There’s been a lot of talk about progress towards peace, but so far, it’s all talk.  Will it amount to something more concrete?

While we wait and listen to how this is all playing out, the market continues to chop up and down as the narrative shifts from the possibility of peace to lack of progress.  The market is seesawing back and forth with a general downward trend, and in times like this, it’s often best to step back and evaluate one’s overall portfolio to decide how best to proceed.

Is it time to exit long positions now that the S&P 500 is down 500 points, about 7% from highs?  Or is it time to add?  Or is it time to hedge?

While I don’t have the time to get into the whole hedging process here, Vlad Karpel and I will be talking about how to manage market pullbacks tomorrow, March 26th at 1pm ET and if you sign up for this free webinar, you’ll get a chance to hear how we’re looking at hedging opportunities and portfolio management in this market turmoil.  Be sure to SIGN UP NOW and ask any questions you may have in this free live event!

On top of considering hedging opportunities, I’m still looking for opportunities, and I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t note an opportunity that’s building in the tech sector right now that was once again found by the Stock Forecast Toolbox!

Lam Research (LCRX) is the stock I’m looking at today:

After making lows on March 9th, the stock has been marching higher for the past 2 weeks.  This was an easy one to miss if it wasn’t already on one’s watchlist, but now that it’s showing clear momentum, I want to know what is most likely to happen next, and the AI Toolbox is my go-to to figure out what the highest probability outcome is from here:

With potential upside to $275, I see a lot of reasons for excitement.  And the best way I see to trade this with a bit of capped optimism is to look at a long call vertical, particularly since the stock is pricey at nearly $240 per share.  While the call options themselves give leverage relative to the outright stock, at $15.50 for a single April 17th $240 call, it’s still a bit expensive for an option that has a real possibility of being worth $0 if negotiations with Iran turn for the worst and the market corrects further.  A call vertical, such as the April 17th $240/$260 call spread is about $8.00, a much more tolerable cash outlay for many.  And the other great thing about cutting the cost is that it saves me some cash to use on a portfolio hedge so that I have the upside from a stock like LRCX while also reducing my downside in case the turmoil turns worse.

Make sure you join me and Vlad on Thursday – you won’t want to miss this opportunity to get a professional view on managing market pullbacks!

And if you have any questions, never hesitate to reach out.

Keith Harwood

Keith@OptionHotline.com