Weekly Income Alert – March 27, 2026

Welcome everyone to Weekly Income Alert. I’m Marc Lichtenfeld. So great to see so many people, including quite a few new people. So if you’ve recently joined Weekly Income Alert, really excited to have you here.

And it’s always great to see who we have on the broadcast. We’re getting close to one thousand people already. I see Joe, who says he’s from planet Earth, which, you know, with the SpaceX IPO coming up, that might not be a given in the near future. So, welcome, Joe.

SMTraderOne in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. We’ve got Cake in Russian River Valley, California. It’s an absolutely beautiful spot. I love that area.

So, so good to see so many of you today. And it was great to see quite a few of you at our InvestmentU conference in Las Vegas. We all just got back. We got back last night from it.

And very, very nice to hear all the kind things you were saying about Weekly Income Alert, how much you’re enjoying it. So, really, really appreciate it and glad that it is not only working for you, but you are having fun with it. You know, it’s always great to make money no matter what trading system you’re using, but to hear how much people are actually enjoying this is really, really makes me feel great about what we’re doing here. So, thank you for saying all those nice things.

So, let’s talk about what’s going on. You know, there were a few people in the chat a little bit earlier saying that they’ve had a few losses and that they’re not off to a great start, and so I did want to address that just very, very briefly because we did take a win. The trade that was expiring today, I closed it out on Wednesday. And the reason I did that was, as I explained in the alert, yesterday I was going to be on a plane all day and so I was not going be able to watch the market.

And I felt that there was a reasonable chance of headline risk, meaning that if the president said something either direction, whether the peace process is moving along or it’s not moving along at all and we’re going to continue to bomb them, whatever direction, you know, the market has been moving on those comments and sometimes fairly significantly. And we had a really nice win at that point. And so I was like, if I can’t watch the market because I’ll be on a plane and it was a good thing because the Wi Fi on the plane was terrible yesterday. So, were periods where I couldn’t even get online.

So, was one of the things I was concerned about or just it’s slow and I can’t get an alert out. So, you know, basically flying blind for the trading session before expiration. I didn’t want to do that, especially when we had a nice win that we could just take at that point. So that’s why I closed it out on Wednesday.

Prior to that, we did have two losses in a row when the markets moved strongly. And remember, in this service, we’re generally putting our strike prices about three percent away from the current price. So if we get a big move in either direction, that could result in a loss or will result in a loss, and that’s what happened. But prior to that, we haven’t had a loss since we closed out a position on January second.

And overall, since we started in May, I’m looking at our official track record right now, we’ve had forty three trades, thirty six have been winners. The average return on each position has been twelve percent. So remember, that’s twelve percent per every three weeks because these trades are lasting three weeks. So we’re making on average twelve percent every three weeks versus the S and P five hundred average of zero point nine percent.

So, are killing it, absolutely killing it. And I’ll show you as when we load up the trade, I want to point out just my personal account and what the returns have been because they’re really pretty significant. So had you been with us since the beginning, you’re killing it. And if you joined us three weeks ago, yeah, then you’ve got two losses versus one win.

But I’m very confident that that’s not going to be an issue going forward. Since May, the forty three trades that we’ve made that have been closed, we still have a couple of open ones, the forty three closed positions, we have an eighty four percent win rate. And again, with a twelve percent total return every three weeks. So really, really great numbers.

I’m very, very happy with the performance. There’s going be losses, no doubt about it. You know, we’re not going to be one hundred percent win rate, but in our back test, the track record was eighty six percent. Right now in real life, we’re at eighty four percent.

So, things are real, real strong. So, really, really happy with the performance. If you are brand new, what how this is going to work is I am going to show the trade. I’ll actually be doing it in my account and I will load it up for you, show you exactly how to do it.

And then I’ll send out the order, you place the trade, and then I’ll place the trade in real time. And we’ll talk about the market, answer questions, things like that. So real quick about the market, do want to mention, it’s, you know, there’s a lot of really bad sentiment out there, really negative. And, you know, looking at, let’s say the charts, you know, the S and P five hundred was right around six thousand five hundred, which is kind of as I’ve been saying my line in the sand, it’s down again this morning.

So, it’s breaking a very, very important support level. And I have said, I said it in my technical pattern profits alerts for a few weeks now, if it breaks six thousand five hundred, I am concerned that it will eventually go to six thousand two and maybe even six thousand one hundred in the near to intermediate term. The NASDAQ has broken key support at twenty two thousand. Now it’s down, getting close to twenty one thousand.

So it’s not looking great out there in the near term and intermediate term. That being said, sentiment is getting very, very negative. And when sentiment gets to extreme levels, that is often the point where markets reverse. So when everybody is very, very content, very, very bullish, that is often getting close to a top and vice versa.

When sentiment is extremely negative, everyone’s bearish, that’s very often where things bottom out. So I’m not ready to call a bottom yet, but I feel like we are getting somewhat close. So as a result of that, I’m not ready to put on the bull put spread only again. I think we still need to stick with an iron condor because there could be some more downside to the market.

