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Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for October 6th. Well, it really wasn’t that long ago when the U.S. stock market was in dire straits, unemployment was in double digits, and millions of homes were under water in the United States, not literally, but figuratively, and millions of homes were completely vacant. Basically, giving the keys back to the bank and saying, ‘you take it.’ Several years later, after something called quantitative easing, we have unemployment at 5%; we have the stock market making new highs practically every day and, the only trouble right now with the housing market right now in the United States is there aren’t enough houses to sell. How much of this can be attributed to quantitative easing I’m really not sure but, what’s been announced recently is the rollback of quantitative easing – actually selling back the bonds that we’ve been buying here in the United States which drove interest rates down to zero. With all the uncertainty around th

Michael: Hello, everybody. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com here with your monthly podcast for September 22nd, 2017. I’m here with head trader, James Cordier. James, welcome to the show. James: Thank you very much, Michael. Always looking forward to them. Michael: Boy, we had kind of a quiet summer and then, all of a sudden, in September a lot of news stories breaking and we saw a lot of volatility start to come into the commodities markets, at least in some commodities, not so much in stocks. James, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Tell us what’s going on. James: Michael, that’s a really good point you make. Often, they call them the dog days of summer just for that reason. A lot of investors and traders alike are kind of taking off June, July, and August. As we went from August to September, a whole lot has been hitting the wire. We have Kim Jong Un lighting off his rockets, yet again. We have interesting things happening in Washington D.C. lately, and there’s always a lot of talk a

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for September 19th. Well, as the 3rd quarter of 2017 starts coming to a close, and we start looking at the 4th quarter, believe it or not, are we happy with our performance so far in 2017? I can absolutely say yes; however, with 3 full months left to go, we are certainly going to try and add to that and make 2017 a very good year to remember. A lot going on in the market now, of course, Kim Jong Un is stealing all the headlines by lighting off his rockets yet again. The Republican President is making deals with Democrats right now – quite interesting. Normalization of interest rates, not only in the United States but also in Europe, looks like it’s just around the corner. If you’re ever going to raise interest rates, let’s do it while the stock market is at all-time highs. Certainly, causing as little flutter to the economy and market as possible, let’s normalize interest rates and get that over with. I think that’d be a very go

Michael: Hello, everyone. This is Michael Gross from OptionSellers.com here with your August edition of the Option Seller Podcast and Radio Show. James, welcome to the show this month. James: Hello, Michael. Glad to be here and always fun to do. Michael: We find ourselves here in the middle of summer and, of course, summer weather often times can take headlines in the agricultural commodities. That’s what we’re going to talk about this month. We have several things going on in some of our favorite agricultural markets. In the Northern Hemisphere, of course, we have growing seasons for crops, such as corn, soybeans, and wheat. Down in the Southern Hemisphere, we have winter time, which is actually an active time for some of the crops they grow down there because you have crops like coffee and some of the other countries, cocoa, that aren’t planted every year. There’s trees or bushes that tend to bloom every year, so winter can often be a time to keep an eye on those, as well. James, maybe to start off here

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for August 4th. Recently, my wife and I were driving through Tampa and we were driving past the Tampa Port Authority. Christa says to me, “Look at all the cars.” I looked to my left and I saw the largest car lot of my life. All cars with the exact same emblem on the front, the only difference was the colors of the car. They were sitting looking for a home. It looked like a sea of automobiles waiting for the car dealer to possibly call them and say that they needed them. 30 days later, those cars are still there. I noticed that again today… Interesting. Over the past week, automobile sales came out approximately 15% below what they were in this same period last year. Automobile inventories were approximately 40% higher than where they’re supposed to be during a healthy U.S. economy. Practically every barometer of the U.S. economy right now is showing either signs of stagnation or great weakness. It’s quite interesting… you have t

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for July 21st. For those of our clients in Dubai, Australia, New Zealand, France, and in South America who may not be familiar with the movie Trading Places, I apologize in advance. I’ve seen the movie probably 50 times and it always seems to turn out about the same way at the end. The Duke brothers are trying to corner the orange juice market. Supposedly, they have the crop report in advance and they were hoping for it to show that cold temperatures in Florida reduced the crop, which would then move prices higher. Similar things happen every July and August. Many investors in the United States and elsewhere bid up the price of coffee with the idea that cold temperatures in Brazil will reduce the crop there, which then, of course, would propel prices higher. Many years ago, over a decade ago, we did have cold temperatures in Southern Brazil that did cut production that year and prices did jump dramatically. As a matter of fact,

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for July 5th. It’s so interesting; practically none of our clients have ever traded commodities. They don’t have commodity accounts, nor have they had commodity accounts in the past, and yet they all saw fit to read our book, understand short options on commodities, and read some of our materials - enough to get them to open an account and sell options on gold, silver, coffee, and soybeans. It’s certainly an investment that you’re not going to hear discussions about when you’re out to dinner or at a barbeque with friends. Options on commodities certainly is a new idea to many investors; but when you think about it, commodities like crude oil, gold, silver, and coffee, they’ve been around for a long time and will always be around for a long time. I get in front of this camera every 2 weeks and discuss opportunities in these different markets and selling options, you know, 50% out-of-the-money, how opportune strangles can be and s

