term. Now if its a position you want for the long term, short term moving averages are of no importance, this is only relevant if you’re looking at what to trade with short time horizons.

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today

6/1/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 15:56:36 GMT

The SPY continues higher with another open over the 8 ema. This market feels invincible right now but oil is spiking nearly 8% right now sending warning signs. The next time we close under the that 8 ema you’re going to want to lighten up some things. For now the trend remains your friend and we have not approached the 21 ema in 2 months as it climbs up to 740 right now. As long as we’re over that the coast is clear for bulls and you see the margin im utilizing at the moment because of that.

We’re seeing a rotation under the hood to software that I mentioned friday with the IGV, below, reclaiming the 200 day for the first time in months on friday. Today its largest component, MSFT, is up 3% today while the other 5 mag 7 names ex Nvidia are all red. The cause doesn’t really matter but now you’ve got to set your eyes on that 200 day on the IGV and buy any pullbacks in software until that trend breaks and closes below the 200 day again. Software is finally back en vogue.

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today

5/29/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Fri, 29 May 2026 16:21:11 GMT

The SPY continues up and to the right, as I’ve been telling you everyday for weeks now, there really isn’t much context for me to add because you can easily look at the chart below and see we’ve just risen along this 8 ema since the ceasefire. We’re had 1 close below it in basically 2 months, this is just a very strong uptrend and discussing all the how and why is irrelevant. Price action is truth and until we violate that 8 ema and head towards the 21 ema for a real test, there isn’t much to say other than book gains where you want because we’re overextended but also realize this uptrend can go on for a long time and until we first lose that 8 ema, the dark blue line, there isn’t much to pontificate about.

I think the most important thing you can take from me is I don’t waste your time with thesis’ on the how or why. The chart above is just being bought that’s it, all the fundamental stuff you thought was important is less important than you ever believed. The charts and option flow are the truth and whatever fundamental story you believe is baked into the chart. Why does a chart look good? Because mine is piling into it. The same can be said for why a chart looks bad. The option flow is the second layer that confirms that thesis which is why you see things like MSFT and the move today after I highlighted it yesterday or IBM with the weekend best idea on Sunday and subsequent 15% move this week. This game is far less complex than people make it out to be, you just have to understand how it works and know that what you think about names is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is the flow of money and always trying to be in what is being bought, that’s it.

Database Changes

Again I ask if you find any issues or mistakes this weekend please let me know. DM me on discord/twitter because I take all the mistakes and immediately start working on the next version fixing them. I finally got to a point now where I’d say I’m 95% satisfied with where we stand. One of the hardest things was getting it to build trades that fit for everyone. I realized early on that I couldn’t have it suggesting put sales on a $800 stock like MU because not everyone has that sort of margin available. I think right now we’re in a good place where it only suggests defined risk trades meaning everything is put spread or call spread. That way it fits all budgets. If you’re someone with a bigger book and higher risk tolerance maybe you just sell the puts naked without the put buy to protect you. Whatever it is the logic is in the description below along with the audit I use to make sure it followed all my rules. You will know its the latest version by seeing v6.3 in the bottom corner. If you go back a few days you will see v3 or v4 and those are not as good. It also costs an arm and a leg to refresh hundreds of tickers with the latest version so it will only work on trades from here on out as I log them.

You will also notice many names in the database the AI wasn’t able to build a trade and I’m ok with it because I’d rather my rules be followed than it just build whatever it wants. The goal is to have all these trades is to use my database and explain the logic of why this particular trade was built. In the case of the INTC trade below you can see

“Repeated institutional put selling at $95 (2,800 contracts, $2.3M on 5/26) and $105 (5,500 contracts combined on 5/21–5/22) anchors a floor near $95, with the server-computed puts sold floor at $90.67. Lowest logged puts sold is $95P, and this trade's $90 short put sits beneath even that lowest institutional strike and the floor, validated by the rising daily SMA 50 at $81 well below — 26% cushion from spot $120.89. The 130/145 call spread sits below the dominant 5/29 calls bought of $140 (10,000 contracts, $12.5M) and $150 strikes, capturing the upside thesis at defined risk. Wrong if INTC breaks $90 on volume — that's the institutional floor failing and the daily 21 EMA at $109 already lost; close, don't roll down.”