So I like having the extra credit that we’re going to get for selling the the call spread above the market right now. That gives us a little bit more of a credit, a little bit more of a buffer in case the market does fall hard against us. And if there is going to be a loss, it’ll be a much smaller loss because of the call spread. So that’s what we’re going do again today.

We’re to do another iron condor. Now, you’re brand new to Weekly Income Alert, we started for a very long time and the markets were strong. We sold what are called put credit spreads, bull put credit spreads. So we were bullish on the market.

So basically we were selling puts against the Russell two thousand and then buying a put underneath it as insurance. So in case the market really fell hard, we wouldn’t take a big loss.

There would be a loss, but it wouldn’t be a big one. Now, because markets have been falling, we’re also selling a call spread along with the put spread and that’s what’s called an iron condor.

So you have the market here, let’s say in the middle, you’re selling the put spread down below it and then a call spread on top of it. And so when the market moves, as long as it doesn’t go above our call strikes or below our put strikes, we make money. We make all the money actually. If it goes above our call strikes or below the put strikes, that’s when we get into a potential loss situation. But the fact that we have two trades on gives us even more money. So when it’s a win, it’s a big win. I mean, some of these wins are now one hundred percent based on our risk.

And so for example, if we sell an iron condor for six dollars or six hundred dollars that means our maximum risk is four hundred dollars And so if we collect the full six hundred dollars that means our total return is one hundred and fifty percent because we’re risking four hundred and making six hundred. And we’ve done that kind of a trade quite a few times. So that’s kind of how that works. For those of you who are new, I know you’re to have lots of questions, but let me get right into, let me answer this one right off the bat. The maximum loss is one thousand dollars per contract minus the credit that you receive. So if we receive a six dollars credit today, and I’m not sure, haven’t even checked the prices yet, but if we receive a six dollars credit, the maximum loss would be four hundred dollars because one thousand dollars minus six hundred dollars would be four hundred dollars If you’re selling two contracts, then you would double that.

So that’s how that works. So let’s get into it. I’m going to share my screen.

Actually, let me make sure my Schwab account is up.

Oh, you know what I want to do real quick?

Let me back that up for a second.

Before I share it, I just want to show one thing because I was going to talk about the total return on my account. Now, my account is going to be slightly different than the official track record because there have been a couple of weeks where I wasn’t here and Anthony put on the trade and in those weeks I did not place the trade. I’ve only been placing the trade when I was the one doing it here live. So I think there have been three weeks, maybe four, where that’s been the case. So let me share my screen.

Okay, so you can see we’ve got total cash and cash investments fourteen thousand one hundred and thirty three dollars This was funded with a ten thousand dollars starting amount. So, the account is up forty one percent. But if you think about it, I’ve only been trading one contract each week.

So, if you think about it, you really only need four thousand dollars in the account.

And and I’ve only been putting four thousand dollars a week.

Sure, so I’ve just been told that we’re having a problem with the screen share, so let me try that again.

Alright, is that working any better?

All right, that’s not good.

All right, my producer is talking to me and Did it actually work? You got it?

All right, thank you Miles.

I really appreciate Miles Neider, our fearless producer. So, as I was saying, you can see here fourteen thousand one hundred and thirty three dollars is what’s in the account right now. That’s cash and positions. And you really only need four thousand dollars in the account if you’re trading one contract every week. And the reason is you need one thousand dollars per week, but on Fridays, we’re usually putting one thousand dollars to work in the morning and then in the afternoon a contract is expiring.

Not always. And today is going be a little bit different.

But generally speaking, you need four thousand dollars in the account if you want to be trading one contract every single Friday morning. So, if you assume, you know, if you look at it that way, if I’d only funded four thousand dollars in the account, then I’m up over one hundred percent. And this is since May. So again, this is working really, really well.

All right, so let me get this going to place the trade. So, if these are brand new, we’re always trading the Russell two thousand Index, And the reason we’re trading the index rather than an ETF or a stock, there’s several benefits. One, an index is cash settled, meaning you cannot be assigned. If we were trading an ETF, you could be assigned the ETF if the trade goes against you, meaning you would have to buy the ETF.

So, if IWM is trading at two forty four dollars IWM is the ETF for the Russell two thousand. If you got assigned a hundred shares, that’s going to be twenty four thousand dollars That cannot happen with an index. The only thing that happens with an index, if the trade goes against you at expiration, they just settle up. So if the most that we can lose is one thousand dollars on a trade, then at expiration, dollars one thousand comes out of your account.

Now remember, you’ll have already collected a credit. So if you collected, let’s say, five hundred, then one thousand comes out of your account, but you’ve already collected five hundred. So you’d only be down five hundred. The other reason that we trade the index is because an index option cannot be assigned or exercised early, whereas an ETF and a stock can.

If an ETF or stock option goes against you, let’s say you’re selling a put on IWM, which is the Russell ETF, at any time that could be assigned to you.

That cannot happen with options, with index options. Only at expiration is the only time it can be assigned. So, you know, you’re never going to get a surprise message from your broker saying money is coming out of your account. You know exactly when the trade is over, exactly what the risk is, and it’s a real nice benefit for trading options. So that’s why we stick with the index versus let’s say an ETF or any stock right now. So what we’re going to do, we are going to trade the Russell, which on Schwab is dollar sign R U T.

