Membership Positions - July 26, 2020

Call to Leap
Jul 26, 2020
3 min read

Updated: Jan 16, 2021

Hi Investors and Traders!

During last week's roller coaster ride, the S&P 500 closed at -0.62% and the DOW30 closed at -0.68% at end of day on Friday.

Earnings

Earnings, earnings, and more earnings...in the next couple of weeks, look out for:

AMD - Tue, July 28

V - Tue, July 28

PYPL - Wed, July 29

AAPL - Thu, July 30

MA - Thu, July 30

SQ - Wed, August 5

COST - Thu, August 27

If you want to check earnings dates for other companies, check out Earnings Whisper.

Since we're still in earnings season, we'll re-iterate: it's most likely best to wait until after earnings to see the company's report card and guidance for the next quarter. Look at how the price moves, then strategize around that.

In the past week, if you decided to sell a 1 week OTM covered calls against MSFT at the start of the week, there’s a nice premium in it for you. If you decided to stay away due to volatility, that's no big deal.

Trade of the Week

For the coming week, let’s use Visa as an example. If you’re opening a position with Visa's earnings on the horizon, it may be wise to stay inland for the week. However, if you really want to get in the game because you have higher risk tolerance, then during earnings week, selling covered calls a couple of weeks out at a strike price further OTM than usual may be a better choice than going closer to the money. Why? Remember that during earnings week, uncertainty increases, which increases the premiums for the calls, something covered call sellers may want to capitalize on. In the event that Visa’s stock price shifts upward after earnings, it’ll be less likely that you’ll miss the opportunity to ride the wave up since your strike price is further out (especially since we like holding stocks in fundamentally strong, dividend paying companies). If it drops, you keep your shares and the premium you pocketed. You’ll want to see where Visa opens on Monday, but let's assume it starts out at where it closed on Friday ($195.06), and you want to sell a covered call, it may be better to aim at strike price $200 or higher (that’s 2 strike prices up or higher from the market price). Again, this depends on where V opens on Monday and your risk appetite so observe the market price and keep an eye on your options chain!!

Once again, it's usually safer to withhold selling covered calls during earnings season, so consider yourself warned! Let’s say you decided not to play with fire and to wait for earnings report. It comes back positive and there’s a strong upward breakout. Our philosophy is to buy high, sell higher. Proceed with covered calls at the usual expiration of 2-3 weeks out, unless you only have 100 shares and you’ve already sold a covered call which is still open. If there's no breakout and Visa stays sideways or drops this week, continue with covered calls at an expiration of 4 weeks out.

Here’s a friendly reminder to watch last week's Q&A and investing video and send us your questions on the Level I Course page. As usual, stay disciplined, have an open and positive mindset, and we’ll see you next week!

-Call to Leap Team

The following article is strictly the opinion of the author and is to not be considered financial/investment advice. Call to Leap LLC and the author of this article does not claim to be a registered financial advisor (RIA) or financial advisor. Please visit our terms of service and privacy policy before reading this article.