Friday Update
Friday Update Hello Smart Option Sellers! Happy Friday! Today's alert will be brief as I'm headed out of town shortly. In economic news this morning: monthly unemployment numbers were released and it looks like the U.S. economy is still going strong as 266,000 new jobs were created, much higher than the 187,000 that was expected. The unemployment rate ticked down to all-time lows again to 3.5% (from 3.6% last month) and wages rose 3.1% from a year ago at this time, better than the 3.0% expected. If consumers have more money in their paychecks, spending will occur. That's what helps prop up the U.S. economy more than anything else. It's all about expectations in the stock market. If the economy and individual companies can beat (albeit lowered) analyst's expectations, then we will see rallies. And as I type, the futures markets are soaring. We should have a strong opening today. On top of that good news, China & the U.S. government are doing all they can to ease everyone's minds about the tariff stand-off. Both sides seem to have better expectations of an agreement. So, let's see how today plays out. Any rally will be great for our current put-sell positions. I don't have any new trades today but we do have one question to answer. Friday Q&A Q: Hi Lee,
FYI. I just got off the phone with a TD Ameritrade representative regarding a matter on my account and was informed that Charles Schwab is in the process of acquiring TD Ameritrade. I don’t exactly know what this will mean for TOS users; hopefully it will be a good thing.
A: Last month I wrote about the excellent news in the brokerage industry about how Charles Schwab had decided to remove all commissions for their investment products. Although they did keep the small $.65 per option contract fee, this new pricing structure was a complete game changer. And shortly after that no-fee bombshell, Schwab also decided to buy out TD Ameritrade. You can read the news here. The deal will probably close sometime next summer, but if it goes through, it will create a massive all-in-one brokerage firm that I feel will be the best choice for any investor, big or small. I think the greatest benefit for this merger will be that Schwab will now have access to a solid high-end trading platform in TD's ThinkorSwim (TOS) software. It's a great piece of software, and it rivals Interactive Brokers (IB) platform. Schwab itself has its own trading software currently, but it is not as robust as what they'll get from ThinkorSwim. I'm super excited about this possible merger and I hope it goes through. For any current TD Ameritrade customer - I don't think anything will change for you. It should only get better. Ok, that's all for today. Continue to hold all other open positions as-is. Contact us here with fills, comments, questions or concerns. Have a great weekend! Regards,
Lee Let's Grab That Cash!