On some other platforms, other brokers. There could be a slightly different symbol, but we’re going to select dollar sign R U T. And if you are with a different broker and you can’t find the Russell two thousand Index, just put it in the chat platform you’re on, which broker, and somebody will definitely help you with that ticker symbol. So you can see dollar sign, R U T, and this says, the strategy says call.

We’re going to change that to an iron condor. So you can see that here under four leg spreads. And when you do that, it automatically starts loading up the trades here. Now, it’s not necessarily the correct trade, okay?

But it kind of loads up some defaults.

Now, if you’re brand new, this might be a little confusing, but I’m going try to make it very simple.

And then for those of you who’ve been with me for a while, you know that we’ve got the April seventeenth expiration, which is the third Friday. So there’s a choice we have to make. So for those of you who are new, when we’re trading these options, they typically expire on Friday afternoon, okay? Every Friday, we place a trade. It’s generally going to be three weeks out and it expires on Friday afternoons.

The third Friday of the month has kind of a weird little, I don’t know, hiccup to it, in that we have a choice between the options that expire in the afternoon or in the morning.

And then they expire in the morning, the last time to trade it is Thursday afternoon. So, you wanted to get out, you’d have to get out by Thursday afternoon because it will settle based on the Friday open, But you don’t have that opportunity on Friday morning if it’s expiring in the morning, which again is only on the third Friday. But you do have a choice. We can choose the AM or PM options.

We typically choose the AM options because they have much more liquidity. There’s a lot more volume, a lot more open interest. So that’s typically what we do, and that is what we’re going to do today. We’re going to choose the AM option.

So remember, April seventeenth is the expiration, but the last chance to trade it is April sixteenth at the close.

So really, really important. So for those of you who, when you are placing the trade, it may say you have a choice between AM or PM, it’s going to be AM. If it’s RUT versus RUTW, it’s RUT, okay? It’s not going to be the RUTW.

So we’ve got April seventeenth, came in as the default. That’s correct. So let me see where the market is right now, and we’ll figure out where we are placing these trades. I think it’s going be where I expected it to be.

Actually, I’m going to bring it down a little bit, slightly lower.

And let’s see.

Sorry, I just got to do a little math here.

Okay, so what we’re going to do, we are going to buy to open the 23.90s

puts, and we’re going to sell to I’m sorry, two thousand three hundred and eighty puts, and we’re going to sell to open the 2390s.

So what this means is if the Russell two thousand drops below two thousand three hundred and ninety, then we have a potential loss.

But twenty three, if it drops, let’s say the Russell crashes, it goes to two thousand, it goes to one thousand, it goes to zero, it doesn’t matter how low below two thousand three and eighty. This two thousand three hundred eighty is our insurance policy right there. So below two thousand three hundred and ninety, we potentially take a loss, but two thousand three hundred and eighty is our insurance so that that loss can’t be too large.

The max it will be will be one thousand dollars minus our credit. Now on the call side, we’re going to sell to open the twenty five fifties and buy the twenty five sixties.

Okay, so right now that credit is six ninety. So that means if we are able to sell it at six point nine zero dollars we’re going get six ninety dollars per contract right in our account.

At six ninety dollars if that’s the price we get, then that means our maximum loss is three ten dollars because one thousand minuteus six ninety is three ten. So it’s a really, really nice price. What it means though is if, so let’s say, you know, let me make the numbers really simple. Let’s say we get seven, just to make this example easy.

Below twenty three point nine zero and the trade starts to become a loser, except we’ve already collected seven dollars So our breakeven to the downside would be two thousand three and eighty three dollars because at two thousand three hundred and eighty three dollars one thousand comes out of our account, but we’ve collected, I’m sorry, no, no, no. I misspoke. At two thousand three and eighty three dollars seven hundred comes out of our account, but we’ve collected seven hundred dollars The reason seven hundred dollars would come out of our account is because the two thousand three hundred and ninety put would now be in the money. Okay, this trade is a loser. At two thousand three and eighty three, we owe seven hundred dollars to the buyer of the put.

This put, the two thousand three and eighty put expires worthless because the price is higher than two thousand three and eighty. So that expires worthless, but we’ve collected seven hundred dollars So that’s our breakeven on the downside.

On the upside, if the market rallies, our breakeven is twenty five point five seven for the same reason. We’re selling the twenty five point five zero. So at twenty five point five seven, we owe the buyer of the call seven hundred dollars the two thousand five hundred and sixty call expires worthless because it’s above the price at two thousand five hundred and fifty seven. But again, we’ve collected seven hundred dollars So we’ll owe seven hundred dollars but we’ve collected seven hundred dollars Now, if it goes below two thousand three and eighty or above two thousand five hundred and sixty, then we have what would be the maximum loss, which would be one thousand dollars minus the credit, which is seven hundred dollars So that would be three hundred dollars So why is the maximum loss one thousand dollars Because the difference in the strike prices are ten points and options are priced in one hundred unit increments.

