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Good afternoon, this is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for July 2nd. Well, with the first half of 2018 now in the books we start looking forward to the 3rd and 4th quarter of what has been a very loud economic market. Talks of tariffs in China and interest rates, inflation finally beginning; however, many commodity prices basically in a sideways trading fashion. Who in the world would think that the gold market would make a very strong move earlier this year with North Korea and the United States trying to draw battle lines. Interest rates negative in Europe and, of course, what’s always going on in China and now tariffs. We took a speculative move thinking that commodities, especially precious metals, would probably start languishing and going into a sideways fashion. So far this year, that’s exactly what has happened. Silver has traded in approximately a $1 trading range, gold has traded in approximately $80-$85 trading range for the first 6 months of the year. To watch some of th

TD Ameritrade: Cordier Gives New Oil Price Forecast James Cordier Ben: Welcome back to Futures with Ben Lichtenstein. Traders, with OPEC’s recent decision to increase production, crude has been the focus for many. To help us take a look at the recent price activity in the energy markets and the impact from the recent OPEC decision, traders, we’ve got James Cordier, the President and Founder of OptionSellers.com, joining us this morning. James, welcome to Futures with Ben Lichtenstein. Crude rallied on the news but no follow through. Does this point to the decision having already been priced into the market? For the most part, was this move expected? James: Ben, it’s really interesting, the movement in crude oil after the announcement. I think what OPEC and, of course, plus Russia was trying to do was give a soft landing. I think they’re very familiar with the fact that oil prices can’t continue to escalate as many U.S. economies, as well as in China and Europe, are slowing. We have PMI in Russia and both Ch

July 2018 Podcast James Cordier and Michael Gross Michael: Hello everybody. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com. I am here for your July Podcast. This month’s podcast will be in audio format. I’m here with head trader James Cordier. James, welcome to the show. James: Thank you very much, Michael. Always happy. Michael: Great. The topic of this month’s podcast is Fast Cash from Selling Options in Over-Bought or Over-Sold Markets. James, as you and I know, we’re not really in the business of looking for fast cash, but we’re more in the business of long-term investments. Every once in a while, when you’re selling options, there comes certain opportunities where there might be a place to sell the option and you see that time decay in just the first 30-60 days. Often times that can be when markets get to an extreme, like some markets we’re seeing now. Wouldn’t you agree with that? James: Michael, it’s interesting, we are very long-term investors. When we’re looking at seasonal positions or headlines tha

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for June 1st. Well, lo and behold, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and Fox Business are, once again, talking about Greek bonds, Italian bonds, and Spanish debt. Once again, Europe is smack dab in the middle of the radar screen. It’s so interesting that after practically 10 years of quantitative easing through the Euro zone, their economies still are struggling to get their heads above water. Some nations still have negative interest rates. Here we are, looking at some of the German economic numbers, consumer confidence is falling dramatically, PMIs throughout all the nations in Europe are doing basically a swan dive at a time where you would think of 8 or 9 years of quantitative easing they would really be forging ahead. It doesn’t seem to be the case. That could be the reason we’ve had $80 crude oil and, of course, all of Europe needs to import energy from other nations. $80 oil, of course, is quite a tax on the consumer and, of course, in

Ben Lichtenstein: We’ve got a real treat here for you this morning, traders. We’ve got the founder and head trader of OptionSellers.com. Traders, we’ve got James Cordier with us this morning. James, welcome to Futures with Lichtenstein & Hincks. It’s a pleasure to have you on the show. I want to dive right into it. When we’re talking futures versus options I kind of think of it as futures for me are kind of easy versus options. It’s sort of like driving a VW versus flying a Cessna. Talk to us about some of the benefits of trading options and why they’re appealing to you, considering what we’re seeing here in the energy markets as of recent. James: You know, I think that’s a great question. So often, people talk about options and they kind of go like this. I understand they are puts and calls, but I think the gentleman you had on just a moment ago is just a great example as to why selling options can be a good idea for mainstream investors. The gentleman prior to me was talking about trading in currencies an

Michael: Hello everyone and welcome to your June edition of the Option Seller Podcast. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com. I’m here with head trader James Cordier. James, a lot of talk this month about bull market in commodities. It’s been getting a lot of media attention, obviously crude oil has been leading the charge, but what are your thoughts on that? Are we in a bull market right now or is it just speculation? James: You know, most often, Michael, at the 3rd and 4th and 5th year of an expansion economically is usually when prices of commodities start going up. There’s usually a glut of commodities during a recession. As years go by, a lot of the excess commodities are then purchased and consumed, and usually that is when you start normally getting higher prices. I do believe we’re in a bull market in commodities. It is lead by energies, which of course was pretty much facilitated through OPEC cuts in production, but let’s face it, practically everything comes from a barrel of oil. Whether it’s

