12/22 Best Idea For The Week Ahead & Changes Ahead

Before I get into this post I want to go over the schedule for the rest of 2024 and discuss the change I’m implementing next Sunday. This week is obviously Christmas/start of Hanukkah/Kwanza and markets are open a half day on Tuesday and closed on Wednesday. I will be doing a recap Monday and then just taking off the rest of the year meaning I will miss the last 4.5 sessions of the year. Those sessions would be Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. New Years day is the following Wednesday and markets are closed again then too. I will return to a normal schedule of a daily recap and weekend best idea on Thursday January 2nd. As you saw Thursday and Friday last week, volumes were quite low, the end of the year is usually a dead period in the market as so many important participants are on a break after Christmas until the following year begins.

The change I’m implementing is a temporary one but it is a big one. I have a TLDR a little ways down if you don’t want to read the longford.

Nobody who is subscribed by next Tuesday night will be impacted in any way, whatever you currently have you will still have, this only impacts new subscribers from this Tuesday until New Year’s.

All I am doing is implementing a custom bot I had built for the discord that can add/remove members from the live channels. Because of it, I am changing things so all new users who sign up for the last 8 days of the year get access to the live portion of the discord but through a monthly payment instead of the annual only option I currently have. This has no impact on anyone subscribed before then, it just gives people who want access to the live portion of the discord an option to cancel their current plan and sign up for a monthly option. It sounds complicated but substack only allows 1 monthly subscription option at a time and this is me having to circumnavigate it to let you access the live part with a monthly payment. I may do it once a quarter or something in the future but it is a giant pain in the ass so I may not do it again, we will see, but once you’re signed up in this small window, you have it forever.

The live portion of the discord is simply what you get in the recap but live, you also get a permanent link to the database that doesn’t expire everyday at the open. If you are a very active trader and/or swing commons in size, it is probably the most beneficial thing you will ever pay for, just ask any of the people in the discord if they haven’t gotten multiples of what they’ve paid back I would be stunned. If you aren’t an active trader, it is probably not for you and the recaps mid day are plenty to trade off of. I can’t tell you how many times a trade I post goes up 20-30% in a matter of minutes, options are just a dynamic thing and although I do send out recaps mid day for the traders who seek data on direction, for those who want more and instantly with commentary, this is as good a product as exists.

If you are currently subscribed at a rate from say 2 years ago and cancel your subscription to switch to the live tier you will never be able to get it back for the price you currently have again so please think before you switch. Please don’t email me asking to make an exception because I can’t do it. I don’t have access to anything like that on my end with substack. If you have been here that long, it also means I’ve done a great job so you stuck around this long and should just trust that I won’t offer a bad experience. What you will be able to do is go back to what I have charged all this year, $99, because that is what it returns to on January 2nd. You will get a confirmation email when you sign up, you simply enter your discord username into it, and the new channels will appear. If you are currently subscribed and want to change you would just cancel your subscription and sign up again. You will still get the recaps like you have every single day and also have access to these 3 channels in the discord below that don’t show up unless you’re in the live portion. There’s a live feed, a discussion area, and a place where everyone posts the trades they’re taking it is a real great group of traders, I’m biased but these people are as good a group as you will find anywhere.

So TLDR is I’m going to mess around with the Substack payment tiers because Substack isn’t helping me out and only offers 1 monthly option after all this time. Anyone interested will have the last 8 days of the year to join the live tier on a monthly payment option if they’d like. Signing up once gives you access as long as you remain subscribed. If you do it and don’t like it, January 2nd on you will be able to cancel and go back to the option I currently offer for the recaps. Simple enough? I know it was hard to explain, believe me, it would be way easier if substack would just let me have 2 monthly options but alas we have to do this.

SPY

We closed up friday with a nice fade off highs to end the session with our 3rd consecutive close below the 50 day. The 8 ema finally crossed down through the 21 ema as well and we are just simply in a bearish trend for now. As I’ve said the last few sessions, this is just a time to take your foot off the gas to the long side, if the short term is of importance to you. Where do we go now? Who knows but you don’t press things until we reclaim that 21 ema above which currently sits at 597.78 and sloping down. Just remember, in the history of markets, nobody ever got caught up in a market selloff by taking risk off below the 21 ema.

This week’s best idea is a company that plunged dramatically off highs. While it is a tax loss harvesting victim for the next 2 weeks, it is a name with a lot of insider buying recently and seems poised for a very big rebound. I will go over multiple options to trade it from calls to risk reversals to put spreads.