Weekly Income Alert – October 23, 2026

Hi, everyone, welcome to Weekly Income Alert. I’m Marc Lichtenfeld. Great to see all of you. We’ve got, S Marsh from Belton, Texas was first today.

We…

I’ll see SM Trader One in sunny Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Donna in Windy and Wet England. Great to see folks from the other side of the pond. Wondering for…

We’ve got anybody from Tampa or Milwaukee areas.

We got the World Series starting tonight. So gotta say, I am rooting for the Brewers. The Tampa Rays have become the Yankees’ nemesis lately, so I can’t root for the Rays. Sorry for all you Rays fan, but big fan of of Ms.

Pitcher for Milwaukee. He is really exciting. Throws 105 miles an hour. So I’ll be rooting for the Brewers.

No offense to my Florida peeps. Alright. Let’s talk about the markets.

I put out an alert today in Technical Pattern Profits, so if you don’t get that, just one of the things I mentioned in it that really caught my eye was that the New York Stock Exchange has now posted thirty nine days in a row of new lows being, there there being more new lows than new highs. Thirty nine days in a row. Nasdaq’s thirty eight days in a row. So that is not a positive development, and typically, the market is not strong when that occurs.

Right now, I mean, the S and P is is not doing badly at all. But having so many more new lows and new highs is definitely concerning to me. So even though, you know, we’ve got our indexes not too far off of new highs, I’m still gonna stick with the iron condors this week because I am concerned about, about that breadth. Breadth has been improving when you look at advancers versus decliners.

That’s certainly been improving. But the new lows versus new highs concerns me a bit.

So, talking about this week’s trade, the one that expires today. So we’ve got, on the on the…

We have the iron condor on the upside. We should be fine unless the market just goes berserk, this morning or this afternoon and and and rips higher. I’m not too worried about that. On the downside, so right now, Russell trading at $27.68.

Our, our top strike on the, on the puts for the iron condor is $27.30. So we’re in decent shape right now. We’re over 1% away.

So not impossible that the market starts to really slide. So I will be watching the markets today, certainly. And if we need to get out early, you know, if we…

If the market starts to fall and I’m starting to get concerned, I will send an alert. So I would not say we are completely out of the woods. We’re in good shape, but not completely out of the woods. And and we saw last week, I mean, we got we got lucky last week that our expiration was the AM expiration because we had that opening tick.

We were totally fine. And then later in the day, the market slid hard.

And it was it was after we had gone off the air here. It was, I believe, about an hour or two afterwards is when the market really started to tumble. And if we had the PM expiration, I do know that there was somebody out there, who commented that they had the PM expiration. You know, what should they do? And I, you know, all I could say was watch watch it closely.

But, had we had the PM expiration last week, it would have been a losing trade. So so the trading gods were on our side last week where that opening tick, we had the AM expiration.

It expired worthless, and we collected that really big credit, four and a quarter. But had we had that PM expiration, it would have been trouble. So good stuff last week for those of you who had the AM expiration. Sorry for those of you who did not.

But, you know, we we typically are are doing the AM expirations when the option expires on the third Friday of the month, which will be, in November November 20. So next week’s trade that we put on will be the November 20 expiration. That will be AM expiration. For, every other week, it’s always PM.

There is no choice to choose AM.

So, with that said, let’s get to work and put in the trade. So, again, I said we’re gonna do the iron condor. I’m gonna share my screen. Let me just make sure I’ve got everything set up properly.

Alright. Here we go.

Alright. So, on Schwab, we, once again choose dollar sign r u t.

And then on trade, we’re going to select iron condor. And, again, if you’re new and you have a a different broker, your ticker symbol for Schwab is going to be a little bit different. Fidelity is dot r u t. And we have we have a a list that we can provide for you if you can’t find yours, on your broker.

Again, with stocks, the ticker symbol is always the same. You wanna trade Nvidia? Nvidia is gonna be NVDA, on Schwab, on Fidelity, on every single broker. Indexes are a little bit different.

Each broker has their own way of labeling the symbol. So it’s important to know which one you…

Symbol you need. So, James, if you wouldn’t mind, just posting that link for anyone who is new and and doesn’t know what the symbol is on their broker.

Really important here. So the iron condor, remember, four legs, we wanna set it up as the iron condor. We don’t wanna do it individually. That way, when we change a variable, it will change the variable for every single leg.