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for May 5th. Well, we are starting to receive some very interesting economic data just recently. Not so much here in the United States, but definitely in the EU. Both German and Great Britain numbers recently are really showing some signs of slowing. It’s very interesting that with quantitative easing still in place throughout the European Union we have slowing already in some of the main economies, namely Germany. Here in the United States we still do have a fairly robust recovery developing. While there are some economic numbers here showing that it’s not taking off to a great extent, it’s still on firm footing. This has created a much stronger U.S. Dollar just recently. Which has brought a lot of commodity prices back into check. Earlier this year, we were having fears of the U.S. Dollar falling in value and investors rushing into precious metals, gold, silver, platinum, and the like, and as the U.S. Dollar now becom

Michael: Hello everybody. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com. I’m here with head trader James Cordier. We are here for your monthly May video podcast from OptionSellers.com. James, welcome to the monthly show. James: Thank you, Michael. Can you believe we’re going into May already? Michael: It sure went fast. This last month here we saw some key developments in the markets. We have a lot of tensions between China and the U.S. over trade, and then we’re, lately, looking at 10-year treasuries going over 3%. A lot of people are wondering how this may affect commodities. What’s your take on that? James: Well, the trade wars that are supposedly about to take place, I think, are simply negotiation. President Trump mentioned many times going into the election that he was going to do “the art of the deal” and get us some more fair playing field, especially with China. Certainly the deficit that many goes out to China and doesn’t come back is something that he’s going to work on and, I believe, it’s more ne

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for April 20th. Well, a lot in the news lately concerning tariffs and a possible trade war with the likes of China, of all countries, the second largest economy in the world. The Trump administration, I think, is basically playing a game of chicken and getting them to lower tariffs in their country and getting more of a fair trade platform. I think everyone is pretty much in favor of that. We’ve had a lot of questions recently… What would a trade tariff mean to some of the positions that we hold in commodities? Wouldn’t that be bearish for commodity prices? Good question. Over the last several weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about it and, primarily, soybeans are one of the target commodities that a lot of people are discussing. A tariff against soybeans and putting a premium on them would probably be negative to prices here in the United States and probably neutral to bullish in countries like Argentina and Brazil. O

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for March 30th. Well, when everyone first opened their account and we had a new account call, the two of us, three things were always discussed, and that is fundamental analysis that we do at our company. We are trying to analyze and discover commodities that are underpriced. Of course, in that case, what we would do is sell put premium. In cases of finding commodities that are overpriced, we are going to sell call premium, but the most important discovery of all is identifying markets that are fairly valued. That is truly our favorite positioning for adding premium and return to your account. Two weeks ago, we spoke about Goldilocks environment in commodity option selling and let me describe a little bit more what that is because we have identified and now have extremely high premium in three or four of those markets. Gold, for instance, we have a situation in gold that it will probably be well supported because of financial ac

Michael: Hello everyone. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com here with head trader James Cordier here for your April Option Sellers Video Podcast. Well, James, we didn’t see any abatement in the volatility in the stock market this month. In fact, Fed chairman Jerome Powell last week coming out, maybe spooking investors, talking about asset prices and maybe even financial markets being overvalued here… a little ghost of 2007. What do you think is going on here? James: Michael, it’s interesting... for the first time since quantitative easing was first announced practically a decade ago, investors and money managers now actually will have an option of not just pouring money into long stocks but fixed income is going to now be some of the talk. The tenure is approaching 3%. With what Jerome Powell said this past week, we will be reaching 3%, possibly 3.25 and 3.5 coming up over the next 6-12 months. With that in place, does the stock market have now still a free ride to the upside? Investors are going to

Good afternoon, this is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for March 16. Well, in reading the Wall Street Journal this past week, and maybe some of you have read the same article that I was reading, it was talking about the end of Goldilocks. They were referring to interest rates creeping up towards 3% on the 10 year. Basically, they’re forcing investors and money managers to consider some fixed income. Goldilocks, of course, was interest rates at basically 0. They’re only real investment idea was to go along with the stock market. And, of course, US stocks and stocks abroad have done extremely well over the last several years. And now, with the idea of fixed income becoming parts of certain portfolios, the stock market, while it still may climb in the coming year or two, will likely have to do it on its own accord – not just basically a free ride, which in case it probably has had them in the last year or two. Going forward, commodity option buyers love uncertainty. In our thoughts goin

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for March 2nd. For those viewers today who have read The Complete Guide To Option Selling, possibly Chapter 10, which describes the credit spread, our favorite form of positioning accounts in short options and commodities, we describe it as the Maserati of all option positioning. Basically, the credit spread allows you to add premium to the account and have a safety measure of having one long position versus possibly three or four short sales. Basically, what the long position does is it babysits the position until later on the market decays. We normally buy back the position and then we offset our one long position getting some of the premium that we purchased it for back and put into the account. Basically, what this does is it smooths out the equity curve in times of high volatility. The high volatility sometimes scares people but what that does is it allows us to sell options much further out in time and much further ou

