ULTA Iron Condor SpreadIV is pretty high on ULTA after the drop and its trending well, there are a few false breakouts and RSI is rising. Looks like a good play.
2x Iron condor spread 200/205/275/280
Credit collected as $144 deltas were 0.33 and 0.2 on the options sold
I plan to take my profit at 30% max credit since the IV isn't that high for this to be a 50% max credit trade and deltas are pretty close and low probability.
Max gain will be $90.
Max loss will be $288.
ULTA
ULTA - Will December be BEAUTY-ful month? buy set upsChart pretty well tells the story - note that this set up has possibility for 2 entries, so you pick - take first, take lower, take both? Keep good money management as we are looking for trend break and buying a low.. risky, but much possible reward. If we just break out now without coming back to pick me up.. will have to look for entry/stop above after breakout.. not as good, but still on radar.. Happy Trading!
THE WEEK AHEAD: ULTA EARNINGS; APA, UNG, VIXEARNINGS:
Earnings are light in the coming week, with ULTA (90/47) being the best candidate metrically for a earnings-related volatility contraction play, although its liquidity isn't great.
Pictured here is a 205/210/265/270 iron condor in the January cycle that is paying 2.06 at the mid (1.03 at 50% max). Markets, however, are showing wide here.
SINGLE NAME WITH EARNINGS IN THE REAR VIEW:
APA (100/71)
CGC (75/89)
NTNX (66/43)
X (52/27)
See APA, CGC posts below.
EXCHANGE-TRADED FUNDS:
UNG (51/54)
USO (37/37)
TLT (34/12)
XLE (26/19)
FXI (23/20)
XOP (23/34)
First expiries in which at-the-money short straddle pays >10% of the value of the underlying:
UNG: January, 2.84 versus 17.83 (15.9%)
USO: April, 1.84 versus 11.62 (15.8%)
TLT: January of '21, 14.78 versus 140.42 (10.5%)
XLE: June, 7.20 versus 58.89 (12.2%)
FXI: May, 4.18 versus 40.94 (10.2%)
XOP: January, 2.06 versus 20.36 (10.1%)
Already up to my nipples in oil and gas plays, so may consider a small FXI position. Naturally, May is a bit farther out in time than I'd like -- the 36/46 short strangle camped out around the 16 delta is paying 1.06 there.
BROAD MARKET:
QQQ (4/15)
IWM (4/15)
SPY (4/12)
First expiries in which at-the-money short straddle pays >10% of the value of the underlying:
QQQ: June, 21.71 versus 205.10 (10.6%)
IWM: June, 16.34 versus 161.77 (10.1%)
SPY: Sept, 34.63 versus 314.31 (11.0%)
QQQ June 181/226 20 delta short strangle, 6.48 credit (1.62 at 25% max; 3.24 at 50% max)
IWM June 143/180 20 delta put/16 delta call* short strangle, 4.33 credit (1.08 at 25% max; 2.17 at 50% max)
SPY September 274/345 20 delta short strangle, 10.70 credit (2.68 at 25% max; 5.35 at 50% max).
* -- Strikes on the call side are 5-wide at the moment, with the 180 at the 16, the 175 at the 25.
FUTURES:
/6B (63/14)
/NG (51/90)
/ZF (39/3)
/CL (37/39)
/ZN (37/4)
OVX popped big on Friday, so I will look to add short premium setups in /CL if that nearly 37 print hangs in there over the next couple of sessions.
VIX/VIX DERIVATIVES:
With /VX futures contracts trading at 16.39, 17.65, and 17.86 in January, February, and March, respectively. VIX term structure trades remain viable for those expiries. For everything else, wait for a pop in VIX -- which finished Friday's session at 12.62 ... .
$ULTA YOLO Gap Fill potentialLooking at a gorgeous falling wedge pattern sitting under a huge Gap that's eager to get filled. based on this price action, a potential breakout (or breakdown) is due sometime before Christmas. Lets see if it has enough momentum to break through these resistances and take a swing for gap fill!
ULTA "Beauty" - How Beautiful Is It Really?This is a MONTHLY chart. Each candle represents one month of price action.
Quick question. When a stock goes up, can we all agree that the market is buying it? Well of coarse! And we should be able to draw an up trend line that touches 2 or more candle lows to visually represent an increase in price over time.
One more quick question. What does it mean if we are able to draw other up trend lines that are steeper? Maybe it means that the market is buying it faster so it is going up faster? The series of steeper trend lines on this chart are my focus...
Let's focus on The Up Trend lines.
The first one starts in March of 2009 and has an angle of elevation of 21 degrees. Let's call this one UT#1.
The next starts in September of 2010 and has an angle of elevation of 27 degrees. Let's call this one UT#2.
The last one on this chart started in June of 2014 and has an angle of elevation of 40 degrees. Let's call this one UT#3.
