Happy Marvelous Monday!

I help teach people to earn money trading options. It isn’t hard.   I explain in easy-to-understand terms when I teach or write a book—like we are talking across the kitchen table.

The Nasdaq was up 3 days out of 5. It’s been back and forth for several weeks between similar highs and lows.  Last week’s candle has broken through the bottom range it has been in for several weeks. We will have to see if it continues to move down. If the bearish trend continues, we can look at buying Puts instead of calls.

For updates on previous trades, please scroll down.

I am going to focus on the NASDAQ on Mondays and call it “QQQ Monday”.  I will focus on QQQ which is the ETF covering companies traded within the NASDAQ Exchange Traded Fund. 

For today’s discussion, we will be looking at Invesco QQQ Trust, symbol (QQQ).

Before analyzing QQQ’s charts, let’s take a closer look at the ETF and its services.

Invesco QQQ is an exchange-traded fund that tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index™. The Index includes the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq based on market cap. These companies are often cut-edge tech stocks and trendier companies.

The image below is Friday’s price activity.

This chart image is courtesy of FINVIZ.com a free website and gives a quick view of each day’s movement. 

This is an image from Friday where it dropped throughout most of the day.   The carpet shows a lot of red.  Many of the symbols with 4 or 5 letters are included in the QQQs- AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, etc.

Fibonacci Exponential Moving Averages (EMA)

Exponential moving averages (EMAs) reduce the lag seen in simple moving averages by applying more weight to recent prices. The weighting applied to the most recent price depends on the number of periods in the moving average. We are applying 8, 21, and 55 weekly periods for our entry signals. EMAs differ from simple moving averages in that a given day’s EMA calculation depends on the EMA calculations for all the days prior to that day. You need far more than 10 days of data to calculate a reasonably accurate 10-day EMA.

There are three steps to calculating an exponential moving average (EMA). First, calculate the simple moving average for the initial EMA value. An exponential moving average (EMA) must start somewhere, so a simple moving average is used as the previous period’s EMA in the first calculation. Second, calculate the weighting multiplier. Third, calculate the exponential moving average for each day between the initial EMA value and today, using the price, the multiplier, and the previous period’s EMA value. 

Charting services like Stockcharts.com and your broker’s chart service figure these calculations for you.

As mentioned, entry signals are based on the use of 8, 21, and 55 weekly averages.  (8, 21 and 55 are Fibonacci numbers which are a special sequence of numbers which are added together- 1+1= 2, 2+1=3, 2+3=5, 5+3= 8, etc.  13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 600…    As mentioned, we are zeroing in on 8 EMA (short term), 21 EMA (medium term) and 55 EMA (long term).

Let’s See Why This Signal Potentially Offers Potential Trade Info

Each candle on the chart represents price movement over a 5-day (week) period.  QQQ is apt to continue to drop or flatten out if the EMAs curl down, going lower.  The last several weeks price has been up and down, as seen above, switching between red and black every other week with the result being flat. However, the last candle broke the trend line I have drawn. We will see if this continues.

If the 8 EMA remains above the 21 EMA and the 8 and 21 EMA both remain above the 55 EMA, said to be in up trending order, its current uptrend will remain intact, and price will continue to rise or go flat.  Price has closed back above the 8 EMA which is again bullish.  We will keep an eye on QQQ’s movement over the course of the couple weeks.

Potential Profit Play for QQQ

General info:

Options often offer a smaller overall investment, covering more shares of stock and potential for greater profits, as well as making money when the price of a stock drops.

Possible trade:

I am typing this on Saturday. The Markets are closed Monday for the MLK holiday. If price continues to drop Tuesday or Wednesday, you could consider a Put trade if it moves below 378.

It would be silly to buy stock when you expect the price may go down. That is one of the advantages of trading options. You can make money when the market is going up or down.

If you selected a 375 strike, Put option and you would pay a premium of around $5.57 for the Jan 31st (Jan wk5) expiration.  If price fell to 370, the premium is apt to go up about $2.50.  Premium of $5.57 plus $2.50 = $8.07 or a profit $250 for the 100-share contract. That is a profit of 45%. Not a bad profit when the market is going down.

Remember, you can take profit anywhere along the line, you don’t have to wait for the expiration date to sell.  It is often wise to take profit when it is earned, especially in a volatile market.

EMAs and line crosses are at the heart of most of my strategies. Many strategies come with a weekly newsletter listing numerous potential trade candidates.

I love teaching and sharing. It is my “thing”. 

Yours for a prosperous future,

Wendy Kirkland

PS-I have created this daily letter to help you see the great potential you can realize by trading options. Being able to recognize these set ups are a key first step in generating wealth with options. Once you are in a trade, there is a huge range of tools that can be used to manage the many possibilities that can present themselves. If you are interested in learning how to apply these tools and increase the potential of each trade click here.

Past trade update:

Last week we discussed buying the 385 Jan 24th expiration. If you bought Monday the premium would have been 3.85. If you sold on Wednesday the premium was 6.77. This would result in a 76% profit in two days.