Weekly Income Alert – September 12, 2025

Welcome everyone to Weekly Income Alert. I’m Marc Lichtenfeld. I’m coming to you from a hotel room in Ohio. So, hopefully, the technology will hold up.

We have Anthony standing by to take over. If not, because we’ll have to see if this hotel WiFi can handle the recording equipment, the Schwab account, all the streaming stuff that we have going on. I kinda feel like Scotty from Star Trek going, “I’m giving her all she’s got, captain.” So we’ll have to we’ll have to hope that the technology holds up.

If not, Anthony will jump in. And speaking of Anthony, he’s actually going to be running the session next week. I’ll be traveling.

So if you haven’t worked with Anthony yet, if you’re fairly new, he ran two of the sessions back in June when I was on the Oxford Club’s Wealth Wine and Wander tour and did a fantastic job, delivered winners, and it was seamless. So, you’ll be in great hands next week. But he will jump in, today if we run into some technical problems. So, with that said, great, great news again today.

We’re gonna expire worthless, which is exactly what we want. So we’re gonna be fourteen for fifteen. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

So, thrilled that you guys are making money. If you’ve been with me since the beginning of this, I’d love to hear from you. Just, you know, let us know that, that you’re fourteen for fifteen also because that’s pretty exciting stuff. And if you’re new, welcome.

And, hey, no you know, as they say, past performance is no guarantee of future results, but, the backtest was eighty six percent win rate, and, so far, we’re off to a fantastic start. So real quick, I’ll just give some market commentary.

You know, right now, it looks like the market is only caring about interest rates being cut, which it certainly looks like that’s going to happen. We’ve got we had the terrible jobs numbers this week. You know, the re the revised number, for our the year ending March came down by nine hundred thousand jobs, almost a million fewer jobs than were expected. But more importantly was the jobs number released this week that showed that the amount of a new initial claims was two hundred sixty I I can’t remember if it’s two sixty two, two sixty three thousand, but that number was the highest in four years. So that’s not good.

Then we also had the PPI producer price index down. It was supposed everyone expected to be up. It was down point one percent. So, that combined with the jobs number, to me, cement a rate cut coming next week.

The CPI number, consumer price index was a little bit higher than expected at zero point four percent. But with with the jobs number, I don’t see how the Fed doesn’t cut at this point. I I’m expecting twenty five basis points, not fifty, but we’ll see. It’s it’s a very politicized environment right now, so we’ll have to see what happens, if it if they actually do the fifty basis point and and really try to spark the the jobs market, though I think, I think that would be dangerous for inflation because inflation is not really under control.

So, that’s my take. And and right now, all the market cares about is this this rate cut apparently because with all the insanity going on in the world, market keeps going higher. So at least that’s the one good thing. Right?

With with all the insanity going on, at least the markets are not giving us a reason to to kinda freak out. So at least that’s some good stuff. And and in this particular service, Weekly Income Alert, it’s been it’s been great. You know, it’s been helping us make money every single week.

So with that said, why don’t we get started and get to today’s trade?

So we let me share my screen.

Alright. So, if you’re new, if if you’re not new, this is all hapti already, but if you’re new, we’re trading the Russell two thousand index.

And on I’m using Schwab’s website. So on Schwab’s website, the ticker symbol is dollar sign r u t On your broker site, if you’re not using Schwab, that might be r u t. It might be dot r u t, might be r u t w because we’re trading the weeklies. But on Schwab, where it’s dollar sign r u t, And then it you can see it pulls up this, this window right here.

And on strategy, where it says strategy, we’re gonna go to vertical put. Might and on your website, on your broker, it might say, it might say, put credit spread, but on Schwab, it’s called a vertical put. It’s a it’s a two leg spread, so it’s a vertical put spread. And you’ll see that the the order type, the default is a net debit.

We’re gonna change that to a net credit because remember, we are making money every week. We’re not paying money. We’re collecting money, so it’s gotta be a credit. Now here’s the the part that sometimes people get a little confused about.

