Weekly Income Alert – July 3, 2025

Alright. Welcome, everyone, to Weekly Income Alert. I’m Marc Lichtenfeld.

Happy July 3rd. And it is a happy July 3rd, because today we are closing out our fifth winner in a row. Very, very excited, for you guys and for myself because as you know, I’m trading these as well. So a great day.

Five in a row is off to a fantastic start. So congratulations.

Thanks to everyone who is here. I saw that Jackie C. in Virginia was the first to log on and say hello. Also see Huckster in Nashville, Mark fifty six in Omaha, and thanks to all of you for being here. So really excited.

Little bit of housekeeping. So, if you’re brand new here, welcome.

And if you have been with us for a while, as you remember last week, I mentioned that I’m gonna be trying to to shrink the amount of time that we’re spending on these because the original intent was, you know, jump on, take care of that little bit of housekeeping, get to the trade, couple of questions, and get out and, you know, basically try to have it like a fifteen minute session so you guys can get on with your day. Place your trade and get on with the day. So that’s that was always the intention. Obviously, as we were getting started, lots and lots of questions, so we stuck around for the for a full hour.

I’m gonna try to shrink that down today to a half hour if we can. And, you know, one of the things too is is we’re getting a lot of the same questions, not only week to week, but within the same session. So, you know, I’m I’m gonna try not to to repeat those as well today. And and I do wanna emphasize again, check out the welcome materials, the frequently asked questions, the guide to weekly income alert because a lot of your questions will be answered there.

So if we don’t get your question today, you’ll find the answer there. I’m I’m I’m reasonably sure most of those questions, especially, like, the the more procedural questions will be answered there. And if we don’t get to your question today and and you can’t find it in the welcome materials, then absolutely send me an email, mailbag at oxford club dot com, and we’ll put in a link later.

For questions today, I do recommend you wait until after the trade is done because, otherwise, I have to scroll all the way back up. And and, usually, I take the the questions that I see first at the bottom of the chat and then make my way backwards. So, if if you ask the question now, we we may not get to it. So, as we said, great great start.

Five winners in a row, assuming the market doesn’t crash, in the next few hours. Remember, today, the market closes at one PM eastern time today, to the half day in the markets, and we’re closed for July fourth, which is why we have the July third expiration and why we’re, online today doing weekly income alert. Starting, you know, we go back to the the Friday expirations, going forward. This is just happens to be a holiday on a Friday, so everything got moved to Thursday.

But remember, markets do close at one PM today.

So, yeah, let’s get to the trade. I know you guys are anxious. We’ve hit five in a row, and and the other trades are are looking real good too, with with the Russell and and the rest of the market hitting new highs. So this has just been a, you know, perfect timing for launching weekly income alert and and collecting a bunch of winners right in a row.

So that’s just been great. And and the other two trades that are open, are looking real good. Obviously, we still have a week and two weeks to go. But we have a decent amount of of, you know, of a buffer even if the markets come in a little bit.

So, things are looking good, so I’m not too worried. So I’m gonna go ahead and share my screen.

Alright. You guys can see that. So, now remember, I’m on Schwab. If you’re on Fidelity, if you’re on another, interactive interactive brokers, another broker, it might be a little bit different.

And sometimes, as I’ve I’ve mentioned before, the ticker could be a little bit different for the Russell. It could be r u t. It could be r u t w. It it all depends on the broker.

And and if you have a question about that, you have to talk to your broker. I don’t know how each broker handles that.

So, with Schwab, what typically happens is we go to dollar r u t. So I’m clicking on dollar r u t.

And the strategy is a vertical put spread. So on the Schwab site, you can see it under two legs spreads.

So it’ll be a vertical put spread.

Again, on other brokers, it might be a little bit different, but we the important thing is that we want a credit spread. It’s a credit spread, and it’s a put spread. So those are the things that you’re gonna look for.