We don’t end up making a mistake. To get to the weeklies, you can see here the default is November 20. We don’t want that. We want the November 13, and we can’t find that on…

Again, this is Schwab. We can’t find that when it’s just RUT. So we have to change this to RUTW, and then that gives us the option of a lot of different expiration dates. So we’re gonna choose November 13, and that changes it for all of them.

Let me just check my numbers real quick, see if anything has changed since before. And, actually, it has a little bit. So…

All right, we’re going to do that.

And Okay, so the call is going to be the same. Okay, so we are going to buy to open the November 13, $26.70 puts, and we’re gonna sell to open the $26.80 puts.

Then we’re going to sell to open the $28.50 calls and buy to open the 28 sixties.

And that gives us a nice credit of just about five because, you know, VIX has been elevated the last couple days, almost trading at 90. So really, really nice, credit here. So let’s let’s see if we can get five. We may have to change it if we can’t, but let’s see if we can get five on it. That would be fantastic.

So again, we’re buying to open the twenty six seventy, selling to open the twenty six eighty, selling to open the twenty eight fifty call, buying to open the twenty eight sixty call, credit of $5. Go ahead and place that order. I’m gonna send it out to everyone who is not on the call. Let me know if anyone is getting filled. MC said they got filled at $5 already. That’s fantastic.

I just need to change something real quick in my order here. 2680. Alright. Yeah. And let me know if you get filled. I would love to see people get filled at $5. That would be wonderful.

Alright. So I have sent the trade, so I’m gonna go ahead and place it myself.

Alright. I placed the order. It did not get filled yet. Let’s take a look.

Alright. And, you know, as you guys know, or if you’re new, you may not realize this. It it can sometimes take a little while to get filled, and especially with an iron condor where there are four legs, it can it can sometimes take even a few hours. So, you know, if the market moves, you know, strongly in one direction or another, we may have to change our price.

If we’re not getting filled, we may have to change our price. But usually I try to leave it for at least an hour or so. Maybe sometime around lunchtime on the East Coast is when I will, you know, I might start changing the order if we’re not getting filled. I do try to give it time.

Iron condors are four legs that have to be filled together. So it’s a little bit more of a complicated order to get filled. So that’s why we leave it for a little bit and see if, if in fact we can get filled. So some folks are getting filled, dollars $54,954.90.

So that, so some people are starting.

DW Keowop says Fidelity always seems to be slow to fill. I feel like that’s the case with Schwab. But, Cliffy getting it at 05:10. Fantastic.

Love to see that.

So, let’s get to your questions. Let’s see. What do we have?

Nancy B. Says, did the iron condor that expired for today make money? It has not expired yet today. It expires at the close. So if it closes anywhere above… Or if it closes at twenty seven thirty or above, that will be a maximum gain.

What was our credit? Our credit was $2.36. So our breakeven is $27.27, 0.64. So anything above 27, 27.64,

and it’s a profit. Anything at or above 27.30 on the Russell is a maximum profit of $2.36 because that was our credit.

So we do have to wait until the market closes today, that closing tick on the Russell, at 04:00.

LBS getting filled at $4.98. Jeffrey says, what is the total cost of the trade? I don’t know if, if if I’m just playing semantics here, but it’s important to point out, there is no quote, unquote cost to the trade. We are receiving a credit. So if we are filled at $5, we receive $500 per contract.

The maximum risk if you get billed at $500…

At $5, $500 is $500 because if it’s a maximum loss, a thousand dollars per contract comes out of your account, but you would have received $500 already. So the maximum loss would be $500 if you’re filled at 5 or $500 But when you say the cost, there is no cost to open the trade other than, you know, maybe a dollar or so for commissions. But get what I’m saying. The…

There is no cost. There’s a credit. Our opening trades are always credits. Remember that. If you see a debit, then you you entered something wrong.

It’s always going to be a credit because this is the weekly income alert. We are generating income every week.

Let’s see. Tony. Hola. I’m new here. My first livestream. Welcome, Tony. Hope you get filled.

Hope you make a whole bunch of money on this trade.

So Tony, so another question for Tony. I guess you must have just joined. What is the move or opening trade? If you look right above the chat window, you can see that green line…

That that green box. That is the opening trade. And if you click continue reading, you’ll get all the details. It should also be in your inbox, in your email.

And if you get texts, it should have also been texted to you. So that is the, the opening trade.

So Cal Rob says on an iron condor, isn’t the maximum loss 500%? No. I think you mean 500… Oh, yeah. $500. Correct. Maximum loss is $500 on this iron condor if we’re filled at five dollars.

