GDX is expected to decline toward the $88-$90 zone in the coming weeks, making a bearish options trade attractive.

So, GDX, uh, I talked about gold feeling like it's powering out here. What if I wanted to put on a a a lowrisk trade to the downside over the next little while? Say I thought that um we were going to see a down tick and I'm looking at this chart and I'm saying, okay, you know, the stock is trading at $104.

You can see this over here on the on the left on Mumu. Uh, the prices are here. Um, what if what if I wanted to target a level down here, $88 or $90. What if I expected it to pull back to this kind of centralized centralized area right here where we saw a cluster of data on the way up these gaps kind of paused here.

So I think this would be natural for this to come back down and we might see this over the next couple of weeks.

So if I wanted to put on a trade pretty low risk, how would I do that? Well, one of the things I like to build is diagonals. So let's just see what I can do. I can collect 34 cents by selling the 90 put.

Now we all know what this looks like. If we look at the simulator here, got a max loss of 89,000. Got a max profit of 36 bucks. It's a probability of 91%. Now, this is not the type of trade I want to take on gold.

Gold is way up. Could come down. I'm only making 36 bucks. I'm tying up $9,000 in capital. From a margin perspective, this isn't smart. There's lots of reasons why this trade just isn't the smart trade right now.

Gold is up today, too. So, GDX is up, rather. So, we're um we could we would be more inclined to put a trade on like this, a short put when there was a down day. But I'm not looking for that.

I want to trade something that I can make a substantial return and have a controlled amount of risk.

So, I'm going to go back to the chain and I'm just going to go one week further out and I'm going to look at what the the cost is of buying that same 90 put. Now, remember, I'm I'm buying one for or I'm selling one for 36 cents and this is a week longer, so it's 24 days.

Well, I'm collecting a uh or paying rather around 62 cents. So, on one trade when I sell it, I collect a credit. So, I'm going to get credit for selling the September 11th 90 put and I'm collecting a credit of around 36 cents and then I'm purchasing the September 18th 90 put.

I'm buying that one. And so, net I'm out about 26 bucks. And and that becomes my total risk on this because this is a calendar trade.

And the calendar trades are interesting in that how do they make money? Well, what I want to happen is I want the the stock to go down and I want it to go very very close to that 90 that 90 put.

It doesn't matter if it goes slightly over it or or stays above it, but I want it to be close to that area. So, I want the stock I'm trying to predict where the stock action may be.

And what would happen in this case is that I would be getting close to expiration. And let's just say on September 11th, we're looking at um GDX is trading around 90 bucks. The value of that put is going to be very very little.

But my my put that I have that's a worth money that's still worth money because it still has a week left could be worth a greater value than the 27 cents that I paid for this net trade in general.

It doesn't matter if it goes slightly over it or or stays above it, but I want it to be close to that area.

So, I want the stock I'm trying to predict where the stock action may be. And what would happen in this case is that I would be getting close to expiration. And let's just say on September 11th, we're looking at um GDX is trading around 90 bucks.

The value of that put is going to be very very little. But my my put that I have that's a worth money that's still worth money because it still has a week left could be worth a greater value than the 27 cents that I paid for this net trade in general.

So let's go back and let's just visualize what this looks like. So if we go to the simulator, you can see this is what the profit tent looks like as the stock which is that this bottom number here.

We've got the stock if it was trading at 74, $80, 89, 93, $102. We can see kind of what might happen with this. Now what what could happen is the stock could just stay exactly where it is right now.

You know, $105. Well, with only a week left right now, selling this 90 put, I'm collecting 36 cents. And that's with uh 17 days left. If I only had 7 days left, this would be worth very, very little.

Might be worth like a nickel to sell. So, I can assume that September 18th, if nothing else changes, if the stock was trading at the exact same value that it is today, then I even though I paid 27 cents for this whole trade, I might be able to get back a nickel from or five cents from of selling off this this put that I would be long once the the September 11th put expires.

So, I would let the September 11th short put expire. Once it had expired, I'd be left with the September 18th put. I could sell it off and maybe get 5 cents back or 4 cents back.