And you can see the default here when you go to vertical put spread on Schwab. It ends up being a debit. So that’s not what we’re doing. We’re all about credit. We’re all about collecting that income and letting those options expire worthless as they are today. We love worthless options.

So, so today, we so we we can so you have two options here. You can change it to net credit down here or just when you change the expiration date, and the strikes, it’s going to to change it to a credit.

So, we are going to oh, let me let me back up for a second here. Now remember, on Schwab, again, might be different on every other broker site, but on Schwab, r u t, if you go to the drop down menu for expiration, it’s only gonna give you the monthly.

So we need to go to this drop down to r u t w, and that will give us the weekly expiration dates. And because we’re going three weeks out, which is what we usually do, we are going to be doing the July twenty fifth options.

And today, we’re gonna do the twenty one we’re gonna sell the twenty one sixties.

Let’s see. Where is it?

Okay. Twenty one sixty, and we’re gonna buy the twenty one fifty.

Why is that not right? That’s giving us a debit of twenty that does not look right. We do not want a debit of twenty five eighty.

Alright. So what am I doing? We’re selling to open the Russell twenty one sixty.

Buying the Russell twenty one fifty. That does not look right at all.

I’m gonna reload my page. Let’s see.

Try this again.

Alright, so I’m gonna go to the vertical put.

Let me see. Let me go back to net credit here, see if that changes anything. So again, we’re going to Russell, July twenty fifth, and we’re gonna sell the twenty one sixty put and buy the twenty one fifty put. There we go. That’s much better. More like it. I don’t know where that forty dollar price was coming from.

So that’s giving us a credit of a dollar seventy five at the midpoint. So, again, really important when if if you just did it at the market, you’d only get a dollar thirty. At the midpoint, it’s a dollar seventy five. So we’re gonna put in our limit, at a just change to a dollar seventy. It’s it’s always gonna fluctuate, you know, a little bit, as prices move. I’m gonna put it at a dollar seventy. I wanna get filled at at least a dollar seventy on this, and I am going to review the order.

Okay. And before I place the order, I’m gonna go ahead and send it out, to everybody. So you guys can go ahead and send it out. Let me just double check this, make sure it is accurate.

July twenty fifth twenty one sixty. July twenty fifth twenty one fifty. Dollar seventy five is a midpoint. Limit is a dollar seventy.

Alright. So you guys can go ahead and set and, place that order. I am going to publish the trade.

That’s just gonna take me for take me a second here.

I should have had this locked and loaded. I apologize.

I was chatting with Rachel about her baby. I got sidetracked, so blame Rachel. No. It’s totally my fault.

It’s the twenty one sixty put by two open.

Okay.

Sale to open July twenty fifth.

Limit price dollar seventy. I’m gonna go submit that.

And if you’re getting filled, definitely let us know where you got filled. I’d like to see that.

Alright. I’m gonna submit that trade. Trade has been posted. I’m gonna go ahead and make the trade myself now.

Alright. I placed my trade.

And now, we are back. Alright, so hopefully, looks like a lot of you got filled. Dollar seventy, dollar seventy.

Good to see it. Alright. So the trade is active. We’re good to go. And, hopefully, this will be another winner.

Alright. So let’s get to some of your questions. So Hershey says for this July eleventh trade, we are at a ninety six percent winner, at least I am. I’m showing only six dollars credit left. Would it make sense to close it now? That’s a great question, and it’s a a question we get often.

So I’m leaving it open, because I wanna try to collect every dollar that I can.

You know, eventually, when we do hit some losers, those losers, especially right now because volatility is so low, so the the credits that we’re receiving are not particularly high. So I wanna try to have every dollar that I can, to offset whatever losses, we eventually will take. Again, back testing this, we had eighty six percent success rate, but there will be some losses eventually, and so I wanna have every dollar that I can, especially if I feel like it is going to expire worthless. I’d rather, keep that extra six dollars.