Good afternoon this is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for June 17th. Well this past week Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve did what was very well advertised, and that was raising rates by another 0.25%. Certainly not a big deal. Basically all market analysts and participants were certainly expecting that. What did come out yesterday, I think, however is practically monumental and it's historic. We're all familiar with what happened some 8 or 9 years ago and that was something called QE. "Quantitative Easing", a way to actually drive interest rates down to zero and in some cases, below zero. What happened yesterday was the announcement of finally reducing the Fed's balance sheet, a balance sheet that has ballooned up to $3.5 trillion. The plan is to reduce this balance sheet by some $600 billion a year, over the next few years and bringing it down to the neighborhood of $1 trillion. It's so interesting some several years ago, the discussion of Quantitative Easing and what it was

Michael: Hello everyone. This is Michael Gross and James Cordier of OptionSellers.com. We are here with your July OptionSeller TV Show. James, welcome to the show this month. James: Thank you, Michael. Always glad to be here. Michael: We have a pretty full slate this month, so we’re going to jump right into things. First thing to talk about this month, obviously, is the FED rate hike coming down. It hiked another quarter point in June. So, that’s going to have a different type of effect on commodities. James, I know you talked about it in your weekly video, but maybe just cover that a little bit right now for our viewers and what that might mean for commodities markets. James: Okay. Most recently, interest rates have been, here in the United States, pegged at zero. With this latest quarterly rise we are slightly off of zero- somewhere between half and one percent. The quarter point rise really wasn’t a big surprise, certainly, but what Janet Yellen specified was the rollback of the incredible amount of c

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for May 19th. Well, the VIX has been in the news recently. All-time lows for the stock index barometer that talks about the volatility and, basically, there has been absolutely no fear whatsoever. The stock market, of course, has been rallying to practically new highs nearly each week for the first quarter or two of this year, 2017, and absolutely VIX trading below 10, the lowest level seen in decades. Basically, investors want to simply go long the stock market, and for many reasons – 0% interest rates and really nowhere else to look for any type of return. Well, a lot of ideas -- was the U.S. was the best house in the neighborhood? Always stronger than China, always stronger than Japan, and always stronger than the European nations. That changed dramatically this past week. U.S. auto sales and other parts of the housing market here in the United States are starting to show signs of easing. At the same time in Europe, many nati

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for May 5th. Coming into 2017, we were slightly over-weighted in precious metals, energies, and short coffee. Both seasonal factors and fundamental factors that we’ve been following, especially a slight weakening out of China, has caused these trades to go quite well for portfolios, so far, in the beginning of 2017. We have a bit of a rotation right now. As you look at your accounts and your positions that we send you once a month, you’re going to notice that our precious metal position has now dwindled because of a great decay on options that we were hoping for. Likewise in crude oil and in coffee. The rotation in May and June is going to be more of a short position in grains. Anyone who has followed seasonal factors that we talk about from time to time, the grain market usually rallies in May and June only to look at plentiful supplies in September and October. Argentina and Brazil are in the process of producing record amou

Michael: Hello everyone. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com here with head trader, James Cordier. This is your monthly Option Seller TV Show. James, welcome to the program this month. James: Always a pleasure, Michael. Glad to be here. Michael: We have a lot to talk about this month. We have turmoil in Washington, we have some activity coming back to the VIX, and we have OPEC announcements, so there’s some volatility coming back into a lot of the markets. We’re going to talk to James about how that might affect some of the commodities we’re looking at. James, what’s your take on the new burst of volatility we’ve seen? James: Well, Michael, there is a lot of uncertainty right now. The stock market continues to meander and make new highs practically once a week, it seems, to get a new sell-off, and then buyers come back into the market. The VIX, which has been in the news recently, under 10, which I believe is about a 2 or 3 decade low, basically is saying that there’s no fear amongst investors, con

Michael: Hello, everyone. This is Michael Gross, Director of Research here at OptionSellers.com. I’m here with Head Trader, James Cordier, with your monthly Option Sellers Audio/Video Podcast. James, welcome to the show. James: Thank you, Michael. As always, it’s a pleasure. Michael: we are going to talk a little bit about what’s going on in the world right now and we are going to get into some of our key markets for this month. James, obviously anybody watching the news this month has had quite a bit to look at. We have North Korean missile test, we have Russian bombers flying over the Alaskan Coast, so there’s a lot of geo-political things going on in the world right now. It’s bringing a lot of instability into a lot of people’s thoughts about what may be going on over the next several months in the markets. The VIX and the S&P is up 24% in one week here in April as a result of a lot of this. So, just overall, what’s your take on the month of April as far as the markets go? James: It’s interesting, Micha

