How should you properly insure a stock portfolio?
Most investors default to buying puts — but the reality is that portfolio insurance is far more nuanced. The cost, structure, and implementation all matter. In many cases, the “standard” approach is not the most efficient one.
In this newly posted webinar, Insurance Using Derivatives, we walk through a complete framework for hedging equity exposure, including:
Volatility has increased with the failure once again of $SPX to clearly break out to new all-time highs. It last made a marginal new all-time intraday high on January 28th. SPX continued to probe those highs and then fell back. That established resistance near 7000. At that point, selling accelerated, taking $SPX down to 6780 at the close on Feb 5th, from where it has bounced strongly today.
We’ve begun publishing our full catalogue of recorded webinars on The Option Strategist Substack — and we’ll be adding more in the coming weeks.
These are complete, in-depth strategy sessions taught by me, Lawrence G. McMillan, covering everything from core option mechanics to advanced strategy construction and risk management.
Paid Substack subscribers receive:
We’ve added another full-length educational webinar to The Option Strategist Substack library: Intermarket Spreads.
The January seasonal trade is usually one of our best seasonal trades (right behind the October seasonal). The trade is to buy $SPX at the close of the 18th trading day of the year, and exit at the close of trading four days later. Typically, large fund managers will put money to work at the beginning of the year (hence, the positive seasonality of the January early warning system), and then complete their buying at the end of the month.
This week saw $SPX make new all-time highs once again and even cross above 7,000 for the first time in history. Was that enough to generate a clear upside breakout? No! Normally, when new highs are made especially repeatedly as they have been since November there would be some strong follow-through to the upside. That has not been the case this time around.
We’ve just added a full-length webinar to The Option Strategist Substack: Trading Systems & Other Useful Applications.
This session focuses on rules-based trading systems and practical option applications designed to remove emotion from decision-making and enforce discipline through clearly defined entry, exit, and risk-management rules.
The put-call ratio is one of the most widely followed indicators in options trading — and one of the most misunderstood. When used correctly, it can provide powerful, contrary signals that anticipate turning points in stocks, indices, ETFs, and even futures markets.
In this webinar, we walk through how to properly calculate, interpret, and trade put-call ratios, using real market examples and a disciplined, model-based approach.
Now that January is here, the first of two “classic” January indicators is in place. That is the result of the first five trading days of January. Here are the relevant prices to date:
Date $SPX Closing Price
12/31/25 6845.20
1/8/26 (5th trading day) 6921.46
1/14/26 (9th trading day) 6926.60
1/15/26 (10th trading day) 6944.47