But, you know, for each person has to make their own decision on, what they’re comfortable with as far as their tolerance for risk. If it makes sense for you to to take the trade off, you know, take home the winner, then, then that’s up to you. But I’m as of right now, I am, letting it go and, hopefully, expiring worthless. If if that changes, if the market sells off next week, maybe we make some adjustments.

But right now, I wanna leave it open.

Spence w brings up a good point. It’s not just the six dollars. It’s also the fees paid to your broker.

That’s true. I mean, fees are are pretty low. That’s for sure. But, I I think my fees were a couple of bucks.

Let me see. Let’s go back to my oh, it doesn’t show on the page I had open. But, yeah, it was it was a couple of bucks. But, you know, again, I’m saying every dollar counts.

So, yeah, I’m trying to let these expire worthless, not pay fees, not, and and and not give back any of the money if at all possible.

What is the last price? This is a good question. Aggie one twenty three. What is the last price that you would take if a dollar seventy is not filling? A dollar seventy. That’s why we put in the limit. So the limit price is the last price.

And and we’ve had this before there. I think it was I don’t remember if it was the first might have been the second week that we were live where we nobody really got filled until several hours later. The market kinda ran away from us, right off the bat, And, nobody got filled and but if you held the line, with your limit price, I think it was around one o’clock in the afternoon that day, prices came back in a little bit and everybody got filled. So, you know, I I strongly recommend that not only weekly income alert, but any of our trading services, or or newsletters when we have a limit price, stick to it.

If the market gets away from you excuse me. If the market gets away from you, sometimes that happens. You might miss out on a trade, but it’s it’s always better to make sure you’re getting a fair price and a good price than to than to chase a a stock or an option up or down. So, so wait for it.

You know, anything could happen in the next couple hours. The market doesn’t have to move that much really to get these options in line if they’re not being filling at the moment at a dollar seventy. So so just hang in there. Have your your order open, you know, for the day, and, and there’s a a decent chance it’ll get filled.

Tom k eight says, how much open interest do you like to see? So that’s a really good question. There’s not a specific number. So the reason I chose these strikes, the twenty one sixty and twenty one fifty, is if if we did a a true, three percent, which is about where we usually are placing these trades, three percent below the current price, there wasn’t a lot of open interest and volume, at the twenty one seventy, twenty one sixty.

Twenty one sixty did not have a lot of open interest either, but twenty one fifty did. Twenty Twenty one fifty had tremendous amount of open interest. So that’s why I moved it to twenty one sixty and twenty one fifty strikes. So there’s not a specific number.

The more, the better.

And, you know, if twenty one fifty really didn’t have much open interest either, then I I probably would have just gone with the the twenty one seventies and twenty one sixties. The the price difference was was pretty negligible, so I I opted for the option that had more open interest, which is the twenty one fifty.

So not a a a hard number that I look for, just kind of more the better. With index options, because the indexes are are, you know, so fluid, so many people paying attention to them, I it’s not as important as with stock options. It is important, but not as important with stock options. So stock options, I really don’t like to get into stock option trades unless those, do have some real liquidity with the index. I’m a little less concerned, but I am always going to, to kinda push the trade towards the options that do have more liquidity just to make things easier to get in and out of.

Alright. So we’re seeing people getting filled at a dollar seventy five, dollar seventy four.

Good to hear.

Alright. Let’s see. What other questions do we have?

On thinkorswim, anyone have the symbol? So, it’s either gonna be r u t. Actually, if you go to r u t on thinkorswim, in the in the trade tab, you go to r u t, and then the options. It’ll show you the weekly options on thinkorswim.

So, that should work just fine, and then you go to the July twenty fifth.

One single question. Are we choosing twenty delta to select strike price of twenty one sixty? That’s from Nilesh. So we’re not really using deltas.

We’re not considering deltas. We didn’t use that in the back test. What we did is we tested various, standard deviations, there various percentages, and what we found was that the the three percent away from the current price was what worked best. So I’m not factoring in deltas really.

Let’s see what else we have.

Yeah. I like the fact that you guys are helping each other out too.

