| Hey Traders, Andrew here – it’s time for our weekly “1 stock I love, 1 stock I hate” analysis. Ahead of our Ticker Highlight Show every Monday at 10 a.m. ET, the Option Pit trading team gathers their favorite and least favorite stocks of the week. Then during our live show, Mark Sebastian uses his cheap options scanner to find an easy, directional options trade for one of these stocks – and we give it away for FREE. On Monday, we entered a trade in Block Inc (Ticker: XYZ), and I’m still riding it. I had the XYZ calls up around 25% early but since it has pulled back to the entry price. XYZ has some of the cheapest options around for a name connected to Bitcoin. You can view the trade in our free portfolio here. If you don’t miss out on next week’s trade, be sure to add it to your calendar here! Anyway, here are my picks for the week. My Short Pick: XOM This week I am going to oil. While I am long term bullish energy, I think the Iran/Israel conflict sets up for a pullback in oil’s price. This is only a short term correction. All the implied volatilities started to drop on Wednesday, so the demand for options faded as the prospect for prolonged Middle East Conflict faded.
12 month XOM chart with 30 day historical (blue) and implied (red) volatility Realized volatility is pretty low so I can see Exxon Mobil Corp (Ticker: XOM) just treading water here to lower and break below $110. My Long Pick: INTC The stock that I think has room to run is Intel Corp (Ticker: INTC). One is the foundry business building chips in the USA and 2 INTC is a profitable company again. Granted, they missed the AI revolution and making the right chips and Nvidia Inc (Ticker: NVDA) now has 3x the revenue of INTC and 30x the market capitalization.
12 month INTC chart with 30 day historical (blue) and implied (red) volatility The stock bottoms around $20 and bounces. The current Option Fingerprint has massive short term option buying. A pop to the mid-20s is not out of the questions and option premiums are running around one-year lows. It does make for a low risk, high reward setup. Be sure to join us Monday at 10 AM ET to see if my picks turn into a free trade opportunity! Add the Ticker Highlight Show to your calendar here. To your Trading Success, | 