Here you can see it says RUT, that’s the symbol, and the expiration date, and the strike prices.

We need to click on this drop down menu and get to RUTW because let me go back to RUT. If you go to RUT, here are the expiration dates that you can see, September nineteenth, October seventeenth, November twenty first. Those are the monthlies. If we go to RUTW, then we have a lot more choices. It’s all the weekly options, and that’s what we want because we’re trading, we typically are trading options these spreads three weeks out. So today, we’re gonna have the trade the October thirds.

Okay. So the October third put spread, and you’ll notice when you change one of them, it automatically changes the other because this we’re trading this as a spread. We’re trading it together. We’re not we’re not selling one put and then buying another put separately. We’re doing this as one trade together. And when you do it that way, the defaults change automatically.

So now here’s the part where we go and we get to the strike price. So we are gonna go to the I’m gonna move it to the twenty three forties. We’re gonna sell the twenty three forties and buy the twenty three thirties.

The credit is vacillating between two thirty five to forty.

So like I usually do, I change it to just a little bit below actually, I’m going the wrong way. I changed it just a little bit below the where the midpoint is. Again, if you’re new, you wanna be trading around this midpoint. You don’t wanna trade at the bid or the ask.

You know, it’ll it you certainly don’t wanna do it at this bid here. That’s way too little. You can see there’s a big difference, a dollar eighty versus two thirty. So a dollar eighty, dollar ninety would be if you’re just, trading the spread at the bid.

We’re doing it at the midpoint. It’s a very big meaningful difference. So make sure you’re getting somewhere around this price, that midpoint. So, like I said, I always do it.

I always put my order in about a nickel below just to make sure that, better chance of getting filled. If you don’t get filled right away, you can wait a little bit.

You know, just wait. It could take a couple minutes. It could take a few hours. But, you definitely wanna, wait, and and not, you know, panic if you don’t get filled right away.

This is important. Timing, day. We only want this filled today. If we don’t get filled today, we’re not going back on Monday, and trying again.

Time will have elapsed. Market conditions will be different. If we don’t get filled, then we just skip the week and we move on. So far, it hasn’t been a problem.

We’ve been filled every week. Like I said, one week, it took several hours. I think we didn’t get filled till about one o’clock. But, generally speaking, you know, we we it hasn’t been a problem for fifteen weeks in a row.

Actually, more because we have two open positions, so it’s now been, seventeen position seventeen weeks in a row. Hasn’t been a problem. But you wanna have this day. You don’t want it to be good till canceled, which is the other option.

Good till canceled means exactly what it says. That open is order is is that order is open until you get filled or until you cancel it. No. We’re doing this day only.

The order will expire at the end of the day if we don’t get filled.

Alright. So I’m gonna review my order. Alright. Let me check that.

Alright. So now I am going to you can go ahead and place that order. I’m gonna enter the order to send to everybody, which actually, if you’ll give me a minute, I didn’t get a chance to set that up because I was dealing with some technology stuff.

So and I usually have two screens I’m looking at. I’m kinda juggling between lots of different windows on this one screen. So it’s gonna take me a second. But you can go ahead and place that trade. Let us know where you got filled.

I’m glad the technology is holding up. I was really concerned.

Alright.

I’m gonna submit that trade so everyone who’s not on the call gets it.

That has been sent. Now I’m gonna go back to my Schwab account and place the order myself.

And sounds like, just heard the little, beep because I also had think or swim up, so it sounds like I got filled. So good news.

And so we are off. Let me see where people got filled. Two thirty five, two thirty one, two thirty five, two thirty. Great. All good stuff. Looks like everybody’s getting filled. No problem.

So let’s get some questions. And Martin says, correct me if I’m wrong, but we should be doing these transactions in retirement accounts to avoid or delay income gains. You certainly can.

You know, it’ll it’ll save, save you taxes on your income. One thing and I’ve talked about this before, but if you’re new, this will be good news for you. One of the good things about trading the Russell index versus the ETF is that it does have some tax advantages in that sixty percent of the profits or income that you make is taxed at your long term rate. So if you make, a hundred dollars on a trade, sixty percent sixty dollars will be taxed at your long term rate.