You can also so saucy Jim one says you can also try moving the target by five to ten dollars, see what you get. I went three percent below the market for my low side and picked the twenty one seventy, twenty one eighty for a two twenty net credit. That was before this meeting even started getting brave or stupid.

LOL.

No. You’re not getting stupid. It’s again, it’s, you know, it it’s your money that you’re trading, so you should do what you feel comfortable with. And, you know, if you’re trading the higher strike, you’re getting the higher credit, and you’re taking on a little bit more risk that if the Russell sells off that your strike price gets hit. So, again, you know, I’ve talked about this a lot before.

Anything in the market, you should be getting compensated for taking on risk. So the reason that that credit is higher is because the risk is higher.

So you have a slightly higher risk that that the strike price will end up in the money, and then, you know, you would have, as we said last week, you don’t really get a sign, but you would you would have to pay money out of pocket if, if you were in the money at expiration. So there’s so there’s a a slightly higher risk, which is why that credit is a little bit higher. If you if you did the strikes right at the money, the credit would be much higher, but, obviously, a much higher risk of, of ending up in the money, and that’s what we want to avoid. So, you know, we’re always balancing trying to make the most amount of money with the least amount of risk of getting assigned. Because what I’m trying to avoid is on a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, trying to figure out, do we need to bail? Do we need to pull the rip cord? Do we hold on till Friday?

I I wanna make it kind of like it has been for the last five weeks where it’s a no brainer and we can just let it expire.

If you well, I just lost that one. If you think the market is going downward oh, here we go. Bruce h. If you think the market is going down, is it better to lower the spread to safeguard or take the higher premium?

So, that’s an interesting question.

So, I mean, if you really think the market is going down, then you could do a, you know, a, a call spread, which would end up out of the money if the market did go down. I’m not at that point yet. I’m I’d I don’t see a reason that the market should sell off. Doesn’t mean it can’t, but I’m certainly not bearish at this point, so I’m not gonna do that.

If you just kinda wanted to protect yourself a little bit more, yeah, you could you could put your strike price, much lower, but, again, you’re gonna have a a lower credit. So it’s that balance. How much risk are you willing to take, and how much compensation? And as as far as I think you said you’d lowered the spread.

I just wanna be clear that you are talking about moving the strikes, not shrinking the spread to, to five points instead of ten.

But I I assume that’s what what you meant when you said lower the spread.

Let’s see.

My sell to open and buy to open were two different prices. I’m on Fidelity. What did I do wrong?

So the the if I understand the question correctly, the sell tope and the buy tope and should have two different prices individually because those are two different options. One’s, the twenty one sixty put, and one is the twenty one fifty put. So those should have two different prices, but the price of the credit spread itself, assuming that you can trade it as one trade, which is what I showed you on Schwab where we were able to trade it as a spread, not two individual, trades, So that should be just that one price of a dollar seventy as your limit.

If if that doesn’t make sense or you can’t trade that way on Fidelity, I would talk to Fidelity about the best way to do that.

The trade tab says sell buy at two thousand for both.

I’m assume that’s RGH. I assume you’re talking about your broker. You should be able to move the the strike price.

So you can definitely do that.

K. Saucy Gym. I set my low end to twenty one seventy. Kept the spread to ten dollars. Sounds good.

Would it make sense, WJO, would it make sense to usually choose the trade to yield a two dollar credit, and would this represent a consistent risk based on the current market? So that’s always gonna change because it depends on volatility. So a couple weeks ago, we might have gotten two twenty. Today, we might get a dollar seventy because volatility is much lower.

So in order to get that two dollar credit, that today, let’s say versus a few weeks ago, your strike prices would have to be closer to the current price on a on a percentage basis, because volatility is lower. So, again, if if you wanna maintain that two dollar credit no matter what in a period of low market volatility, you’re taking on more risk. In a period of high market volatility, you’d be taking on less risk because, theoretically, let’s say the market sold off hard in the next week or so. The next trade, theoretically, we should be able to get a lot more than two dollars because volatility will be higher.

