Last week here I gave the the three SPY open interest charts which pretty much suggested a rangebound market. Not only was it rangebound, but all three expirations pinned almost perfectly. That’s a market that doesn’t have strong buyers or sellers. You can see their pins at the bottom of this post.
If you have not yet subscribed to my weekly freebie you can do so below to get next weeks free trade idea sent to your mailbox Monday morning. Last week was AAPL and if you followed the trigger and shorted at 173 then you did indeed get an immediate pullback to 169.95. If you did not take some profits off the table than the trade would have went against you. As I always say in the email, unless you are a subscriber to my premium service you must follow up by looking at the OI changes yourself during the week. After Monday the OI changed and there was no longer high 170 calls. The highest calls shifted to 175 (and notice price struggled to hold above there the rest of the week). Below is how the OI looked on Tuesday and pretty much for the rest of the week. I will call this one a scratch because it wasn’t a homerun, but was a winner if you took the 173 trigger.
The stats for the weekly freebie since I began sending them are as follows:
- 10 wins (I only count wins when they are either big wins or where there was enough time to take profits).
- 2 that didn’t trigger
- 4 scratch trades
- 1 loss
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- Full premium service includes all day commentary, open interest and technical analysis on ‘in-play’ momentum stocks. Real time trade alerts through my exact entries and exists (meaning I can’t hide behind vague alerts without telling you what price I paid or sold at).
- Weekly Open Interest and Strategy Post – Open interest and technical analysis for AAPL, AMZN, BABA, FB, GS, GOOGL, NFLX, TSLA for this coming week. This does not include my private twitter with exact trade alerts or any updates during the week. This is more an idea based post that you use to trade on your own.
Open Interest: If you want more information on how to read the high calls and puts in the open interest see here.
SPY-M: (5 of 7 for pins). The current best pin is 265. 264 has some put support and 266 some call resistance. Therefore, if price opens and/or holds below 264 on Monday then it could continue lower with not much put support till 260. If price opens and/or can hold over 266 then it has plenty of room higher without much further call resistance. If we see a slow, choppy, rangebound market with flattish breadth (advance/decline, up/down volume, TICK etc) then the likely scenario is a 265 pin. Remember you can often measure the strength or lack thereof based on if price can hold over high calls and vice versa if it holds under high puts. 
SPY-W: (62 of 83 pins). Based on where price is now the best pin for Wednesday is between the high puts of 263/264 and the high calls of 267. If price holds under 263 then there is some calls and puts where price can pin at 260 and then not much till the 255 high puts. To the upside if price can hold over 267 then it has room to 270 before high calls. Above 270 there is no call resistance till 275. If the market moves a lot Monday and Tuesday this will probably shift by Wednesday so follow up on your own if you are not part of my service. 
SPY-F: (48 of 76 pins). Because Friday’s expiration is a monthly expiration there is less chance that it will shift throughout the week. The current best pin can be both 265 or 270. One caveat to that is that obvious pins on monthly OPEX fail often so I wouldn’t assume either price is going to be the pin unless price was near there toward the end of the week. If price can hold over 270 then here isn’t much in the way of call resistance until 275, which once again can be considered a pin if price is near there upon expiration. Under 265 there is put resistance from 262 to 260 with the former being very strong put support. 
Pinning Stuff:
*An explanation as to how I define range pinning can be found here. More information about what pinning is can be found under the education section or here.
Monday 4/9: Successful pin.
Wednesday 4/11: Successful pin.
Friday 4/13: Successful pin.
Tags: max pain, open interest, option trading, options expiration, options pin, pinning, S&P 500, SPX, spy, stock options
April OPEX + Monday & Wednesday Open Interest
Last week here I gave the the three SPY open interest charts which pretty much suggested a rangebound market. Not only was it rangebound, but all three expirations pinned almost perfectly. That’s a market that doesn’t have strong buyers or sellers. You can see their pins at the bottom of this post.
If you have not yet subscribed to my weekly freebie you can do so below to get next weeks free trade idea sent to your mailbox Monday morning. Last week was AAPL and if you followed the trigger and shorted at 173 then you did indeed get an immediate pullback to 169.95. If you did not take some profits off the table than the trade would have went against you. As I always say in the email, unless you are a subscriber to my premium service you must follow up by looking at the OI changes yourself during the week. After Monday the OI changed and there was no longer high 170 calls. The highest calls shifted to 175 (and notice price struggled to hold above there the rest of the week). Below is how the OI looked on Tuesday and pretty much for the rest of the week. I will call this one a scratch because it wasn’t a homerun, but was a winner if you took the 173 trigger.
The stats for the weekly freebie since I began sending them are as follows:
Join SassyOptions and up Your Performance: If you are a short term trader and under performing or overtrading join us at SassyOptions Premium and take advantage of all its offerings that will help make you a better and more profitable trader. Still 3 quarters left to make your year great!
Open Interest: If you want more information on how to read the high calls and puts in the open interest see here.
SPY-M: (5 of 7 for pins). The current best pin is 265. 264 has some put support and 266 some call resistance. Therefore, if price opens and/or holds below 264 on Monday then it could continue lower with not much put support till 260. If price opens and/or can hold over 266 then it has plenty of room higher without much further call resistance. If we see a slow, choppy, rangebound market with flattish breadth (advance/decline, up/down volume, TICK etc) then the likely scenario is a 265 pin. Remember you can often measure the strength or lack thereof based on if price can hold over high calls and vice versa if it holds under high puts.
SPY-W: (62 of 83 pins). Based on where price is now the best pin for Wednesday is between the high puts of 263/264 and the high calls of 267. If price holds under 263 then there is some calls and puts where price can pin at 260 and then not much till the 255 high puts. To the upside if price can hold over 267 then it has room to 270 before high calls. Above 270 there is no call resistance till 275. If the market moves a lot Monday and Tuesday this will probably shift by Wednesday so follow up on your own if you are not part of my service.
SPY-F: (48 of 76 pins). Because Friday’s expiration is a monthly expiration there is less chance that it will shift throughout the week. The current best pin can be both 265 or 270. One caveat to that is that obvious pins on monthly OPEX fail often so I wouldn’t assume either price is going to be the pin unless price was near there toward the end of the week. If price can hold over 270 then here isn’t much in the way of call resistance until 275, which once again can be considered a pin if price is near there upon expiration. Under 265 there is put resistance from 262 to 260 with the former being very strong put support.
Pinning Stuff:
*An explanation as to how I define range pinning can be found here. More information about what pinning is can be found under the education section or here.
Monday 4/9: Successful pin.
Wednesday 4/11: Successful pin.
Friday 4/13: Successful pin.
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Tags: max pain, open interest, option trading, options expiration, options pin, pinning, S&P 500, SPX, spy, stock options