The rest will be taxed at your ordinary income rate. But if you were trading the Russell two thousand ETF or any stock, and trading the same way, all of that would be taxed at your ordinary income tax rate. So there are so it’s one of the reasons that we’re trading the index rather than the ETF is because, it does have that, that tax advantage. So that’s kind of a nice little thing.

But, yeah, you can you still will be paying taxes on it, so you can, trade it in your IRA as long as you have approval to do it.

So Reggie says my platform is Schwab. When is the credit credited to your account? Is it the next day?

Great question. I believe that money should be in your account the same day.

Funny. I’ve actually never kinda bothered to see when that money actually hit the account, but I believe it’s the same day.

If if not, then it it would be on Monday. But, you can also ask Schwab when that will occur.

So Andy g says, I’ve been trading in Roth and traditional as well as my taxable account. Paying quarterly taxes will suck, But the good news is I wouldn’t have to pay taxes if I wasn’t making money. Absolutely. I agree a hundred percent. You know, everyone should do everything they can to pay as little tax as possible.

But, yeah, I’d I’d rather be making the money and paying the tax than not making money and not paying any tax. I’ll I’ll, you know, happy to pay the minimum amount of tax that I can on, on profits for sure.

LSN, confirmed Schwab is right away. I see it in mine already. But, yeah, good good point. But does not show up as investable for a day, so you can’t immediately put that money to work. You have to wait a day. Thanks for clearing that up, LSN.

Let’s see. What else do you guys have?

Yeah. A lot of people chiming in. Thanks for, for letting us know. By the way, I think it’s so cool, that we’re all doing this together because this is something I don’t remember if I talked about this last week.

This is something that, you know, not a lot of people do. Sure. Lots of people trade spreads, although, you know, way fewer than they’re just buying, puts in calls or selling covered calls or what have you. But even within the spread trading community, there’s there’s not a lot of people selling credit spreads or selling on the Russell.

So we kinda have this, like, cool little group here that are, you know, becoming experts on this, all making money, helping each other out. So I I I think it’s awesome. It’s it’s kinda one of my favorite parts of the week is when we get together and not just place the trade, but then kinda get through all this and and talk about all this stuff with each other, give each other tips on on the taxes and, settlements and all this stuff. It it it’s awesome.

So Jim g nineteen fifty nine says, why is my order saying I don’t have enough cash to do this trade doing five puts, have over a hundred thousand in cash? I get this question a lot from people saying, hey. I have the cash in my account. I have four thousand, five thousand dollars in there.

I’m just trying to do one credit spread. I only should need a thousand dollars per credit spread. What’s the problem? You gotta talk to your broker about that.

I’m not sure, you know, the specifics of your account. But anytime your broker is saying you can’t trade it because of a cash issue, then talk to the broker about that.

Let’s see.

Win b, why don’t you trade the S and P index the same way?

Because the backtest that we did, we we backtested a lot of different ways to trade this strategy, and the Russell had the best results. So that’s why we went with the Russell. We are looking at the S and P again, and we’re looking at some other things to to see if there are ways that we can expand what we’re trading here. But for right now, we’re trade we’re sticking with the Russell because that what worked the best in the backtest.

And and so far, you can’t you can’t, argue with the results in real time. You know, we’re fourteen for fifteen. Our two other open positions are positive right now. So, you know, right now, we’re kinda not messing with the success, but we are we’re always looking at ways that we can improve, ways that we can add new features to things. So we are looking at the S and P and some other things as well.

Okay. So William b, thanks for adding this William b one two three. This might help when people are having a hard time with filling a trade. With Schwab, you have to wait at least six business days from when the money was deposited to place a trade.

I spoke with the representative last week. Unclear why my order did not process last Friday this morning worked. Great. Thanks for for that tip, William b.

That’s helpful.

Let’s see. Tuffle Hund. March, should we close out prior trades before we make the current trade or simply let a future day trade such as September nineteenth expire? So far, we’ve been letting them expire.