So the higher volatility is, the more we get paid because the risk is higher. The lower volatility is, the lower we get paid because the risk is lower. So if you want to ensure that you’re getting that two dollar credit every single time in periods like right now where volatility is low, markets are hitting new new highs, you’ll be taking on more risk than those of us who are trading it at a dollar seventy.

Rich d got filled at dollar seventy seven. Nice. I think that’s the highest one I’ve seen so far.

When will this week’s trade close with the fourth? Today. That’s from Ron c. So remember the expiration is the July third, which is today, and markets close at one o’clock today. So, that’s why today’s option was the July third instead of the July fourth. Almost always, it’s gonna be on the Friday unless it’s, you know, a situation like today where we had a holiday and the market was closed on Friday.

Market’s going down now, so you might get more now if you haven’t gotten filled. And, yeah, that’s what I was mentioning before with the person who was was asking about what’s the bottom price you would accept when I had the dollar seventy limit. You know, within a within a a market day, markets are gonna fluctuate a little bit. They usually don’t go to straight up and and usually will get filled.

And if we don’t, if there’s ever a point that we don’t get filled on a trade, then we just let it go and and we’ll we’ll get the next trade the next time. That’s the great thing about weekly income alert. We’re having a trade every single week. There’s gonna be fifty two trades a year, plenty of op opportunities to make money, and, you know, we never wanna chase a trade and and not make enough money for the risk that we’re taking, and and and and get bad prices.

So, like I said, we’re we’re, you know, always stick to the limit. Oh, we just got filled dollar eighty. Nice job. Alright.

So, yeah, the market is, is coming in a little bit.

David r b has a great question. If risk goes up and we get filled with higher credits, actual money risk goes down. Correct? Yes.

That’s right. So the maximum risk is the difference between, the spread times a hundred. So our spread is is ten points wide because we sold the twenty one sixties, bought the twenty one fifties. So that’s ten points times a hundred because an option represents a hundred units.

So it’s a thousand dollars minus whatever our our credit was. So if if I got filled at a dollar seventy, my maximum loss would be eight hundred thirty dollars. If you got filled at a dollar eighty, your maximum loss would be eight hundred twenty dollars. So, yeah.

So the higher the credit, the less your maximum loss would be.

So, yeah, that’s, that is absolutely accurate.

So Kathy o one says, I missed the first trade, but markets dropped the following week. I got in for more credit. Great.

What else we got?

On Schwab, what do you put in front of r u t, dollar sign on on the Schwab website? So the dollar sign r u t, and that’ll get you the symbol. Again, in thinkorswim, it’s just r u t.

Andy, you’re saying some nice words about Chairman Circle. Thank you very much. Glad you made back your fee many times over. Happy to hear it.

Marc, would also be nice for you to take a quick look at the RUT chart each Friday for your perspective as well, just a constructive thought. That’s a really good suggestion from MDI.

Yeah. Maybe I’ll I’ll start doing that. I will definitely take that into consideration.

It’s an interesting idea.

The one thing though I do I would wanna be careful of, with that is we talked a lot about this last week is is, you know, I’m a very, very disciplined trader, very disciplined as far as sticking to a system, a system that worked in a back test and a system that’s working in real time. So I could look at a chart and go, you know, this this may be a little bit concerning to me, and then I stick with the system and and buy a put spread. And some of you may say, well, that’s that’s not really, consistent.

But, you know, I try very, very hard not to let my personal biases change the way I trade if I’m trading with a system. If I’m trading with something like technical pattern profits, which is all trading off of the charts, that’s different. Then if I if I see something turning, maybe I don’t get long, maybe I get short or, you know, the or what have you. But if I’m trading a a very disciplined system that we have seen work through all kinds of markets, I I wanna be real careful about not saying, well, the chart’s looking a little toppy here.