Bob, Jisme still not filled? Yeah, Bob. Like I said, sometimes it could take a couple of hours. It happens all the time that… And even sometimes when we’re just doing the put spreads, which is only two legs of the spread rather than four. So be patient, and I will send an alert if we need to change the price.

If we…

If you don’t hear from me, that means we are officially filled at $5. If you are still not getting filled, let’s say, by 01:00 eastern, and I haven’t sent an alert, that probably means I have been filled. And, you know, you can feel free to to change the price a little bit if you need to in order to get filled. You know, the the weird thing about kinda the way these trade is, you know, I could get filled at five, and you might not get filled at all, and somebody else gets filled at 05:10.

And so it’s just kind of, you know, how the brokers are able to kinda cobble these trades together and get them in the market and get them filled for you. So it’s always gonna be a little bit different. But I would say if by 01:00 you haven’t heard from me, that means we are filled officially. And, and if you haven’t been, then you may consider, you know, dropping your price a little bit in order to get filled.

I wouldn’t drop it, you know, too much. If if if the market is, you know, roughly around where we are and you haven’t gotten filled at five, I wouldn’t necessarily drop it to, you know, $4.50. I mean, look to see where the midpoint is and try to place that trade around the midpoint. Obviously, if the midpoint’s at four fifty, then yeah, then you may have to bring it down to four fifty.

But what I’m saying is if you see the midpoint is that…

Let’s say the midpoint has dipped to $4.90, don’t place that trade at $4.50. You know, try to get somewhere close to that midpoint.

Profit Hunter, why can’t you just post that you are filled? I guess I I could do that too. That’s not a problem. So I’ll I’ll go ahead and do that. That’s a great suggestion, Profit Hunter. Thanks for the suggestion. If I get filled, you know, after we’re off the air, I’ll send an alert saying, hey, we’re officially filled.

Mike Burns says, 10 wide spread is a thousand dollar loss per contract with complete loss.

10x times 100 equals 1,000. Yes. But remember, you’ve already received a credit when you opened the trade. So your maximum loss is $1,000 minus your credit.

So if we got filled at $5 $500 your maximum loss is $500 because $1,000 minus $500 is $500 If our fill was at $4 then your maximum loss would be $600 because $1,000 minus 4 So remember, that maximum loss is always gonna be a thousand dollars per contract minus the credit that you’ve already received. The thousand dollars will still come out of your account, but that’s after the money has already hit your account when you opened it. So again, let’s say we get filled at $500 today. $500 hits your account today.

In three weeks, if the trade’s a complete loss, a thousand dollars comes out of your account. But the net is a loss of $500 because, again, that $500 has already hit your account.

So Tony says, what is an iron condor? Please explain. Absolutely. So the iron condor… So typically, when the market is is in a bullish phase, and and for most of weekly income alerts existence, we have been trading bull put spreads because the market was in a bull market. So a bull put spread is when we are selling puts that are below the market price.

And the idea is that we are getting a credit to essentially act as insurance for somebody who’s concerned that the Russell might fall. So they’re paying us to… Because we sold a put. So they’re paying us for that insurance, and then we buy a put below that level in order to insure ourselves so that if the market really falls hard, we’re not gonna take a big loss.

That’s the the put spread. An iron condor is when we have the put spread, but then we add a bear call spread on top of that, meaning that we are selling a call, in our case, usually about 3% higher. So if somebody is betting on the market going higher, they’re buying a call. We’re selling that call from them.

We’re saying we don’t expect the market to go 3% higher. So if it does not go 3% higher, we keep the money. Now we also protect ourselves by buying another call above the strike that we sold it to protect ourselves. So if the market rips higher, market goes up 10%, our loss is limited because we have…

We’re short a call, but we’re…

We’ve bought a call also a little bit above to protect ourselves. So the iron condor is basically a a play where we are saying that we expect the market to stay within this range. And the range that we’ve selected is 3% to the downside and three percent to the upside. So anything in between going 3% to the downside and 3% to the upside is a maximum profit for us.

Anything below 3% to the downside is a maximum loss. Anything above 3% to the upside is a maximum loss.

When you trade an iron condor, you’re increasing your chances of a loss because now you have two ways you can lose money. Right? When we’re just doing the put spread, if the market goes down hard, we can lose money. If the market rips higher, we don’t lose money.

