Pre Market MAR 18, 2024

Stocks are down slightly here in the Pre Market today
All except our new addition HWM and WMT
Funny how yesterday I mentioned we’d look more into those 2

Have you ever had “A case of the D.O.M.S. ? “
D.O.M.S. is a medical term I learned when I studied Kinesiology
No, I’ve never been a doctor, I just wanted to study Kinesiology, so I did

D.O.M.S. is the acronym for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
Lets say you work out in your yard all day Saturday, sun is shining, your “still da man” feeling good, decide to hit the gym, bench press some Buicks, super squat some serious steel, then join me and my hiking club and take in a little 8 mile stroll…
One could expect that the next day, Sunday, your body is “feeling it” noooooooooope “Mr get-er-done”…. It’s not until Monday or Tuesday you wake up unable to move your body off the bed and say what the heck happened….. It’s a delayed reaction, and usually the lactic acid in your body is seriously built up then….. That’s D.O.M.S.

That is how the stock market feels this morning
As always, it’s early in the Pre market here, things could change, but right now after Fridays big jump up, and yesterdays gains, it looks like the market did too much, too fast

While we here at theoptionscoach.net are “mildly cautiously optimistic” about the markets we are also aware that we are not in full blown risk off territory like we were in 2024

For now we’re sticking with Vertical Spreads for downside protection for the longs

We don’t go long when a stock is red or on a down day
We set STOPS and HONOR them
We don’t chase stocks
And we always buy at the MID price or better

WMT
APR 17, 2025
For investors that are Bullish ( we are here )
Bull Call Spreads
The 87.5 / 90s are 1.15 at the MID
The 87.5 / 92.5s are 1.85 at the MID
The 87.5 / 95s are 2.25 at the MID

The 90s offer the most downside protection while the 95s offer the biggest possible returns
All 3 are obviously protected and have limited risk
Should WMT bust north at some point the investor could drop the Short strike thus going “Blind” and ride the Long strike for greater gains. Again if WMT is moving north

HWM
APR 17, 2025
Bull Call Spreads
The 130 / 135s are 2.25 at the MID

JNJ is one that could come back into play here also

TSLA is diving again, it’s now down below $230.00
$232.00 was a key technical level that was being watched for further sell off

S+P 500 Support is at 5,625
Time to grind

The Options Coach