It took the multiple put sales at 95 in the database and built a put spread to sell below that. Why? Well we know from this that the put sale win rate of my database is 80% so selling puts with a little better edge improves those odds dramatically. Then it looks all over for moving averages to align with how I think about trades and it’s pretty much downloading how I think about option flow/charts and taking it to every ticker in the database. As I continue to tweak this it will get better, this is still 5 days in with it live. The improvement from monday to now is enormous. By next friday it will be significantly better.

If you’re an income trader I attempt to drive an income trade on every name but again if the parameters don’t fit what I’m looking for it will tell you there is no trade and that’s ok, not every name has to be one where you can sell puts.

And lastly the “best idea” if applicable is always going to be a 2x1 ratio because that is my favorite structure because it allows you to sell 2 puts at key spots to finance the call buys. Again these are just the basis for your trade idea, you can always tweak the numbers and turn it into a bigger credit/debit whatever you want really but this should help you with levels of interest much quicker.

My Open Book

5/28/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:34:12 GMT

The SPY hit new highs today and as long as we’re riding along the 8 ema higher like this there isn’t much to say. Just a nice uptrend here with the 21 ema 3% lower and rising. Even us bombing Iran a few times last night was bought right up after the red open. Just keep your on that light blue line, the 21 ema, that’s the entire story right now, as long as we keep above it we’re in an uptrend, don’t overthink things. On shorter timeframes you can cut risk if we lose the 8 ema.

So how about that UMAC trade I wrote up 2 days ago on Tuesday? I’ve never in the 4 years now of doing this written up a stock that is up 53% in a session 2 days later. Funny enough, exactly what I joked about was the catalyst today. Trump gave more funding to US drone companies and sure enough the Trump family wins again with Donald Jr gaining over $3m today alone on his stake. These calls went from 1.75 to 13.50 in 2 day netting this player a gain of $3m in that timeframe. Very lucky player here or maybe they knew what was coming. I’m more mad at myself for not taking these but I almost never dabble in these small caps. Sometimes though you have to get involved with stuff Trump is involved with look at just the last few months with INTC and HUT but more recently with where DELL has gone as well NOW since his position was revealed recently. In the future when you see the Trump family involved in a trade, be involved.

Database Updates

We’re now 3 days into the launch and we’re actually right now in the middle of our 5th update. It’s really just trial and error here, with Opus I’m using a ton of reasoning parameters and while it does get most, it does still occasionally have issues and I get feedback from you all and tweak it. Don’t worry this will be perfect in short order but it was still suggesting trades that were too expensive or too risky and then I tried to get it to be more conservative and it generated very few or no trades overnight so right now we’re really trying to find the sweet spot of how to use the database to get it to generate trade ideas for all in a manner that works alongside my rules. If you see more errors or mistakes today please let me know because the only way this improves is me adding more to my markdown files when I discuss what I want improved every afternoon.

The prompt I’m using right now looks like a PhD thesis but there’s so many nuances to parameters I want applied to key moving averages,levels,etc and it is alot harder than other services just having AI build a basic call buy. My basic premise is what I believe about markets, that every trade should pay you take it. I want every trade built to be for a credit or worst a small debit but along with that I want it to build better trades that what the institutions are taking ie if I log a call buy at $300 on a stock, I want a better trade that costs less money say a 280/290 call spread and then to make that trade cost as little as possible by selling puts or put spreads at levels that align on a chart and with the option flow. AI is making application of logic like this possible today but it still requires a ton of training and constant adjustments. Fear not though, we will get it right very soon. If there are issues right now when you get the link its because we’re literally uploading my newest version of my prompt now and then it takes a little bit to refresh all the tickers I logged today. I think within say 2 hours it should be refreshed fully with the most recent logic and rules implemented.

You will also now see the sectors tab is now live as well, you will see sector rankings by total premium flowing into them on trades that I log. Again I only log trades that fit my criteria, there are many more trades in a given session but I have my things that I specifically search for and this is the ranking of it.