I hope you can agree that owning ULTA from June, 2014 to now would have given you the fastest increase in value. Hence the 40 degree angle of elevation. Now that the history is behind us, we naturally want to know about the future... Anybody have a crystal ball that works??? My Dad had one but it had a crack in it I think. Oh yea, it was real foggy too. Especially when I asked him to tell me if the market or a stock was going to go up or down. I miss him alot...
Let's get back to the future... Remember this basic rule about trend lines. Price will either bounce at the trend line, loiter around the trend line, or go through the trend line. If ULTA bounces here, we can all agree the is a great place to get long. Entries Matter!! Your potential profit depends on it! If ULTA loiters around the trend line, you will have a hard time knowing what comes next so why be long or short? I wouldn't be either. If ULTA breaks down below the trend line, it might be a good time to be short. At least take some profits. Yes, I know, I just said "short" ULTA... It is always a possibility.
ULTA's price dropped below UT#3 in september but then went back above it by the end of the month. In October ULTA was higher than the September candle high but is now back to UT#3. This is not a good sign for longs. It is time to watch this closely. 40% of October is still in front of us so just watch ULTA. Don't go making any rash decisions. Decide what your "line in the sand" is. Mine would be UT#3. Or the open of September's candle. Or the low of the August candle. If you sell at your line in the sand, and ULTA bounces, you can always buy it back.
Protect your profits!!
ULTA Gap Fill?!This a trade set up I'm watching for next week, once price enters that purple box we should fly up to about 320 I put the target at 328 because that's where the 0.618 fib extension and second gap are located. This chart is also based on info of insider trading and a cup & handle formation check out the attached chart for more on that.
$ULTA Sell The Rallies, Don't Buy The DipsWe expect weakness to continue in $ULTA.
There was quite a bit of technical damage done last week and we are targeting $184 to $194 on the downside.
Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) went into a freefall last month after a soft Q2 earnings report and warning on a July to August slowdown in color cosmetics sales.
During the earnings call (transcript), Ulta execs stated that there's been a "disruption in the makeup category" that accelerated over the last several weeks. "After several years of very strong performance, growth in the makeup category has been decelerating over the last two years, but recently turned negative," noted Ulta CEO Mary Dillon.
Surveying the scene, Oppenheimer warns that the makeup malaise could last the balance of the year as the comparable sales marks will be tough to match, but sees value for long-term ULTA investors at the current trading price.
As always, trade with caution and use protective stops.
Good luck to all!
Preparing for March 11 earnings week (ULTA)
- Earnings on Thurs after close
- Nearing its ATH at $322 (Nov 2018)
- Cramer is bullish
- 1 year chart uptrend is very good
- The question is if it can break the ATH or not
- What is different now than it was in Nov 2018?... Maybe the market is healthier overall
- It is trading above the VWAP and the SMA is in an uptrend
- I am bullish here and would think about doing a vertical spread at the money $305/$310. This would be a rather conservative strategy, in case there is a pullback at $322. I do not see the stock plummeting very far either, seeing that it's been growing so steadily in the last 1 year.
Another $ULTA earnings, another drop in the stock.$ULTA is priced to perfection for its earnings announcement. Its stock has rebounded from the low $200s to the low $300s.
Time series fibonacci analysis says we are likely to see an inflection point in the stock this week. This coincides with $ULTA's earnings.
Let's see what happens to this stock tomorrow. I believe almost any positive upside surprise is already priced in, and the path of least resistance from these elevated price levels is down.
Zooming out to the monthly time frame, we also see the formation of a double top, deteriorating technicals (RSI, MACD, money flow).
I'll be watching the retail sales numbers that will be released soon closely for any indications as to which way this may go.
ULTA update: watching for the FOMO bulls' next moveThis educational screencast is I hope useful in showing how price action can be assessed from various perspectives. It is now pretty late in the game to short ULTA. See ULTA - Journey South ? (from 20th Nov 2018).
I expect FOMO bulls to rush into ULTA, fighting for a few crumbs! LOL. That expectation is based only on human psychology. Make no mistake, it is psychology that works at the tips of the markets.
See also what happened to FOMO Bulls in NVIDIA .
I re-emphasise that I have no need of working out where price is going to go. I'm using a probability model instead of a 'predictive' model. Hence - no targets, only controlled acceptable losses.
ULTA - journey south?ULTA had the last stand, amongst global markets heading south. But today ULTA was thrown off track. I've been stalking ULTA from 2016. Two years? No problem. Why? Because it was a risky one to go long for the last two years - and I didn't have the financial muscle to take it on. But in the last couple few days I saw a weakening of momentum, and made that judgement call.
In the screencast I show why I took a short entry position. I say that common sense in markets is possible but one has to have the experience to make a sound common sense decision.