So essentially we’re owning one hundred or we’re trading options on one hundred units of the Russell two thousand. So if you were trading two contracts at ten point strikes, then it would be two thousand dollars minus your net credit. If we changed the strike price to five point increments, then the maximum loss would be five hundred dollars minus the credit, but your credit would be smaller. If you change this to twenty points, then the maximum loss would be two thousand dollars minus the net credit, but the net credit would be higher.

But we’re typically sticking with ten point differences in the strike prices, and that means our maximum loss is one thousand dollars per contract minus whatever we receive for the credit.

So we’ve got, and oh, this is really important. How do you know what price to choose?

When you load up a trade like this, you’ll see the bid price right here is five point seven zero dollars The ask price is eight dollars So if you were going to trade it at the market and you were selling it, you would sell it for five sixty.

But we never, never, never, never do that. Never, never, never. I want to make that very clear. We never sell these at the market. If you were buying it at the market, you’d be buying it at eight twenty. That’s a very big spread.

What’s really, really important when we trade these spreads or iron condors is that we place the trade somewhere around the midpoint and your broker shows you what that midpoint is. And if it doesn’t, you can grab a calculator and figure it out really quickly.

Just, you know, what’s the midpoint between five seventy and eight twenty. So we’re going to place that trade near the midpoint.

I typically, when I make the official trade, I will typically put the limit price a little bit below the midpoint just to increase the chances of getting filled. You may choose to do it right at the midpoint. You may try to do it five or ten cents above the midpoint, see if you can get a little bit of extra money. If the trade doesn’t get filled, you can always bring the price down a little bit, you know, zero five, dollars one zero, what have you. But if it’s at six point nine zero, I’ll probably put the limit price at six point eight five dollars again, just to increase the chance of me getting filled because the official track record is based on my official entry. So I want to make sure we all get filled.

Really, really important to keep in mind when you’re placing these trades, especially with the iron condors, because these are four legs of the trade, it can sometimes take a little while to get filled.

Sometimes it can even take a few hours. If we’re not getting filled by the middle of the day, I may put out another alert saying, okay, lower your entry price, your limit price. But give it some time.

Don’t get freaked out if we don’t get filled because it’s a little bit complicated on the part of the market makers and they have to kind of match up all these different trades to make it work at your price point, you know, at that midpoint.

When we’re just doing a put credit spread or just doing a call credit spread, there’s only two trades that have to be lined up. So it doesn’t always happen immediately. Don’t get worried. If it doesn’t, if we haven’t gotten filled, you know, by the afternoon, then I may put out an alert, but we should get filled.

It hasn’t really been too big of a problem. So right now it’s been hanging around six ninety, six ninety five. I’m going to put it at six eighty five just to increase the chances of getting filled. You can go ahead and place that trade.

I’m going to send out the order. And I always if you’re new, again, I always send out the order first so that you guys have the chance of getting filled before I do. So we are selling the two thousand three and ninety put.

We are buying the two thousand three hundred eighty put. And if you do get filled, let us know in the chat. We always like to see kind of how people are, you know, if they’re getting filled right away. It’s good for us to know and let us know if you’re, you know, if you wouldn’t mind what price you’re getting filled at.

Also, should be pretty, it should be, you know, if you’re following me, it should be clear, but you’re selling to open and buying to open since we are opening these trades. If we close them out early, then we will be buying to close and selling to close. But right now this is a new trade, so we are opening the trade. So it’s buy to open and sell to open.

All right, so we are selling to open the 25.50s And buying the 2560s.

Alright, let me just double check this.

Sell to open the. April seventeenth.

Twenty three point nine zero puts, buy to open the twenty three point eight zero puts, sell to open the twenty five point five zero calls, sell to open twenty three point six zero.

I’m going to put my limit price at six point eight five. All right, I am submitting that.

There we go, the trade is officially submitted.

I am going to place the trade myself now.

All right.

I did not hear the little ding on my computer, so I don’t believe I got filled right away. If you want to check your trade status, you go to trade.

Let me see. Order status.

Yep, so my trade is still open. So like I said, it can sometimes take a little while for these trades to get done, but we’re not going get too worried. Mean, if the market starts moving hard in one direction or the other and we have to change some things, then we will. But generally, like I said, with these iron condors, can take a little while.

If you’re new, I do want to keep in mind, I want you to keep in mind these iron condors, we’re getting larger credits than if we’re just trading a put credit spread or a call credit spread. And the reason is because we’re selling two credit spreads instead of one. So like when we first started, we were only generating credits of about two to fifty a week because we’re very bullish, market was really strong. So we were selling put credit spreads.

And because it was a bull market, volatility was low. So, the more volatility, the higher the options price. So we had low volatility and we were only selling one side of the one credit spread. So we were getting about two, two fifty.

It was working great. I mean, week after week we were generating, you know, a couple of hundred dollars, but the numbers weren’t that large because volatility has increased, because the market hasn’t been going straight up. We’ve added this iron condor. So the volatility is higher, the credit spreads are worth more.

And we’re adding the second leg of the trade. So our credits are much, much higher.