Then we have it now broken down by sectors for you and again this is just off what I log in my database. So it should help you see where the money is flowing better. Again with my scoring it is only based on bullish trades in the database(call buys + put sales) - bearish trades(put buys) the reason for this is I am a believer in quantity over quality. Again with INTC this year its been 2x more traded than any name in the database and naturally it is up 200%. The reason for this scoring system is because you want to see quantity of flow in a name and in my opinion that trumps a single trade here or there because if a name is really going to move and its not on some wink wink luck like UMAC, you’re going to see multiple funds pile into it with size beforehand.

Aside from that we took your feedback and added a ticker search page

and on every ticker page there is now a search function again in the top right, we accidentally left it out in the update.

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today -

No Recap Today

James Bulltard — Wed, 27 May 2026 11:05:44 GMT

We are working on some things today but made some huge changes overnight.

Here is today’s link to the database and you will be able to see everything I log live during the session like the people in the live tier.

Link

We made some material changes last night after we got feedback from you all. For starters it was really hard testing all this stuff with markets closed because we needed to use the live options pricing. So yesterday was our first shot of doing it live and seeing what needed to be fixed and the changes we made are night and day. For starters I upgraded from sonnet to opus and while it is significantly more money it is a far superior model. You have to remember generating trade ideas on nearly 200 tickers a day and thesis on all these names is not cheap when you factor in tokens involved and we weren’t sure what model to go with initially so to keep costs reasonable we tried sonnet but it was clear that was not going to be the right answer with me wanting complex answers putting out trade ideas that weren’t simply “buy a call”. I think we are on the same page now. Take a look at this trade it generated on AMZN.

You will notice we finally figured out how to get it to build my favorite trade, a ratio for a credit, and the reasoning below is exactly what I was looking for based on data in my database.

Here is an example of the income trade on Dutch Bros(BROS). It pulls up a May 18th put sale I logged in its reasoning and then builds put sales below that level to give you a higher probability of success. We know that of the put sales I logged the last few years 80% expired worthless and you can read more about that here. The point I wanted here was I wanted the AI to take my existing data and build higher probability trades off that and it is now actually doing it.

So while we continue working on the changes today I won’t be writing a recap but I will be logging all the trades and you will see everything in the link above. As for the schedules

AI Trade Ideas — refresh every 20 minutes. They move with live option prices and shifting flow, so we keep them current.

AI Thesis — refreshes every 1 hour. It's about the bigger-picture story behind the flow, which doesn't change minute to minute.

Daily AI Analysis (the one on the Daily Chart page) — refreshes once per day after market close. Or when you I generate it manually when I’m sending out the recap.

We’re going to spend today hopefully finishing up the sector data which should help with seeing where the money is flowing if you’re more into trading sectors instead of individual names. Here is a sneak peek.

We also moved up the options data like many of you asked for, it is now at the top and the charts and technicals are down near the bottom and hidden you just need to open whatever you want by clicking the arrows. This way it won’t clutter the screens of those who don’t care.

Overall I took all your input, thanks to those of you who gave it yesterday, and we fixed what we could the last 12 hours. We’re going to keep tweaking everything until it is the perfect tool. For now, the jump between day 1 and day 2 is going to be significant as you will see today and I want your feedback of course as you use it today so we can see what needs to be improved on next. If there are mistakes or AI hallucinations just let me know and we will get on it but overall it should be a tremendously better experience on day 2. I will be back tomorrow with a normal recap

5/26/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Tue, 26 May 2026 16:12:32 GMT

The SPY gapped up big on another rumored deal with Iran. We’ve done this so many times now I’ve lost count. The market has moved on from the war, but the inflation fears are still looming and officially ending the war sending oil lower would be a big help in regards to inflation. There really isn’t much else to add the market has not even touched the 21 ema(light blue) since the ceasefire, this is just one very strong uptrend and until we start testing that line or breaking below it, there is nothing to think about you should be long until the next downtrend below the 21 emerges.