Michael: Hello everybody. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com. I’m here with head trader James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with your February Option Seller Radio Show. James, welcome to the show this month. James: Thank you, Michael. As always, enjoy doing these and brining more and more information and educating investors out there to what we do. Michael: Excellent. We’re going to start off this month, to all of you listening, we’re going to answer some common questions we get through the blog or online. One of the most common questions people ask us is “I really like your stuff. Is there a way I can sign up for your course? Do you offer seminars I can attend? If I pay you, can you coach me how to do this?” … or various forms of that question. We get so many of those and we wanted to answer that question today and maybe shed some light on that for you as a listener. James, do you want to go ahead and maybe take a stab at answering that? James: You know, what’s interesting, Michael, we definitely e

Michael: Hello everyone. Welcome to the April edition of the OptionSellers.com Podcast. This podcast will be both video and audio podcast. This is our first video podcast. James, welcome to the podcast. James: Thank you, Michael. Very excited about doing both video and audio – get our mugs out there! Michael: I think first on the agenda this month is what we have going on in the stock market right now. Is this going to be the long awaited correction everybody’s been awaiting or is this just a little blip? What do you think? James: It’s interesting, Michael, the stock market has just been on a historic tear here ever since the election – and with good reason. If we have deregulation and we have a lot of pro-business ideas coming out of Washington along with a U.S. economy that’s doing fairly well right now, a lot of investors have been pouring into the stock market. We had the first shot across the bow, of course, with the healthcare issue being quite a bit of a swing and a miss for Mr. Trump this past we

Good afternoon, this is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for January 13th. Well, welcome to 2017. This January, and most January’s in the past, has kicked off investing by normally looking at some of the most favorable seasonal positions that we get coming down the pipe the entire year. This January, we have three of our most favorite seasonal trades coming up. One is going short wheat. The USDA this past week noted that world-ending stocks for wheat are at all-time highs, making a large rally going against some of our short call positions seem quite unlikely. Coffee supplies in New York are at 10-year highs, making a 60-70% rally against those fundamentals very unlikely, so we will be selling calls in coffee in the coming 30 days. One of the positions that should work very well the next 3-4 months is long soybeans. The seasonality of soybeans to start rallying at the end of January until April and May seem quite high. This year, right now with the protein demands, especially out of

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for February 3rd. Well, with the new Trump Administration finally settling in, and the tweets keep coming, a lot of market participants continue to try and evaluate what exactly that means for both the U.S. economy, the global economy, especially with talks of terrorists and such, and what that could possibly mean to economic growth going forward. Is it going to be a little bit too much or is he going to fine-tune it just right? I know the stock market is certainly making very interesting moves recently. We went to all-time highs since the new Trump presidency, and now we’ve backed off slightly as some of the indications are that maybe every proposal and every idea may not be business friendly. Fortunately, for us, January and February are the 2 months when we are normally trading seasonalities in the commodities that we follow. The propensity for a particular commodity to go up or down is what a seasonal is defined as. During

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for February 17th. From time to time in these updates I would like to talk about our current positions as well as any future opportunities we see coming down the pike. Today will be one of those days. What’s so interesting right now is a bit of a Goldilocks environment that’s starting to take shape. The U.S. economy is starting to lift up. The stock market, of course, is causing and creating a lot of aphoria right now for the U.S. economy over 2017 and beyond. Of course, the stock market seems to make, once again, new highs practically every day with the idea of different types of stimulus; in other words, interest rates remaining low even though we’re looking at probably two rate hikes this year. The stock market, going up like it is, is leading a lot of investors and analysts to think that some of the Trump Administration ideas as far as lowering taxes and such is going to be good for the economy, and likely it will be. The

Michael: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the January 2017 edition of the Option Seller Radio Show. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com here with head trader, James Cordier, of OptionSellers.com. We’re starting off a new year here in the week of the Presidential Inauguration. James, it appears markets may be treading water here, kind of waiting to see how things play out after the Inauguration. What are your thoughts on the markets here as we start the new year? James: Well, Michael, welcome to 2017, as well. Really excited about the next 12 months, and we’ll see what the markets offer us as far as opportunities and looking at landscape as we go forward. The stock market certainly got a shot in the arm after the election, thinking that a Trump presidency is going to be very business friendly. The stock market certainly enjoyed that; however, over the last 3-4 weeks it is simply treading water going sideways, waiting for another idea. As far as “Will this actually help the economy? Will some of the Trump

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for December 22nd and a look into the upcoming New Year. Over the last ten years, I’ve probably spoken to hundreds of new clients and one of the questions I would always receive is, “How are we able to sell options in commodities fifty and sixty and seventy percent out of the money when I can only sell stock options only five percent out of the money. The answer to that question is, “historic volatility in commodities.” 2016 will probably go into the record books as one of those years that has injected more historic volatility into the commodities markets more than probably any year that I can recall. We start with interest rates, then the Brexit. Then, a very surprising election outcome here in the United States. And last but not least is OPEC and non-OPEC nations in the world cutting production of oil for the first time in practically a decade. I would not call all these events this past year black swans, but the great majorit