If we get to a point where we’re back in a bull market or I believe we’re clearly in a bear market and trending lower, I most likely will not continue to do iron condors. I’ll go back to the credit spreads, you know, just a bull credit or a bear credit. So those numbers will be lower. But for right now, where we’re doing both sides of the trade, the numbers are great. So we’re seeing people getting filled at six eighty five, six ninety.

Sally W says think or Swim doesn’t get it. I’m not sure what you mean by doesn’t get it. You can trade iron condors on Think or Swim. I know that for sure. If you can’t figure out why they have a good technical support team, definitely ask them the way to do that because you can definitely trade iron condors. Actually, let me I can’t share my screen with Thinkorswim because I have not been able to blur out my account number.

With the web platform, I can, but if I on Thinkorswim, you would see all of my information, which I would prefer not to do.

So, I’m just looking real quick if I can see on thinkorswim.

Okay, so on thinkorswim, if you go to one of the strikes and you right click on sell, a menu will come up and it will say, lot of things, single vertical back ratio, and towards the bottom, it says iron condor, and then it will load up some default and you’ll have to change those. But that’s the way to do it on Thinkorswim. So right click on one of the strike prices that you want to trade and then you’ll sell. And then you’ll see a menu that says iron condors.

All right, let’s get to some questions.

Six eighty five filled right away. Started at seven All right.

Yeah, I still have not gotten filled yet. Let me check.

Nope, I’m still open, but that happens sometimes.

Let’s talk about real quick, we’ve got some of the other trades that are open. So we have the March thirty first trade. Remember, Friday is Good Friday. The markets are closed.

That’s why we put the trade on to the March thirty first expiration. Right now, that’s looking pretty solid. Let refresh my browser. No, all right, that didn’t work.

Sorry, I just have to it just logged me out. I just wanted to see where we’re trading.

All right. So yeah, right now the March thirty first trade is looking really, really strong.

We’ve got the twenty three point seven zero, twenty three point six zero put spread on with the twenty six point two zero, twenty six point three zero calls. So market’s trading at twenty four point six six. We’re about one hundred points away on the put side, so looking really solid. We’re going to leave that on for now. If something needs to change between now and Tuesday, then I’ll let you know, But for right now, we’re just going to let it expire on Tuesday and hopefully we’ll keep the full four point six five dollars credit or four sixty five dollars Then we have the Russell, April tenth, Condor also, and those are very similar strikes to the March thirty first. We’ve got the twenty three point eight zero, twenty three point seven zero puts and the twenty five point four zero, twenty five point three zero calls. So the call spread is a little bit closer.

But again, that one’s looking really strong right now. So we’re going to let that one go for now. If you’re new here, typically I don’t close out a trade early unless it’s the final week of expiration. I want to let these things go.

I want them to deteriorate because even if it’s against us, remember, we know what our maximum loss is. So for example, the trade that we have today where we have the two thousand three and ninety, two thousand three hundred eighty puts, let’s say the market goes against us hard, the market crashes next week and the Russell is at two thousand two hundred. So very, very far away. Our puts are very in the money.

We have a maximum loss situation.

There’s no benefit to closing out early because you’re already in a maximum loss situation. So, at that point, we might as well wait and see if it can come back. Now, if it’s getting close to a maximum loss situation, we can cut a loss short.

That’s a little bit different. But generally speaking, I’m going to let these positions go at least until the final week because what’s happening is because we’ve sold a credit spread, we want to let time work for us. As time goes on, the positions decay in value, which is good for us. We want them to go to zero.

Not the Russell, but we want the options to go to zero, the credit spread to go to zero because then we keep all the money. Remember, we’re selling something first. We’re not buying it. We’re selling it.

And then so we want it to go to zero. So if the market tanks, we’re going to let it, generally speaking, go till that final week. And then if it makes sense to close it out early, either to take a smaller loss or to lock in a win like we did this week when I closed it out on Wednesday, then we’ll do that. But generally speaking, and even if the market is really hard against us, there’s no reason to close it out early because if you’re in a maximum loss situation, it can’t get worse.

We know exactly what our loss is going to be. If we get filled at six eighty five, our maximum loss is going to be three point one five dollars or three fifteen dollars Doesn’t matter if the Russell is at twenty five, I’m sorry, twenty three point eight zero or if it’s at zero, that’s the maximum loss. So there’s usually no benefit to closing it out early if the market has gone against you really, really hard.

All right, my position is still open.

So Larry Law says, this is a good point. When you have us close out early like we did Wednesday, please add the net debit so we don’t make the mistake of doing a net credit like we do on the trade today. That’s an excellent point, Larry. I will make sure to do that in the future. And I guess one of the reasons I wasn’t even thinking about that, I didn’t put a limit price because I didn’t want people to be locked in to a very specific number. I believe what I said was get out as close to the mid price as you can.

But I wasn’t thinking that I should make sure that everyone knows it’s a net debit. So thank you for that suggestion. I will make sure to include that.

RMB says, I didn’t close the trade that expires today.

Is it too late to close now?