With an iron condor, if it goes higher or goes lower by 3%, then we can lose money. The benefit is that we get a much higher credit. So when we make money, we make more money. And when we lose money, we lose less money.

So that’s the trade off. So long explanation. Typically, the bull put spread is just a one directional trade. We make less money, and there’s less of a chance of a loss.

The iron condor, there is is is a a both direction trade. We we want the the market to stay within this range. We make more money. We lose less money.

Higher chance of losing money.

Folks getting filled at 495. 495, and I’ll… I still think I have not been filled. Let me double check, see what’s happening.

I haven’t heard it go off on my thinkorswim. Nope. I am still open at $5.

So again, we’ll keep it open for a little while and I will let you know.

So Rick says, who determines if an order is filled? Is that up to Schwab? I guess it it depends on what you mean by if the order is filled. If you mean in in real life, in real life trading or in our portfolio here.

So in real life, the trade…

You know, the the brokers are putting together the trade. They’re putting it out into the marketplace, and so you need a market maker to accept that trade. So it’s not Schwab that is technically filling it. It’s putting it out to all the market makers out there, and then the market makers decide if they’re going to select that trade.

It’s not, you know, it’s it’s not that they’re looking and saying, well, I’m gonna take John’s trade but not Steve’s trade. You know, it’s it’s just a matter of…

It’s math, basically.

You know, the…

If if the number makes sense at that exact moment, the number of contracts that they’re willing to fill. So if I’m trying to trade one contract and you’re trying to trade 20, then perhaps it may be easier for me to get filled my one contract. Although, if there’s a market maker who is looking to to trade quite a few contracts, then maybe they they do the twenties. But it, you know, it’s it’s…

There’s usually not some guy or or woman sitting at their computer looking at all the orders, deciding which one to take. I mean, it’s it’s…

You know, it happens electronically. As far as our model portfolio, deciding when an order is officially filled, it’s based on my fill. So if I officially get filled in my Schwab account, that is the official fill price. If I happen to not be there that day and Anthony is is the one placing the order, for you guys, then we do have a team, that determines where the price is.

And it’s usually, a minute after the, the the order is sent to members. That’s generally how they select a price. But in this service, if I’m placing the trade, it is the trade that I got filled at.

So if if I have to lower my price, let’s say, to $4.90 later and I get filled to $4.90 and many of you got filled at five, then, you know, that’s that’s great for you guys. You got… You know, your your results will be a little bit better than mine. So that’s that’s how that works.

Yeah. Aren’t the market makers computers these days? Yeah. So…

Yeah. Again, so it’s not a guy who is sitting there. When I first started, it was a person sitting, you know, at their terminal choosing orders. It…

It’s not that way anymore. It’s it’s it’s all computerized.

So on a regular vertical put spread on stocks, when do you generally decide to close the trade if it goes against you?

That’s a…

You know, I think that’s really a question that’s answered on a on a trade by trade basis. It depends on your system, your tolerance for risk. So that’s a difficult question to answer. You know, with this system, you know, we very, very rarely, and I don’t know if we ever have, closed the trade before the week of expiration.

And I think usually it’s…

Or not I think. I know usually it is not until really Thursday at the earliest for the most part. We do wanna let the system run its course because we have back tested it. It has worked in real life.

So if you were just, you just decided to do a a put spread on NVIDIA and it went against you, and and you didn’t have a system for it, then I’m not sure how you would determine that. You know? We’re we’re trading put spreads and and iron condors with a system, and so we we try to let that system run its course for as long as we possibly can.

So k c 66. Is there added risk placing the trade good till canceled and leaving it at the set price until it gets filled even if it’s days later? Yeah. Because you could get filled at an inappropriate price.

So let’s say, for example, you put the order in at five and, you know, the market moves strongly and now a fair price is $5.50, you could get filled at five for sure. Or, you know, let’s say on a put spread, you put your order in and, and the market moves strongly against us and now your, you know, your spread is is only 1% away from the strike instead of 3%. So I I do recommend that you only have day orders not good till canceled.

A lot can happen over the weekend. And also, if you’re not getting filled till, let’s say, Tuesday or even Wednesday, those options are deteriorating a little bit with time. So, the chance of you getting filled at the price that we are trying to get filled at decreases. Or, like I said, the market has moved against you, and so now you’re getting filled at a price that’s not quite appropriate.

So I always recommend this is this is a day only order. And you can always adjust your price a little bit if you have to, but I don’t wanna see people getting filled, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday because the market could be in a very different place Monday morning than it is right now.