Michael: Hello everybody. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com here with head trader James Cordier. We’re here with your March OptionSellers.com video podcast. James, as we head in to March here, what’s on everyone’s mind is the obviously the big development we had here in February. Big stock sell-off, it’s on everyone’s mind right now… stock investors are busy brushing themselves off, wondering what’s next. Over here in commodities, we didn’t really see a lot of movement in the markets themselves, but we had some developments in the option and option volatility. Why don’t we start off this month by maybe just talking a little bit about what happened in stocks themselves. James: Michael, it’s interesting, a couple of years ago we had BREXIT. We had Switzerland leaving the European Union, we also had the election outcome a year and a half ago. All these events didn’t really change fundamentals on a long-term basis, but what they did do is they injected a lot of volatility. The 3,000 point drop in the Do

Michael: Hello everyone. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com. I’m here with head trader James Cordier. Welcome to your first OptionSellers.com Podcast of 2018. You’ll notice we are doing this in video format this year and we’re hoping we can use some video accompaniments to help you understand some of the concepts we’re talking about. We still will be doing some audios throughout the year, but we hope you’ll like the new format. Here we are in 2018. Stock markets are raging. Global economies are doing pretty well right now. So, we have a lot of global growth going on right now. We’re going to talk about, starting off, what that might mean for commodities. James, maybe you want to lead into that a little bit. What do you see for commodities going on this year? James: Michael, it’s interesting. Over the last several years, quantitative easing, here in the United States and across all of Europe, was thought to eventually make economies stronger. A lot of people were kind of not so hot on that idea, but c

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for February 17th. Well, we look back and we see the Brexit about a year and a half ago. A little over a year ago, we had the surprise results in the U.S. election and now in 2018 in February we had a 3000-point move in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. And of course these three things all have in common is a great influx of volatility into the market. Basically, setting up very large premiums in both puts and calls in stocks and in commodities. While we’re positioned and looking at positions while the volatility index rises like that is not always the most fun, but we are looking at underlining futures prices in crude oil, and in silver, and in gold, and primarily they’re quite close to where they were as the stock market crash began. Of course now the stock market is coming back. It wouldn’t surprise us over the next two to three weeks to see them testing their recent highs yet again. And then we see the volatility ind

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for January 13th. Well, each year at this time, early January, we’re often trying to analyze the landscape of the upcoming year and try to find out what nuances, possibly, will be shaping trading this coming year. We appear to be about to get a helping hand from something that’s been lacking from the commodities markets for several years. That is one word that has been talked about often on the business channels as well as the Wall Street Journal recently, and that’s inflation. Many money managers around the world want to participate in commodities but they really need a little bit of a push from time to time. 2018 looks like they’re going to get that. There are certainly some increases in certain commodity prices already this year. That has a lot of investors looking at the possibility for inflation and getting a hedge around themselves. Often, money managers want to buy precious metals, they want to buy energies and some of th

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for November 10th. Well, so often in the investment world, we’re all looking for the next best buy, or which stock is about to take off, or which piece of real estate has been overlooked and is probably going to be increasing in value. Option selling, especially on commodities, is probably the only investment around where you can identify fair value and actually predict a market to go sideways in price and to prosper from it. Quite often looking for the next big winner in the stock market or in a commodities market is what everyone is scrambling trying to do. In 2017, some of our best investments were identifying fair value markets. We in think in 2018 we probably have a similar list coming up and we’re starting to take positions accordingly. Precious metals have a lot of interest right now. We think that gold and silver are going to be very well supported throughout the remainder of 2017 and probably the beginning of 2018,

Michael: Hello everyone. This is Michael Gross at OptionSellers.com here with your podcast for October 27, 2017. Well, we marked the thirtieth anniversary of the stock market crash of 1987 this month. With stocks hitting new highs every day, a lot of investors are asking that same question – can it happen again. Some people say no, some people say yes but, an interesting prospect comes into play here with the news on tax reform. Will tax reform get passed? How will that affect the stock market? [I’m] here with James Cordier our head trader. James, welcome to the show. James: Thank you every much, Michael. Good afternoon to you. Michael: James, what’s your take on this. Everybody’s building up to tax reform – how it could affect stocks, if it does or doesn’t go through. Do you have a viewpoint on this right now? James: Michael, the discussion about tax reform is certainly extremely business-friendly. Practically all facets of the U.S. economy would likely benefit from this and of course bringing

Michael: Hello, everyone. This is Michael Gross at OptionSellers.com. We are here with your monthly podcast for August 25th, 2017. I’m here with James Cordier. James, welcome to the show. James: Thank you, Michael. I’m always glad to be here and share our knowledge and wisdom. Michael: Excellent. Well, we are here in the last week of August and we are heading into Labor Day weekend and right around the corner is, of course, September. A lot of people come back from vacation, a lot of traders come back into the fold, and often times we find out where we really stand in a lot of markets that may have drifted one way or the other during the summer. Right now, as we look at stocks, kind of off a little bit. From the beginning of August we’re down, although up a little bit early in the week here at time of recording. We’ve had a little push downwards and, James, I know you addressed this in your bi-monthly address to clients on video, but do you want to talk a little bit about what might be going on right now in