We have talked a little bit about there have been a few members who have said, you know, I’ve been closing out on, you know, very, very late on Thursday for, let’s say, a nickel. And that way, that frees up that thousand dollars, or whatever cash was in the trade, for the next day. And I don’t have to have, like, that other thousand because if you remember, if we have three trades going on at any one time, that’s a thousand dollars per spread, per trade. So let’s say you’re trading one con you know, one spread each, you’d have three thousand dollars. But because we have a new trade Friday morning and then an old one trade, expiring Friday afternoon.

Technically, we have four trades going on on Friday.

So that would be another thousand dollars. So some people have been saying I’ve been, you know, clearing out my you know, closing out the trade late Thursday when it’s almost worth us. Not completely, but almost for, let’s say, five cents, ten cents, whatever it is. You know, it should be, you know, five dollars, ten dollars.

And then that frees up that thousand dollars for the next day. So that’s something you can do. Now keep in mind next week is, next so by the way, let me just backtrack. We I haven’t been recommending that yet, but I’m not gonna argue with someone too much over five or ten dollars.

Yeah. If if that’s what you wanna do to free that thousand dollars up, free that cash up for the next day, that’s that’s totally fine. But next week, remember, next week, we have the September nineteenth AM options. On the on the third Friday of the month, the options can be AM or PM.

Every other week, it’s PM. On index options, the third Friday is AM or PM, and we’ve we’ve traded both, since we’ve done the service. This week, it’s AM, and here’s why that’s important. The last time to trade it is Thursday at the close.

Right? If all other options, when they expire on Friday at the close, we we can trade them, you know, all day, all day Friday.

Next week’s options, the last chance to trade them is Thursday at the close, and the price that determines whether you get assigned or not is the open on Friday.

So we’re planning on letting these options expire on Thursday or I’m sorry. Technically, Friday morning, but we’re planning not to take any action on Thursday.

If the trade is looking like it it could be assigned, it’s getting close to being in the money, then we’ll certainly let you know and send out an alert, if there’s any action to take. If if you don’t hear anything from us, then that means just let it expire, Thursday Thursday afternoon slash Friday morning. Technically, it won’t be until as soon as that opening bell rings, that first print of the Russell will be what determines, the the price for that contract. So expect not to hear anything from us, but we will let you know on Thursday, if we’re closing it out early.

So it won’t be on Friday, will be on Thursday. And if there won’t be a broadcast, it’ll just be an alert that hit your inbox or your, your text message. But really important, so do do keep an eye on your inbox on Thursday. I’m sure you guys are, you know, be paying attention to the market.

So if things are starting to get close, the market falls, then, then I’m sure you’ll be, you know, keeping your eye out on your inbox and and what have you. But we’ll definitely let you know on Thursday, if there is an action to take. If there isn’t, then then you won’t hear from us, and it’ll just be business as normal on Friday for the Friday broadcast.

Alejandra says, would you provide your observation, perhaps your expectation, if the Federal Reserve doesn’t lower interest rates next week.

Sure. So if they did well, if they don’t, but basically imply that they will, then I think the market doesn’t have too big of a reaction.

If they don’t cut and imply that a cut may not be coming as soon as perhaps previously expected, then I I do think the market would sell off. I’m I’m not expecting that at all. I I do think, that a rate cut is coming. And if somehow it’s not, that they will imply that there will be one very, very soon.

The actually, the the market probably would be a little disappointed in that. But, I’d I’d be surprised at this point with especially with that jobs number, the worst unemployment, the worst, new claims filing in four years. I mean, since the, you know, really the middle of the pandemic, that’s that’s not a good number. So, I’ve been, you know, I’ve been very vocal for a long time while the president was demanding rate cuts, demanding rate cuts, saying there’s no reason to cut rates.

The economy was fine. Jobs were fine. Inflation was too hot, but that’s changed now. Now jobs aren’t doing well.