All the updates have been pushed through the database now when you click on names you should be able to see everything up. I have 2 charts there now a daily and weekly, instead of letting you toggle between them I just included both so its easier to see trends. You will notice all the moving averages are the same color as on my charts and the fib levels are there for you to quickly look and decide on levels. Hopefully this makes your lives a little easier.

Otherwise everything I posted yesterday should be up and functioning today is our first real trial so if you see any glitches just let me know and I will see how we can fix them. I hope you enjoy the updates. Like I said over the coming weeks there is alot more to come regarding custom scanners, flows broken down by sector, etc but I didn’t want to roll everything out at once to not overwhelm.

Top Gainers From Friday’s Recap

This is on your dashboard now so I won’t be posting it everyday going forward.

My Open Book

Trades I Added

New Features Released

James Bulltard — Mon, 25 May 2026 12:03:22 GMT

I didn’t want to wait for all the features to be ready to roll them out instead opting to release them slowly to let us test things and get feedback from you all. I’m a big believer in releasing something and getting feedback from everyone vs trying to perfect it on your own first. We will gradually rollout all the other tools and features over the next few weeks but I didn’t want to overwhelm you so let’s start with these. Throughout today we will be working on getting many of the things I post below rolled out, most are available now, but there are a few that we are fine tuning still.

Thesis - So we are using claude across everything in here, this is just to give you a quick thesis on 90% of the names in the database, some of the names it just isn’t capable of generating a thesis for and we’re looking for workarounds on the obscure tickers. At the bottom you will notice “sources fed to the model” if there are any more sources you want thrown in, it can be done. You will also notice at the bottom flow alignment which is where it lines up thought with the trades I have logged in the database. Also, there are potential risk factors highlighted. Below we have Amazon and you can the highlights of the thesis it generated. So it will generate a thesis everytime I log a trade in the database, so if I haven’t logged a trade in a week, the thesis may have very well changed, keep that in mind.
AI Generated Trade Ideas - We are having 3 different trade types: A risk reversal, an income trade, and a longer term trade. Some of you are looking to just sell puts or put spreads, it is going to give you an idea for both. Some of you want multimonth trades, you have ideas that will be generated. Whatever it is, it is all still around my philosophy of every trade being for a credit or a small debit. I get it lots of people are doing this now, but this is different because it it built around my style and my data. You will notice a disclaimer at the top on this, with this stuff I trust Claude, but there will be times where it hallucinates so please always use these trade ideas as a basis to think about things and build your trade ideas around it. Do not just run out and trade off of it without looking at a chart first. You will see a max gain gain and max loss now there for you as well. Bottom line this lets me apply my parameters across the entire database. This is important because I believe every name is tradable, it really is just a matter of where and based on what options data and moving averages are telling me. So applying that reasoning across more tickers is what will give you more insight across more names and make this different.
Example 1 - I log a $300 call on AMZN, it may build you a 260/290 call spread like below so you can be more conservative than the big block. You can read the descriptions below and on the first one
“Anchored to the 2,500-contract $260P puts sold on 2026-07-17 for $2.525M premium — institutions set a hard floor at $260. The short $260P sits right at the daily 1Y Fib 0.236 level ($259.08), reinforcing it as technical support; the long $290C targets the next breakout level above the 0.0 Fib high ($278.56). Low VIX at 16.7 still generates enough put premium at $260 to net a credit of ~$1,000 while keeping the short put below the current price ($266.32) and below the puts sold strike per conservative-strike philosophy.”
or when you look at the income trades below it is going to build you trades based off key moving averages blended in with the options data in the database. Looking below it looks like I need to tweak how it phrases things because the puts were sold for 07-17 not on 07-17 but again that’s why I’m pushing this out now so we can see the issues and fix them.
“The 50-day SMA sits at $241.92 and weekly trend is bullish with price well above all major MAs — the 50-day SMA context justifies a strike closer to current price rather than the deeper 200-day ($230.55). The $260P strike was explicitly sold by institutions on 2026-07-17 for $2.525M (2,500 contracts), establishing $260 as a hard institutional floor; we use the Jun-26 expiry (32 DTE) at the same $260 strike, which also aligns with the daily 1Y Fib 0.236 at $259.08. Low VIX at 16.7 (falling 6.3%) compresses premium slightly, but $572 credit on a $260 floor is still an attractive 2.2% yield for 32 days.”
Charts - you will notice new charts probably by tonight this part is still a work in progress. These charts include a couple key moving averages which are noted on the right and you will notice fibonacci levels built in just for quicker levels being available for you if you’re looking for entries/put sales.
Technicals - This also will likely be released tonight, just a quick view of levels so if you’re looking for a put sale or wanting to place a limit order you can see where some moving averages/fib levels are on any name.
Premium - you will now notice premiums on all the trades logged in the database. Again I personally find quantity over quality to be more important when looking for direction because you really want to know where repeat activity is, not really any single trade, but alot of you asked for this. It took so long to implement because these enterprise API’s you need to utilize for something like this cost an arm and a leg to get live data but with everything else we were doing with the AI generated trades we needed it or claude would be generating trade ideas off stale data.
As I said last week, nothing is changing regarding me writing the recaps everyday. I am still going to write them and highlight 5 names everyday, this is about leveraging ai to generate more trade ideas on more names to help you out if you’re on the fence about a name and I haven’t highlighted it. We are still having some issues with smaller names but we’re working on it, this is just backend stuff and the API and claude not meshing on smaller tickers. Otherwise we still have some cool scanners and other updates to roll out in the weeks ahead. Enjoy your day off and I will see you tomorrow

