I love getting questions from our subscribers to All Star Options. It shows they are engaged and eager to learn or to get clarification as they learn our processes. We get questions every day. Here's one I received recently that I thought held a lesson we could all benefit from:

We are in the tricky part of the quarterly cycle where upcoming earnings warrant caution on options trades in individual names. Premiums get elevated ahead of the uncertainty heading into each earnings event, so that makes being long premium an undesirable idea. Meanwhile, it makes me uncomfortable getting short elevated premiums into these events because of the risk of an outsized move blowing through any short strikes I may have on.

And of course and ironically, with summer in full swing, broader indexes are seeing declining volatilities which makes it tougher to put on good credit spreads.

But your boy hasn't given up looking for opportunities, and I see a good one shaping up in the Utilities space.

The Nasdaq 100 just hit another all-time high, as did the amount of people quoting the percentage of the index's gains that are from its top five components. While that makes for a good headline and soundbite, it's not really all that actionable. What is actionable is the chart below, which we spoke about in early June.

There are 51 stocks down since the Nasdaq 100's initial peak on January 26th, meaning there is opportunity on both sides of the tape if you're so inclined. What it also tells us is that it doesn't pay to get ideological about how large components like Apple, Amazon, and Google have become. It's a cap-weighted index, which means that as long as the leaders keep leading the index is going to move higher. When their performance deteriorates, as will the index's; it works on the way up, and the way down. It's just math.

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It's been quite a few years since I did these youtube videos, but with the help of technology and a solid team, this is something we can start doing again on a regular basis.

Here is the first video with a throwback to the old days and then we get into Consumer Discretionary stocks and why I think they will continue to be a leading indicator for the overall market. 

Large-caps in India have been on a tear relative to their small and mid-cap counterparts, which we've spoken about at length over the last few months. With that said, it's no surprise to see that the Nifty 50 is leading to the upside once again by clearing its recent range on an absolute basis and making new 5-month closing highs.

This is the video recording of the July 2018 Conference Call for Members of All Star Options

Perhaps it's the overwhelming number of afflicted Bears coming in to emergency rooms, pharmacies (for pain meds), and therapists couches across America that is fueling the continued bull market in healthcare stocks? Interesting thought.

But we're not fundamentalists here, we just follow price action, volume, and with our options trades -- volatility. And those three things are pointing to a great opportunity for profits in the $XLV Healthcare ETF.

Some people look at Utility stocks doing well as something negative. I never understood that. They suggest that an uptrend in a sector that is looked upon as "defensive" is not something characteristic of a stock market that is going up. But, in fact, it is. With Utilities pressing against all-time highs again, now is as good of a time as any to remind ourselves that they indeed move with the overall stock market over time.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

In 2018 the trend of small-cap Healthcare out-performance over its large-cap counterparts accelerated aggressively, with the small-cap ETF $PSCH returning 30.50% YTD and the large-cap ETF $XLV up a meager 1.70%.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

Despite XLV's under-performance relative to small-caps and the broader market, some signs of improvement have been developing over the last few weeks. As we can see in the ratio of $XLV / $SPY below, prices retested their 2017 lows as momentum diverged positively. This suggests at the very least we don't want to be short on a relative basis.

On an absolute basis $XLV made nearly 4-month highs last week and is attempting a breakout after 6 months of consolidation. A close above 86.60 would suggest prices are heading to our next upside price target of 101.30. We also want to see momentum get back into overbought...

Jack Dorsey, CEO of both Square $SQ and a little-known company named Twitter $TWTR, is having a pretty good year. How good? Well, in the last 365 days, $SQ is up 177% and Twitter is up a more modest 158%. Boy, the sentiment in these two names sure has changed. It seemed like just yesterday Jack Dorsey was America's most hated CEO. "Pick one!" the masses screamed. Everyone thought he had taken on too big of a workload as the stocks of both companies languished in prolonged downtrends. Amazing what twin upward trending stock prices can do for Public Relations.

While both stocks look compelling here, we're going to take advantage of some attractive volatility being priced into $SQ options and an earnings event to play both sides against.

For months we've been focusing our long efforts on stocks in sectors like Fast Moving Consumer Goods that have been showing relative strength. Today we're revisiting the Consumer Goods sector as it makes new all-time highs on an absolute basis and nearly 1-year highs relative to the Nifty 500 to see what names we want to be involved in to capitalize on this theme.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

Here is a look at the Nifty Fast Moving Consumer Goods Index on an absolute basis, showing prices marching toward our price target of 30,710 after two months of consolidation.

Here is a list of Consumer Goods stocks we want to be buying. You'll notice that many of them have been discussed in our posts before, but are listed here because they continue to show relative strength and well-defined reward/risk opportunities.

I just got back from a vacation in the south of France and northern Italy. I've written in the past about the benefits of getting away and the positive impact it can have on decision making and portfolio returns. If you have the discipline to stay away from your computer during a staycation, that works too. I personally cannot help myself but to go check out some charts if I know I have access to the computer. So I need to get out of town. This year we chose Europe.

Ever since first studying Fibonacci in 2005, I knew his statue was somewhere in Pisa. The trouble was finding it. There isn't much information out there. Some of you have been asking me about this for your upcoming trip to Italy or just keeping note of it for the future. So I figured it would help to just lay it out there as a reference for when you need it.

Also See: Fibonacci In Trading