William,

I’m happy to share these trades with our premium members.

In March, shares were “put” to me at a breakeven price of $58.75. Today, EQT is trading at $56.62.

I’ve been writing covered calls on these shares which brings me to an overall net positive.

Alan

Tom, Scroll down to access the registration form.

Thanks for sharing your recent trades. It is very helpful to see trade choices you are making in the current market climate.

When we look at historical trades we don’t get this perspective.

I am looking forward to seeing how you managed the EQT trade from 3/26/2026. I have had a few go like this and will learn a lot from how you managed it.

I’m currently selling weekly CSPs with 10 deltas.

It is working well even though the returns are small.

But, the market reacts to every tweet or news story lately and I didn’t want to be exposed over weekends.

Thanks,
William

1. This week’s ETF Report has been uploaded to your member site. Login to the member site and scroll down on the left side to access the report.

ETF Report Video Link:

Explanation of the report format:

https://youtu.be/addf7Y54ixwput

2. A new Blue Chip (Dow 30) Report for the May-2026 contracts has been uploaded to your member site (right side, scroll down to “B”)

3. I’ve attached to premium member emails a 2-contract, 5-day cash-secured put trade, using TTMI as the underlying stock. I executed these trades on 4/13/2016, for the 4/17/2026 expirations.
These contracts were defensive (deep OTM). Significant initial returns and downside protection were generated at the onset of the trades. This is an example of the type of defensive trading I have been favoring. TTMI closed on Tuesday at $120.74 today, down $0.62 from trade entry. The current price is $10.74 above the put strike and $11.65 above breakeven, still plenty of downside protection. As always, I remain prepared to execute exit strategies, if those opportunities arise.

3. Our loyalty pledge to you: Premium members will NEVER experience a rate hike as long as premium member subscriptions remains active … NEVER.

4. Video on covered call ETFs:

https://youtu.be/MPXdeI2x9rY

5. Register now for our free BCI webinar on the PCP (Wheel) Strategy on May 14, 2026 (via Zoom):

https://www.thebluecollarinvestor.com/event/bci-educational-webinar-10/

Wishing you the best results,

Alan & the BCI team

Alan,

WOW, where do I start with this one?

First, kudos to you for your awareness of the importance of option liquidity. In this trade, there are bigger fish to fry.

A $75.00 per-share premium is certainly enticing until we break it down into its 2 components: intrinsic value ($74.35, not profit because we are devaluing our shares by that amount) + time value ($0.65, the actual initial profit).

Since this is a 277-day trade, we must annualize the return and compare to other investment choices.

So, annualized returns is an important metric to evaluate before entering a trade like this (see the screenshot below).

Another consideration is that there are 3 earnings reports the trade takes us through, all risky events. Now, it is unlikely that NTES will move lower than $40.00 in 9 months, but if the shares get hammered 3x by 3 disappointing ERs, it’s possible. If this unlikely event does occur, this is where the low option liquidity and large bid-ask spread comes into play.

I created a screenshot using the BCI Trade Management Calculator (TMC) to demonstrate the initial returns. Does a 2.14% annualized return sound exciting?

I would not consider this trade for my portfolios.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE & USE THE BACK ARROW TO RETURN TO BLOG.

Alan

I read an article about option traders taking advantage of high volatility stocks looking for high premiums for time decay.

An example was stock “NTES” selling the 1/15/27 call with a strike of $40.00 and a premium of $75.00/share.

The article said that the traders must know something big was going to happen.

I looked at the option listed and it only had an open interest of 2.

I wondered if entering that trade was safe if in the nine months until exercise there would be additional open interest to buy to close.

Your opinion?