But ideally, what I want is for the stock to drop down. Say it drops down to $92. Now, the September 11th uh short put is going to expire as well. But because the September 18th is a week

Now what what could happen is the stock could just stay exactly where it is right now. You know, $105. Well, with only a week left right now, selling this 90 put, I'm collecting 36 cents.

And that's with uh 17 days left. If I only had 7 days left, this would be worth very, very little. Might be worth like a nickel to sell.

So, I can assume that September 18th, if nothing else changes, if the stock was trading at the exact same value that it is today, then I even though I paid 27 cents for this whole trade, I might be able to get back a nickel from or five cents from of selling off this this put that I would be long once the the September 11th put expires.

So, I would let the September 11th short put expire. Once it had expired, I'd be left with the September 18th put. I could sell it off and maybe get 5 cents back or 4 cents back.

But ideally, what I want is for the stock to drop down. Say it drops down to $92. Now, the September 11th uh short put is going to expire as well. But because the September 18th is a week out, and because the stock is trading very very close to the 90, it's going to have considerable value comparatively.

And you can see here that max profit on this uh would be and this doesn't include any IV expansion, but it would be around $200 max profit.

Now, um I would be okay with like tripling or uh quadrupling my return. And remember, this is only a $27 trade. So, for 27 bucks, if I could make $100 profit or $125 profit, this would be could be very, very lucrative.

Now, Mumu makes it very easy for me to kind of adjust these trades, too. I can adjust. I can go one way or the other and I can visualize how much this is. So in this case, I'm increasing my max loss to the downside by by spreading this diagonal out.

And and this is an important concept to understand. As the width increases, then I am increasing the amount of risk to one side. So one of the thing I see traders doing is like putting way too much risk on.

They're like, I'm trying to make 65 bucks. I've got a 92% chance of making money. I get a small credit for this. Uh, but I also have a max loss of 592 bucks and I'm only trying to make $14.

And max credit on here is like 60 bucks. So, it's really kind of a poor risk return ratio if you go too wide.

But, but if we've played these kind of narrow, they become quite lucrative if we can predict that move.

So, if we're in a position where especially like this, we're only paying a penny for this trade. So, if the stock goes up, I'm out a penny. If the stock goes down, it makes 115.

And here's the max loss, $300. So, it only has a 41% probability of profit, but really, it makes money as long as the stock stays above 88 bucks, which means that we could drop substantially from here from 105 down to 88.

So, uh, these diagonals become very easy to set up. Here's another one. 9 cents to to to uh take this potential trade where if the market goes up or stays up really the loss is super super small and if it goes down I can make $145 and my max loss is $215.

Now what one of the things I like to do with these is I like to really kind of ramp ramp it up and use these with short puts in general. So, what I might do is I might just do this 90, right?

Do this 90 calendar and then I might just sell an extra put on here. And by doing that, I get a net credit. And I am taking I'm I'm That does not work very well, does it? I've got like this $9,000 loss.

Max profit 250 bucks. Not it it's 93% probability making money, but not uh not big enough risk return on this in my opinion.

So, uh what what could I do? I could increase the amount of contracts. I could buy some more diagonals here and I can that increase that profit 10. So I've still got max loss of 9,000 by having one more short than the long.

But now my my profit 10, you know, I can make 600 and something dollars on this. I have a little more potential and again my break even is still relatively low.

What I'm doing with that is I'm basically adding these these contracts which I know are costing me money. Um, this is $70 trade, max loss of 9,000. So, if we're to zoom out, you know, there is considerable loss on this.

If we keep them even, then we're we're talking about a max loss of 160 bucks, but a max potential profit of a,000.

And this is why diagonals and calendars can work so well because it would be very easy for this stock to drop down. Now, if I would really wanted to get bullish or bearish rather, all I would do, and it doesn't cost a lot of money here, this is very interesting.

Um, you can just sell a slightly to one side. Like, look what happens if if gold drops below $98. This trade costs $39 uh to to put on per contract. Let's just go back to one contract here each.

Um then this type of trade is a great way to get short because cost me 39 bucks. That's my max risk to the upside and I have this huge profit 10 to the downside where I can make a max profit of 250 bucks.

And if this if gold really sold off then I would still make $50. I would still more than double my money on a on a down move. These are interesting trades.