No, it’s not too late. I’m not sure where, you know, where the market is, you know, what it’s trading at.

And actually, I would have to look and see what the strike prices were.

One of the things I talked about at InvestmentU is once I’m out of a trade, I don’t even look back at it.

I don’t think about it anymore. So I have to look and see what the strike prices were here on today’s expiration.

The way it’s written here in our official no, that’s the wrong thing, Okay. The way it’s written in our official track record is a little confusing. So we had the twenty do we have?

Twenty four point four zero puts and the twenty four point three zero puts, and we are trading at twenty four point six seven.

So if the market fell another one percent or a little bit more, you could be in a losing position. So I’m not allowed to give personal advice. The way this works in this and any of our recommendations, I can’t tell you what you should do.

I can only recommend in general terms what people should do or what the official recommendation is. So if you’re concerned that the market could drop down to the put price, the put strike price that expires today, then you might want to get out. If that’s not a concern of yours, then you could let it expire and hopefully it expires worthless. Daniel, great question.

Daniel48, are we meeting next on Good Friday or Thursday? I meant to bring that up when I mentioned Good Friday. Thank you for the reminder. So the market’s closed on Good Friday.

So again, that’s why we have the March thirty first expiration date.

So because the market’s closed, we couldn’t even put on a trade. There’s nothing expiring.

So we are going to meet on Thursday. Again, if you’re new, it’s almost always Friday at ten.

Next week will be Thursday at ten. We’ll put on the new trade on Thursday. And again, we won’t have a position expiring at that point, so we won’t have to address that. We’ll certainly talk about the markets and everything.

But next Thursday at ten because of the Good Friday holiday. If the market was open and just, you know, our company was closed, I would still do it. That’s not a problem. But the market is closed on Friday.

So we will be doing this on Thursday.

Just checking again if I got filled. Still open. All right. We’ll see what happens. I know a lot of you have been filled.

Steven B. Says, Why is the call spread always bigger than the put spread in an iron condor? By bigger, do you mean higher credit or are you talking about the strike prices? Because the strike prices are generally about three percent away, but the credits, I mean, usually, especially in a down market, the puts should be worth more than the calls. If more people are buying puts and they’re nervous, volatility is higher, those puts should be higher.

**** forty seven says, are we meeting on the thirty first? No, there are no plans to meet on the thirty first.

If it expires, if it looks like it’s going to expire worthless, it’ll just expire worthless, which is what we want.

If we need to take action, I will send an alert, but there will not be a meeting on the thirty first.

Is it possible to get updates via text when there is recommendation to close a trade early?

Okay, Rachel, thank you for being on that. Yes, so for anyone who is interested in text and you’re not signed up for it, you can see Rachel’s comments. There’s a link there, so please do sign up for text. Our REES just got filled at six seventy.

Let me see, the market’s starting to move against us slightly.

Jerome B26, does that mean we do not have a trade expiring four twenty four?

Not yet. We will on next week’s trade will expire on April twenty fourth.

Let me just see one thing real quick.

Yeah, so next week will be the April twenty fourth trade.

So we generally are placing trades three weeks away from each other, and so that’s generally what we’re doing. So next week will be April twenty fourth.

All right, Yves, tried the text sign up link, said I was not authorized. What do I do? So Rachel, if you wouldn’t mind, if you’re able to answer that question.

Roberto, AKA Pez, sorry, distracted. Do we close today’s expiration trade or let it expire? So I sent out an alert on Wednesday to close the trade. If you still have the trade open, I’m not allowed to give personal advice, so that is up to you. Right now, the market is about thirty points, a little over one percent away from the strike price. So that’s up to you whether you want to try to let it go and let it expire worthless, or if you want to close it out early.

Let’s see.

Mark said, Fill, think, or swim on paper trade at seven point two zero dollars Yeah, it’s funny because we get these because there’s kind of so many components to the trade, there’s four legs of the trade and we’re putting in at a midpoint, sometimes people will get filled at a much higher price than even the limit price that they put in.

I’ve had people reporting even like fifty cents higher than the midpoint, which is, you know, it’s kind of luck of the draw. Never happened to me. I’m usually filled kind of right around that midpoint, but yeah, and I’m still open. So hopefully some of you are getting closed.

Cyrus says, Does it make sense to roll any losing positions to a later week or later month? I generally don’t do that.

Generally speaking, in all of my trading, if a trade is a loser and the trade is over, either because it’s expiring or because, you know, it’s time to take the loss, I just take the loss and move on.

You know, I’m not trying to save a trade.

For those of you who’ve been with me for a while, you know my personality, it’s very cut and dry. If something’s not working, get rid of it and move on. Kind of like, you know, probably like we should do with our relationships too, but that’s a little bit tougher to do. But in all seriousness, if trade’s not working, if you take a loss, I just get out and go on to the next trade.

JBLR is a good suggestion when sending out iron condor trades, why not send them out in the order they are listed on Schwab, which show the amounts from lowest to highest? Good suggestion, JBLR. I will do that in the future.