They’re, you know, hiring has slowed to a crawl. We’re getting higher unemployment, so it’s time to cut rates, and and I think the Fed will will follow. I’ll be very surprised if they don’t.

Martin says, what ticker was used when trading Russell two thousand in E Trade? I tried r u t, r u t dollar sign, r u t w not coming up with Russell two thousand. If anybody uses E Trade, if you wanna chime in here, because I’m not I’ve never used E Trade, so I couldn’t tell you. But I’m sure somebody here, will, let you know. If you guys could do that, that would help. Gb Jensen says RUT works for E Trade.

So, yep, try that again. Yeah. Everybody’s saying RUT.

So Tuffle Hunt says, Mark, when you let a trade expire, but the amount is less than you paid for it, do you lose money? So let’s be let’s be very clear about the words, what you paid for. We’re not paying anything. We’re collecting money.

Somebody else is paying us. That’s the whole point of this. Right? We we’re collecting income.

Somebody else we sold something. We sold the spread and we collected money.

So it’s it’s actually the opposite of of how you described it. So if the trade goes against us, the trade is not worth more money than we sold it for. And in that case, then, yes, that money would come out of our account. So, if the trade was worth five hundred dollars, then five hundred dollars would come out of our account. Now remember, we’ll have collected on this trade, for example, two dollars and thirty cents or two hundred thirty dollars, so the net loss would be two seventy. If if it’s a maximum loss, it would be a thousand dollars out of the account, but we’ve collected two thirty, so the max loss would be seven seventy.

But that that’s what it is. We collected money. We’ve sold something today. And if the trade goes against us and that and it’s worth more than it is today, then the money comes out of our account. And, actually, the money could come out of our account if we close it early for a profit. So we’ve collected two hundred thirty dollars today. The trade’s profitable, but let’s say the market’s starting to slip and we decide to get out early, take our profits, maybe the trade is worth a hundred dollars.

In that case, a hundred dollars comes out of our account. Now we’ve sold it for two thirty. We already collected two thirty and been sitting with it for a little while. So in that case, our gain would be a hundred thirty.

But anything other than this expiring worthless, which has been the case so far in fourteen and fifteen weeks, but anything other than expiring worthless money comes out of our account, at when we close the trade. So it’s just a matter of, is it more than we collected or less than we collected? If it’s less, then it was a win. If it’s more, then it was a loss.

But really important to to make sure everybody understands that. And I know it might have just been, you know, semantics because you’re used to talking about, you know, when you enter a trade, you’re buying and so you’re you’re paying for it. But just wanna be very, very sure that everybody understands that we’re collecting money. We’re not paying for anything.

So Austin Texan says, new here. If we’re selling a put and the idea to get the higher amount such as two forty instead of two thirty? I got in at two thirty. Absolutely.

Yeah. So the the more that you can collect, the better. So, what, you know, what some people might do when they see, you know, when I’m entering the trade and if that midpoint, let’s say, is two forty, but I’m putting, you know let’s say it’s going back and forth between two thirty five and two forty, and I put my limit in at two thirty. And as as I explained, it’s to to make sure I get filled, in case, you know, market moves against us a little bit or what have you.

Yeah. You you can try it at two forty. Absolutely. See if you can get that that extra, you know, couple of bucks.

If it doesn’t, cancel it and, you know, put in, put it back in at two thirty five or two thirty. But you can certainly, try to get that higher price because it only takes, you know, a little bit of a move in the index, in the right direction, and suddenly that option gets, you know, is worth a little bit more. So you can absolutely try it. And then if it doesn’t work, then, you know, you go back to the the slightly lower price.

But, yeah, we we wanna get as higher par high a price as we possibly can.

Does entering this trade with Russell above the upper Kellner ban, have any concern? That’s fifty nine Sprite driver. So, Kellner band is a technical indicator. If the Russell’s above the Kellner band, that could imply that it’s overvalued or due for a snapback.

That’s a really interesting question. And I am a technical analyst, and I look at technicals and a lot of the things I do.

We don’t use the technicals in, in this service or at least we haven’t so far.