I’m not, you know, really sure if if we’re gonna hit new highs next week, and then I come out with a a, you know, bull put trade that might scare some people off. Whereas I I really do wanna stick with the system. So, it’s a really interesting and good idea. Let me think about it some more because I I don’t wanna scare people off of a trade that that could very well be successful and, again, with a system that’s that’s working really well.

So let me think about that, but it’s a it’s a good suggestion.

Alright. Let’s see.

I missed how do you set a dollar seventy limit.

So on Schwab at least, and and it should be on any other broker where you can trade the the spread as one trade, again, rather than having to buy the put and selling the other put as separate trades. If you can do it together, there should be a place where you have the option of either trading at the market, which I do not recommend because you will get a much, much worse price, or a limit price, and then you just set your limit price. You type it in or there’s a a toggle, you know, up or down from whatever the current price is.

Do you think the market will go down over the August, September time frame?

I don’t have a reason to believe that at the moment.

Certainly, you know, there’s that sell in May and go away, saying that has been, you know, pretty good over the decades.

But right now, markets are are hitting new highs pretty consistently. I haven’t seen a reason to get bearish.

You know, things are are getting a little bit, you know, a little bit overbought. That’s for sure.

We could have a pause. We could come in a little bit. That wouldn’t shock me, but, I don’t have a, I certainly don’t have a a bearish stance right now on August or September. I don’t have a reason to believe that. If if that changes, I’ll certainly let you know, and and maybe we’d even adjust the strategy. But right now, I don’t have a a reason to believe that. I’m not I’m not seeing anything to to scare me off yet other than markets are are hitting new highs and and and perhaps overbought.

Bruce says we need to pull back then go back up.

Timing the sausage and timing the market is bad. Okay? Yeah. Very true. And I I agree with that very, very strongly.

Yeah. It’s very tough to time the market, and and really that’s what this system is is really been so successful at ignoring that, trying not to time the market that we really just wanna stick with the system. We’ve we’ve tested it in in good markets, bad markets, and neutral markets. And unless, you know, there is clear evidence that we are in a downtrend, the we’re we’re sticking with the with the put spreads.

Again, that that there will be times that that will change. I I’m I’m not so dogmatic that I I’m completely inflexible, because it did work in bear markets when we did switch to call spreads. But the the big back test with the bull put spreads, that worked, really well in all markets over the long term. So, you know, I’m not gonna sit there and go, well, right now we’re a little toppy.

We’re doing a call spread this week. Next week, we’re back to put spreads for two weeks, and then we go back to call. I’m not doing that. It’s only when I see that things have changed dramatically, and and we’re in a downtrend now, and and so we need to be taking advantage of call spreads.

But, yeah, yeah, we’re we’re sticking with the system. That that’s one thing I’ve been trying to hammer home over and over again, in these sessions is we’re sticking with the system unless we see a real need to change it. So our so we’re at about thirty minutes, so I do want to, to sign off in just a minute.

Mike says congrats on the five for five run. I was too chicken, to hit the last three weeks to put your trades on. Keep thinking the market ran up too much. Tariff deadlines looming. That I mean, that is a real risk. An idea to consider, would you put on a short call spread and a short spread simultaneously?

I’ll never say never, but, it’s it’s as of right now, no. I I’m not gonna do it in anticipation of something because I’m worried.

I’ll I would do it because current market conditions suggest that that’s necessary.

So, interesting question, though.

Alright. So I’m gonna wrap it up here. If you do have any any questions that did not get answered and your broker can’t answer it and the, frequently asked questions and and the welcome materials on the website can’t answer, do shoot me an email, mailbag at oxford club dot com. James, if you wouldn’t mind, throwing in the link there so that everybody could, has access to it pretty easily.

And and, yeah, thanks again for being part of weekly income alert. I’m so excited, to have you and that this is working out so well. And, have a great July fourth. Make sure don’t handle those fireworks.

You need your fingers to be able to enter more trades next week. So I will see you next Friday next Friday, not Thursday, next Friday at ten. Have a great July fourth and a great long weekend. We’ll see you.