What happens is when I load up, I load up the trades ahead of time, not necessarily with the strike prices, but I get it ready so that I’m not I have less typing to do while I’m on the air, And I do it in the order that my brain works. And then I end up going on Schwab. But that’s a very good suggestion. So I will do that in the future.

Let’s see.

So Kent says, I’m not able to make the trade on Schwab, is only approved for covered positions. I can apply for spreads. I should do that in order to make these trades in the future. Yes, you should do that. You should apply. And for anyone who is not approved right away, let me make a suggestion.

If you do not get approved right away, what they’ll generally tell you is paper trade for six months and reapply. And you can do that. And I actually spoke to somebody at InvestmentU who did exactly that and said it was great because they really got a sense of how this worked. I mean, were pretty diligent and paper traded it pretty much every week and really got a sense. So they’re really comfortable by the time they placed a real order. That being said, if you’re anxious to get going, you don’t get approved, here’s a hack. It works sometimes.

I can’t guarantee it’s going to work, but watch all of our videos about trading options and especially about trading these credit spreads.

You know, watch these broadcasts, do a few paper trades, and then reach back out to them and say, listen, I know what I’m talking about. I know what the risks are and ask me some questions so I can prove to you that I can do this and I know what I’m doing. And occasionally, that will work. Basically, all the broker is trying to do is make sure that are not, that they are not approving you for a strategy that you don’t understand and that if you lose money, you’re going to go sue them and say, How could you approve me?

I didn’t know what I was doing. That’s what they’re trying to avoid. So if you can prove to them that you understand what you’re doing, you understand the risks, then there’s a better chance that they’ll approve you. So that’s a good way.

But make sure you do understand this. You understand what your maximum risks are and how this all works. So watch the videos, you know, educate yourself. And if you don’t get approved, go back to them and say, hey, you know, test me.

I can do this. I know what I’m talking about. That does sometimes work.

Chris62, excellent point. And point out that you only want to do index options and you know the defined risk. That’s what got me through. That’s a great, great point.

Because again, index options, you’re not going get assigned early. You’re not going to suddenly get a twenty five thousand dollars exercise. The most you can be exercised is one thousand dollars per contract. So that’s a great point. Thank you for sharing that.

Stephen B. Says, at some point, can you briefly run through handling iron condors and thinkorswim? Yeah, I will do that. I just have not been able to find a tool that will hide my accounts on thinkorswim.

Like I said, on just on the website of Schwab, I can blur out the personal and some of the personal information. I have not been able to do that on the platform of Thinkorswim. But again, to do to trade an iron condor on Thinkorswim, go to one of the strike prices in the trade tab, right click, click on sell, and then it’ll give you all the different ways you can trade. And iron condor is one of those.

And it will automatically populate just kind of like I showed you on the web. And then you just obviously change those variables, the strike price or what have you. But yeah, like so if you went to RUT and then April seventeenth strike price, April seventeenth expiration date and right clicked on the strike that you’re interested in, sell and then iron condor, and it will automatically set up a credit, and then you just choose the strikes you want.

Ken Hurst says on Fidelity, you can choose the custom order option instead of iron condor, so it doesn’t matter in what order they are entered.

Great.

Austin Texan says I’m selling puts ten points lower than recommended and calls ten points higher to be on the safe side. Filled at six fifty one, seems like I’m always needing to roll strikes, so preemptively rolling a strike by expanding my range for a smaller credit. Does anyone else do this?

I would assume, I know some people, I’ve seen some people say, yeah, do five percent instead of three percent just to give myself a wider berth. So it’s really up to, you know, it’s your comfort level, your tolerance for risk. So if you’re willing to accept a smaller credit in order to lessen the chances of a loss, then absolutely go for it. That’s, you know, everybody has different tolerance for risk.

The more risk you take, the higher the credit. So if you made instead of three percent, you made a two percent, you know, whiff between the strike and the current price, then the credit would be even higher. You’re getting paid more, but you’re taking on more risks. So if you decrease your risk, then you’ll get paid a little bit less.

But it’s all about your comfort level.

You know, I give my official recommendations and the recommendations are based on the back test and what worked historically and has been continuing to work, but you have to do what’s right for you.

So if you want to lower the risk, then yeah, then you can make the strikes a little bit further away and that will help you.

You know, if it helps you sleep better at night, then absolutely go for it.

A couple of people saying five percent, four percent. And, you know, and in truth with right now, with markets being volatile, you know, we are getting higher prices. So if you are expanding it to a four or five percent with, you know, you’re still getting paid pretty well. Again, it’s going to be a lower credit than a three percent. But, you know, compared to where we were, let’s say, six months ago when volatility was so low and we were making, you know, dollars two twenty, dollars two fifty per credit, you know, I can totally understand why if you can get six fifty or even six, but lower your risk, then for sure, I understand why.

Walter wants us, how do you figure the math for the strike? So generally speaking, I am looking at three percent away from the strike price. If the strike three percent away from the current price. So if the Russell is at, let’s say, twenty four point seven zero, I would say twenty four point seven zero times zero point nine seven because that’s ninety seven percent of twenty four point seven zero.