And the reason is because in the backtest, the backtest showed a very high level of success, that eighty six percent win rate that I’ve talked about, kind of regardless of what was going on in the market. Now, obviously, you know, there were times when market fell and and we took some losses, but that eighty six percent win rate includes all that. And so trying to time the market by using these indicators, saying, well, it looks a little overvalued here. It looks like it’s due for a snapback.

If I started, you know, putting all these different factors into it, it’s it’s gonna mess with the results. No doubt about it. It would definitely, it it did mess with the win rate in the back test, and I am sure that we would not be fourteen for fifteen, and we wouldn’t be fifteen for fifteen either. I’m sure of it because, you know, you you have biases, you have opinions, you look at, you know, you look at at technicals and it’s very much an art.

It’s not a science. So there’s no doubt in my mind that the results would not have been as strong. That being said, you know, the market has been very cooperative and has been, going, you know, mostly straight up. And when it wasn’t going straight up, it wasn’t coming down particularly hard.

So, again, allowing our our options to expire.

So if things start to turn, that may be a point where I am looking at the technicals a little more closely and saying, okay. Are we really turning? Have things changed significantly?

Is the trend over? Is, you know, is is is are we right at a level of support that I would think that maybe, the the drop is is gonna be over soon?

So that’s gonna be at the point where I really start to look at the technicals, but I’m not about to say, well, the market is overvalued or or the stock is or the option, sorry, the index is getting a bit extended here because that certainly happened many, many times in the back test and and everything, you know, worked really, really well sticking with the strategy. So, you know, one of the things about when you design systems and and you learn about systems, trading systems, designing them, is if it’s working, you stick with it. You know, you don’t try to outthink it. You don’t try to mess with it too much.

If it stops working, obviously, you need to make some adjustments. But while it’s working, you don’t start to say, what? I think I can do that even better unless you’ve you’ve tested it. Obviously, nothing wrong with going out and testing things.

But, I’m not trying to get in the way of what’s working right now. So I’ll be looking at those things more closely as things start to change, if the markets start to to fall. That’ll be when I’m I’m looking a little more closely. But for right now, you know, I’m not trying to pick a top in the market.

You know, we we could have gotten blown up so many times over the past year, even two years, not even in the service and other things just saying, well, the market looks extended. I’m gonna start selling short. I’m gonna get out. You would have missed huge runs up run up.

So, I’m I’m not trying to pick a top. Nobody can. I certainly can’t. Nobody’s ever done it twice.

So, I’m not trying to play that game.

Okay. Let’s get to one last question.

This is my fourth trade. My first trade was done three weeks ago. How do I find out how much money I made from that first trade?

So if you go to your, your brokerage account, you should see all your positions. It should tell you exactly how much each position is up or down. If you happen to remember, what you sold that first position for, it’s going to expire worthless today unless the markets crash, this afternoon. Assuming that doesn’t happen, whatever you sold it for, that will be what you made. So our trade four weeks ago, that’s expiring today.

We sold for a dollar ninety. That’s our official entry price. You you you might have gotten a little bit better or worse, but the official entry price is a dollar ninety, so a hundred ninety dollars. So, assuming that that expires worthless, that’s how much you made. But you can always, you know, go to your your brokerage account, look at at your positions, and it should tell you exactly how much what should should show you what your cost basis was and how much you’re up or down on any trade.

So with that said, we’re, we’re actually past ten thirty, so I’m gonna wrap it up here. Remember, Anthony will be with you, driving this bus next week.

And remember, if the market start falling, you know, keep an eye on your inbox, on Thursday because or or could even be sooner if the market’s really started to tank, but which I’m not expecting. But, Thursday afternoon, remember, is the last time to trade the September nineteenth options that we have. So, so we will let you know, if you need to take any action by September nineteenth. We would not do that on Friday. But Friday will be the regular broadcast getting into a new trade and hopefully, celebrating another winner. So with that said, have a great weekend, everyone, and, I hope you we continue to make money. Let’s go get it.