5/24/26 Best Idea For The Week Ahead

James Bulltard — Sun, 24 May 2026 10:40:51 GMT

The SPY wrapped up its 8th straight green week a feat we haven’t pulled off since we had 9 straight green weekly candles in late 2023. Things have gone well but alot still depends on whether this war with Iran ramps or not. Right now rumors are saying we’re reaching a 60 day ceasefire as a write this on Saturday morning. If that happens we’re in the cle…

5/22/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:56:50 GMT

The SPY continues higher towards new all time highs. The other day we broke the 8 ema that was a sign to be cautious but until we lose that 21 ema below it, you’re always still in an uptrend. Here we are 3 sessions later back over the 8 day, having never even tested the 21 and pushing into the long 3 day weekend ahead. We still could have a very ugly monday night if there is no deal and oil turns around and spikes higher but if you believe Trump he says the deal is this weekend, so much so he might even skip his sons wedding. The VIX is 16, oil is sub 100, the market is on cruise control right now. There really isn’t much for me to add just look at the chart, you sort of just ride along until the next time that 21 ema breaks and then you lighten up.

As for the database updates, we’re aiming to have them all out by market open on tuesday, but if not, worst case sometime next week. Even once its out I’m sure you all will catch things that we missed and we’ll have to fine tune it, but I think the best option is to put it out as soon as possible and let you all mess around with it and find what we need to fix.

Top Gainers From Yesterday’s Flow

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today

5/21/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Thu, 21 May 2026 16:23:53 GMT

The SPY is forming an inside day so far over the 8 ema. We got hit in the premarket today when it seemed like a deal with Iran wasn’t going to happen but then the rumor about Iran’s demands was said to be untrue and we’re back in the same mess we’ve been in for weeks with this conflict. When oil pops, the market sells and its as simple as that for now. As for Nvidia, earnings were strong yesterday, the story is still strong and as nearly 10% of our market, you really couldn’t have asked for a better report from a company this size. I guess we’re just in wait and see mode with the weekend coming up and who knows what with the war but as long as we are over that 21 ema under 730 things are fine for longs.

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today

5/20/26 Recap

James Bulltard — Wed, 20 May 2026 16:26:48 GMT

The SPY is peeking over the 8 ema today after 1 close below it since the ceasefire. The panic buying in the market is real and nobody wants to miss out should NVDA blowout things today and drag the market higher. I don’t see anything where NVDA could really hurt the market unless they somehow guide down but in this capex boom, that would seem nearly impossible. The VIX is weak, oil is still being pesky near 110, and ebola seems to be raging on in Africa. Still, overall we have not broken the 21 ema and until we do things are fine.

Top Gainers From Yesterday’s Flow

My Open Book

Trades I Made Today