Cliffy B is saying my $5.10 fill was an error.

Reentered $5…

Oh, I guess you…

Maybe you did a debit instead of a credit. That’s what I’m guessing. So glad…

If if that happened, I’m glad you quickly changed it. That’s one of the questions I get a lot. Hey. I did a debit by mistake.

What should I do? I always recommend that whether it’s this or you’re trading stocks or options or what have you, if you place the order incorrectly, especially if it’s on the wrong side, you meant to sell instead of buy or what have you, you close that out immediately. You don’t wanna just wait and see what happens. You had a reason that you placed an order or you had a reason that you you wanted to place the order the way you you wanted to.

And if you make a mistake, you know, there’s no…

Take take the small loss and try to get back on the right side of the trade because, you know, you could get lucky and the market moves in the opposite direction that you intended, but it’s it’s not a good it’s not a good thing to do. You know, any professional trader will not leave a trade on that they made a mistake on.

Let’s see.

Joan says, won’t change it to day now, but I can still cancel the order after the market closes. Yeah. Absolutely.

Gsub, at what upper and lower levels does this trade start losing money, the inner or the outer? So, let’s say we get filled at $5, at 26.75. That’s our break even on the downside.

Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah. Yes. $26.75. And on the upside, $28.55 is our breakeven. And the way you take the the breakeven is it’s that that first strike, so the higher strike on the puts and the lower strike on the calls.

And you add, I’m sorry. You…

On the on the puts, you subtract the credit that you receive. So $26.80 minus five would be $26.75. And on the calls, you would add the credit that you received, $28.50

plus five would be $28.55. So those are our breakevens if we get filled at five. $28.55 and $26.75.

J. O. Roddy, usually close before expiration? Usually not. The idea is to let these go until expiration because we wanna let the system play out.

And that way also, we get our maximum credit. If we close out early, then we take a smaller credit or even a loss. So, you know, right now, the market’s falling a little bit. We’re still 23 points above where we want to be.

If if I have to close it early, I may, but I am gonna try to try to let this go until the close. But, yeah, we…

There have been times where we have closed early for sure. Like I said, usually not until we’re getting close to expiration, usually around Thursday or even the day of expiration. You know, we’re we’re we’re never closing a week or two early. Even if the market completely goes against us.

Let’s say we put this trade on today, the market crashes next week, it’s trading at 2,400. There…

You know, at that point, there’s no reason to close it out. You know, we’ll we’ll just wait and see if we can get a bounce because at a certain point, you’re at a maximum loss anyway. So closing it out doesn’t do anything for you. You’ll you’ll still take a maximum loss.

So when that happens, then, yeah, we just wait and see if the market can bounce back.

Alright. Let’s get to one last question.

Since we’re in an iron condor, how does the movement in the Russell price impact the price of the iron condor? Good question. So, you know, very similar to when we’re in a put spread. So, but, you know, we we do have that added credit.

So when the mark…

If the market starts to fall, the put side of this, option…

I’m sorry. The put side of this trade will increase. The call side will decrease, and vice versa. If the market starts rising, the call side will increase.

The put side will decrease.

Now it depends…

You know, obviously, every situation can be a little bit different. Volatility will have something to do with it. So chances are if prices are falling hard, volatility is increasing, options, are are a little bit juicier. So even though the call side, may be, may be decreasing in value, perhaps not decreasing in value as quickly as the put side is increasing in value.

Right? So the puts might become, you know, more valuable than the calls are declining in value if the market’s falling hard. And vice versa, market is ripping higher, volatility decreases, options become worth a little bit less because of that. So on the put side, those options might decline in value, quicker than perhaps the, call side options are increasing.

But it, you know, it’s it’s an exact…

It’s it’s not kind of something I can pinpoint exactly. Every market move is going to be a little bit different. Alright. Let me just check one more time before we sign off if I’ve gotten filled. I don’t believe I have. I have not.

So, I will send an alert either letting you know I have gotten filled or, that I have not. And if I’m holding that price or if I’m going to change the price, let’s say, I’ll try to do that by around 01:00.

If you haven’t heard from me by one, you know, check your spam folder or what have you, but I will try to send that out around 01:00 and just let you know what is happening. So with that said, I thank you all for being here.

I hope you’re getting filled at $5, and, I hope this ends up being a fantastic trade. Have a great weekend, everyone. Talk to you soon.