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"Tony The Tiger" - A Food Stock

The mood of Wall Street is now changing as the reality of tariffs is starting to kick in. Two weeks ago not so much so. Kelloggs had "so-so" earnings come out a few weeks ago and the stock exploded upwards. Note the very last line above mentions the effects of tariffs are not taken into consideration. So many stocks with "so-so" earning reports have jumped in price based on the "lets make America great again" slogan. Deere stock is shooting to the moon as I keep writing about in spite of declining sales in the last quarter. The sentiment seems to be that they are immune to tariffs. On paper they might be. Read this. Americans are struggling to buy gas, eggs and insurance. Total housing starts in the U.S.in 2024 were down 3.9%. Walmart, the recent darling stock in the last four weeks for Call option players woke up this morning with an earnings report which was healthy but with came with some caveats. Here is what happened. Perhaps the U.S. is starting ...
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Caterpillar and Deere Having A Good Week.

First Caterpillar going into Friday August 16th, a five day chart.
Now Deere.
Imagine having options and catching one of these moves? Tesla and Boeing were also on fire this week. There was talk of unemployment numbers not meaning to much and talk of interest rate declines. Get in and get out when the times are good. The markets can change on a dime. I talked this week about Telsa Calls and said to get out prematurely and the same with Boeing Calls. But wait, there will always be more trading opportunities. That plus the markets did nothing on Friday after this monstrous run. There was no point in wasting your time watching your lists of favorite stocks after everything rallied so strongly on Monday to Thursday. Now the five day and one day chart on Deere.
Who would be buying Deere stock on Friday after it had a massive rally the previous day? I don't know. Now look at how these three series of Puts traded on Friday. The only reason I am showing them is to point out how option traders were smart enough to stay away from them. You would think that after such a big rally on the week more option players would have jumped in on the Thursday's close to purchase "near-to-the money" Puts, looking for a five or seven dollar selloff. Apparently not. Yet the stock did sputter on Friday's opening which would have presented an opportunity to squeak out a small but profitable Put trade.
Learning where and when to pick your battles is a big part option trading. ( The S&P500 index gained 3.9% this past week, marking its best week of the year, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 5.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 2.9%.) This was one of the best weeks this year to be playing the upside.

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