So that would be, you know, three percent away. That would be twenty three point nine five. Now, generally speaking, I go with the strike prices that have zero numbers, not the fives, because there’s more volatility. There’s more open interest.

There’s more volume in those. You know, I want to try to have options that we’re more likely to get filled. So I will do it that way. Usually, not always, but usually the strike price will be in a zero.

And generally speaking, like if that was, you know, twenty three point nine five, I’ll usually, not always, but usually make it, you know, that five points further away.

So if it’s twenty three point nine five on a put, I’ll make it twenty three point nine zero. If it’s twenty five point six five on a call, I’ll make it twenty five point seven zero.

You know, just to give us that little bit of extra room there. But that’s generally how I’m doing it. I will also look at volume and open interest. So if, let’s say, the twenty three point nine zero put, and especially on the weeklies, but if there’s just no open interest, then I’ll adjust the price or adjust the strike price to an option that does have some open interest and liquidity so we have a better chance of getting filled. So I’ve still not gotten filled yet.

This would not be the first time that, you know, we’ll have signed off and I won’t have gotten filled. Like I said, sometimes it actually will take a few hours, but I’m not too worried and I will send out an alert.

And Heil said, finally filled at six eighty five.

Let’s see.

Powell B, great question. Does the strike price zero point nine seven get you the sell to open or buy to open? I will usually that will usually be my sell to open price, and then the buy to open will be ten points further away.

Yeah, Brian, twenty two. So yeah, zero point nine seven to the put strike, one point zero three to the call strike. That’s exactly how I do it. All right, some people are starting to get filled at six point eight five.

Patrick Pellstring, can you direct me to your training videos?

Rachel, if you’re able to, would you be able to put a link?

If you’re not, if you go to, let me see if I can find it real quick on the website. So when you go to oxfordclub dot com, My Trading Services, Weekly Income Alert, and then it will say Video Series Reports, You can click on one of those.

People are getting filled at six eighty five.

Donna MM says, When we close early in Iron Condor, why do we not let the call expire versus closing it? That is a great question. And sometimes we do. If the market has really moved away from the call side and there’s plenty of room, then sometimes we will do that.

We’ll just let the iron condor expire worthless because or I’m sorry, the call side expire worthless, especially if, you know, if it’s not worth very much and it’s going to cost us an extra dollar or two in commissions, then we’ll absolutely do that.

If there’s any reason that I’m a little concerned, like on Wednesday when I did close early, I was concerned, like I said, about headline risk and that suddenly President Trump says, we’re close to a deal with Iran or what have you and markets take off. And like I said, I was going be on a plane and wouldn’t be able to monitor the situation closely. So that’s why I closed both sides of it. But yes, sometimes the call side is going to be so in our favor that it’s worth taking a chance, you know, over the next day or so.

And because we can always close it if then the position starts to move in that direction, we can close it. But yeah, there are going to be a lot of times, I’m sure, where I’m only closing one leg of the position. So I’ll say close the put spread only. And I do believe I did that a few weeks ago.

All right, let’s get to one last question.

So we’re getting into one I’m sorry, eleven So, I’m not sure I understand Leonard’s question. Merrill Lynch is not letting you keep the collected money for two options in the debit. So when you say keep the collected, so you have to have one thousand dollars per contract in the account in case the trade goes against you.

It’s a maximum loss to the one thousand dollars is going to come out. So the credit is going to be in your account.

You should be able to take that money out as long as you have one thousand dollars per contract in the account. That’s what they want to make sure. They want make sure that you are not taking the money out, then ends up in a max loss situation and they have to come after you for one thousand dollars They certainly don’t want to do that. So as long as you have one thousand dollars per contract, per open contract in the account, then any money that you have collected should be yours to do what you want with. You should be able to take it out, invest it in something else. If not, you know, ask them what’s going on because as long as that account is properly funded, that money should be yours to do what you want to do with it.

All right. So with that said, like I said, we are coming up on eleven o’clock. So we’ll end it here. If you do have any other questions, feel free to shoot me an email: mailbag@oxfordclub.com.

And again, Rachel, I’m asking Rachel to work hard today. Rachel, if you wouldn’t mind putting the email address up in the chat so that we could, so people can see that. If you send me an email, just make sure you put weekly income alert in the subject line. That way it’ll be sure to get to me.

And I do see all the emails. If it’s a question about your account that I don’t see, but if it’s a question about kind of how this all works, then they do all get sent to me. I can’t respond to you personally, but I can either answer a question here or go back to customer service and customer service, you know, I’ll give my answer to customer service and they will respond to you.

So make sure you send me an email if you have a question.

And yes, Chuck M. Rachel never gets a break. She’s one of the hardest working people at the Oxford Club, she is a saint, and we wouldn’t be where we are without her. So thank you, Rachel.

Mike H, you’re very welcome. Thank you guys for being here.

Really, it’s the highlight of my week. I love engaging with you guys on this and helping to make money. And yeah, so have a great week. Again, we’ll be back on Thursday and I will let you know if we don’t get filled officially on this trade today, I’ll send out an alert later and let you know what we need to do if we need to change anything. So thanks everyone for being here. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you on Thursday this week or next week. Take care.