CRM reports after the bell, and the setup is actually fascinating. The stock sits around $235, down 36% from highs and 30% YTD. Growth has slowed, but fundamentals aren't broken. They're just… less sexy. IV is pricing a 7-8% move, skew is modest, and this is exactly the type of environment where I want to be slightly long CRM and short rich downside vol, with a wide cushion if we get a controlled pullback. Let's see what Marc Benioff brings us tonight!

Since today is Thanksgiving and the market finally gave us a quiet day, I thought it'd be fun to step back from charts for a moment and look at the things we, as option sellers, actually rely on every single day. Here are the three big ones for me: 1) Volatility: the engine behind every premium we collect Volatility is the reason option selling works. When markets move, hesitate, overreact, or get nervous, that uncertainty shows up as rich option premiums. Without volatility, selling premium would feel like picking pennies in front of a steamroller: tiny rewards, huge risks, zero edge. With volatility, we get high-probability structures that actually pay. Sometimes it's a macro shock, sometimes it's a random headline, sometimes it's just the natural breathing of the VIX. But whatever the source, volatility is what keeps this strategy alive. 2) Liquidity: the quiet hero that makes trading smooth Anyone who has ever tried to trade illiquid options knows how painful it can be. Wide spreads, bad fills, slippage. And liquidity removes all of that. It lets us enter positions quickly, adjust and exit them cleanly. It's the reason SPX, SPY, QQQ, NVDA, TSLA, AAPL, or MSFT feel so professional to trade. There's always someone on the other side. Even the best strategies die in illiquid markets. In liquid markets, everything becomes easier, safer, and more mechanical. 3) The Gaussian distribution: the math that keeps us grounded Markets aren't perfectly normal, but the bell curve still gives us a powerful framework. It helps us understand expected ranges, probability of touch, probability of expiring worthless, and the whole idea of selling the wings. We don't need to predict the future, we just need to understand the odds, and the Gaussian curve gives us those odds. It's the quiet backbone behind every high-probability trade we put on. A quick Thanksgiving wish, and something personal from me When I started posting here, it was honestly an experiment. I didn't know if anyone would care about the trades I run, the research we do in the hedge fund, the macro notes, the weird asymmetric structures, the rotations, the volatility models… any of it. I just wanted to share the things I wish someone had shown me years earlier. But something unexpected happened. It became a community.

In the previous Patreon post, I mentioned that the rotation charts are finally giving us clean signals. XLV (Healthcare) is improving in relative momentum, while XLE (Energy) continues to build strength after weeks of underperformance. Both sectors are entering that sweet spot, but I promised I'd share the exact setups for these two later this week. So today I'm opening a very clean, very intentional expression of that divergence: a pairs-style structure between XLV and XLE, not based on volatility mispricing, but on sector behavior, momentum structure, and how these ETFs typically move in this macro regime. Let's break it down. Despite both sectors looking strong on the surface, XLV and XLE are quietly sending two very different messages, and this divergence is where the real opportunity is emerging. XLV sits at all-time highs with the strongest seasonal tailwind of the year behind it, yet the breakout is already showing fatigue: price rising on falling volume, momentum indicators pinned in overbought territory, and implied volatility in the 86th percentile (an extremely rare combination for a defensive sector). Meanwhile, XLE looks stable only if you ignore the internals: momentum has turned negative, the ETF just slipped under its 50-day moving average, and realized volatility has collapsed to multi-month lows, creating a pressure cooker where the next directional move is likely to be violent. Part 1: XLE Call Debit Spread: Targeting the Snap-Back Zone Buy 88 Call, Sell 91 Call, Expiration: 1/16 (51 DTE), Net Debit: $1.59, Max Profit: $141 This is a pure directional statement on Energy, but expressed in the safest possible way, using a defined-risk vertical. We're betting on the standard Energy bounce inside a choppy range. Part 2: XLV Call Ratio Spread: Harvesting Exhaustion at the Highs Buy 160 Call, Sell 2x 163 Calls, Expiration: 1/16 (51 DTE), Max Profit: $357, Max Loss is undefined (but extremely manageable in XLV).

$1 trillion just got wiped out from U.S. equities, and another $120 billion evaporated from crypto overnight. Everywhere you look, markets are bleeding, volatility is exploding, people are panicking. The Fear & Greed Index is flashing extreme fear. Short-volatility traders very rarely blow up because of losses, but they can blow up because of margin distortion during VIX spikes. If you've been following our 2025 Trading Plan, you should still be sitting on 60-75% of available buying power (yes, 60-75%!), which means you're in a perfect position to take advantage of today's juicy volatility. But I also know some traders don't follow a proven plan and try to outsmart the market (yes, I've been there myself). On days like yesterday, two forces attack your account at the same time: - Directional drift (your deltas swing sharply as the market sells off) - Stress-weighted margin expansion (broker inflates tail-risk scenarios, increasing your buying-power requirement) This combination can wipe out your margin buffer in minutes. So let's walk through the exact emergency playbook experienced traders can use to survive volatility spikes without panic-closing positions, without blowing up the strategy, and without letting fear dictate decisions. Static-Delta Hedge with /ES or /MES Futures This is the fastest way to stop buying-power bleeding, but it comes with serious caveats. In a sudden selloff, your short puts expand and your entire book drifts long delta. That directional tilt is the number one driver of margin expansion. The cleanest fix is to neutralize your beta-weighted delta by shorting /ES (E-mini S&P futures) or /MES (Micro E-mini S&P futures). One /ES contract gives you roughly -500 beta-weighted deltas, while one /MES gives you about one-tenth of that. Even one or two micro futures can dramatically stabilize your entire portfolio because: - Brokers reward directional neutrality - Futures offer huge notional exposure for very small margin - The PM / SPAN engine stops projecting catastrophic downside scenarios - Your buying power recovers within seconds

Hey, NVDA reports today after the close, and this is one of those earnings where the reaction can tell you more about the entire AI cycle than the numbers themselves. It's 12% off highs, volatility is extremely elevated, and the market is nervous: is growth slowing faster than expected? So everything tonight will revolve around that. IV Rank is high (37), implied move is around 6-7%. Historically, NVDA often moves less than implied, and post-earnings IV drops fast. Everyone tonight is obsessed with one thing: "How are you trading NVDA earnings?" My honest answer: most people shouldn't. It's a crowded, binary event with sky-high expectations already priced in. Yes, IV is juicy, but one wrong line in the guidance and you're fighting a 10-15% gap in a single name. I'd rather attack the same theme, AI and semiconductors, in a calmer, higher-probability way: through SMH, the semiconductor ETF. Why SMH gives more edge than straight NVDA? SMH still benefits from the whole AI chip story, but: - You're diversified across the basket, not hostage to one conference call. - Earnings noise in any single name is diluted. - IV is elevated, but moves are usually much more reasonable than NVDA's all or nothing gaps. That's exactly the environment where short premium, and high probability of profit shines. So, my main play today is not NVDA itself, but a Jade Lizard in SMH.