S&P 500 & Russell 2000 at New Highs: Key Levels, Cycle Timing & IWM Options Strategies

Hello and welcome to Ask Slim Live. It is August 14th, 2026. This is a trade planning live session with Slim's analyst team. We have myself, I'm Matt. We have Arvy and Katie with us. We're excited for all our members that are joining us this uh today and we're looking forward to a fun and educational event. All right, as we always share, all the information that we provide on asks.com or any of our media platforms, whether it's on YouTube or on Discord or any of our platforms, is forformational educational purposes only. It should not be construed as investment or trading advice. Today's host, again, we have myself, I'm Matt, we have Arvy, we have Katie. Together, the analyst team brings you over 50 years of combined experience as market participants, technicians, and active traders. When you add in Slim's multiple decades, over 50 years of his experience, this team brings you a combined uh experience that exceeds over 100 years. So, there's a lot for us to share and we really enjoy doing that on a regular basis. All right, today's agenda, we're going to do a member Q&A. So, this is your chance to put symbols into the Q&A. We've got a number of symbols that actually came in in advance. So, we're going to look at those to start, but if there are some additional symbols, and we have time, we'll run through those as well. So, you can put those into the Q&A or into the chat, and we're going to use the Ask Slim uh methodology to put together the technical evidence that you would look to have in place for your trade planning decisions. I'm going to run through uh the new special offer that we have available. So, we'll spend a few minutes on that and then we're going to finish up with our translating technical analysis into option strategy selections. So, Katie and I will review the the technicals on RUT and IWM. And then Katie is going to demonstrate on how to use those technical insights for selecting appropriate option strategies. Okay. So, we're going to move into our premium member 1 through four member chart requests. So, this is your chance again to put a symbol into the Q&A or the chat and we're going to do a review of that symbol using the ask slim methodology. So, Katie, if you want to >> go ahead and get started with a few of them. So, one of our members had um requested monthly and weekly charts of a number of ETFs and then I also just have one equity on here. So, we're going to start with the homebuilders. This is the monthly chart and we have a large dominant cycle here that is 32 bars broken into minor half cycles. Looks like we formed that uh minor cycle trough here. Uh we had the upturn in momentum. Here's our reversal scout right after that uh monthly cycle low formed. Then um we went into a negative momentum. Came down to the long-term 78.6% fib. Then back up. This is um very flat with the reversal scout. It is positive right now, but as you can see, we're really just kind of moving sideways. And um I will switch over to the weekly chart in just a moment. you'll be able to see um that that is happening on that time frame as well. We have a weekly or excuse me a monthly cycle timing window that is due to begin in about a year. So this uh for the present time is just showing some sideways movement. Over on the weekly chart, this is a 27 bar cycle. There's that move up back up to the um weekly 78.6% fib. And this is uh come back down to test the bottom of the support zone here. And now just moving sideways. We still have negative momentum in this time frame. So this isn't really doing anything. Um I don't know if you to me it looks if I was trading options on it, it would be a candidate for something like a strangle. Next we're going to do XLB, which is the material sector ETF. On this one, we have a very large dominant 78 bar cycle. And I've put in minor halves and minor thirds. If you look back at some of these prior cycles, you can see that like this one we it looks like a minor half, but over here it was following minor thirds right there and right there. So sometimes that happens with these long uh monthly cycles. Right now we are approximately approaching the peaking phase of this second minor half cycle. We've got positive momentum. It is curling over a little bit and you can see the wicks on these upper candles. Uh based on positive momentum, I've uh got a projection to go slightly higher. That is the long-term 78.6% fib up here at about 55 and a half. Um, and we've got the support zones here, but uh right now this is also just moving sideways. Over on the weekly chart, you can see that we formed a uh weekly cycle trough here. We had a move up. This is trying to get through this um prior cycle high right here. If it does, then I would be more bullish on it. We'll have to wait and see. This is uh showing it's just one week of uh rejection from that level. So, it's still too early to tell. That is the material sector ETF. Next, we've got the real estate spider real estate ETF. You can see that we are late in this cycle. This is a really bullish cycle. Um but we've got positive momentum and this has still been rising. No sign of any weakness setting in yet. The monthly cycle timing window runs from October of this year through March of next year. So, so far no sign of any retracement in here. On the weekly chart, uh we are entering a weekly cycle timing window coming up and uh that would be between 8:17 and 9:25. We still do have positive momentum in here. So, so far uh these time frames are still looking bullish. The only red flag or cause for concern would be timing, but uh no sign of any weakness yet. XME is the metals and mining ETF. I just revised this uh earlier this month and you can see that we have a possible uh monthly cycle trough that is formed here. There was the uh peak and the switch to negative momentum. Momentum is still negative. We'd like to see that return to positive. Um, and we do still have some time left in this timing window. It goes out through November. So, there is uh some reason for caution. I do have this as a potential uh monthly cycle trough uh denoted here by this uh dotted line for the cycle support. These are the resistance levels. So, um watching to see how it reacts around those levels. As I said, still negative momentum, and we'd like to see that return to positive. Over on the weekly chart, you can see here is our weekly cycle trough that just formed a couple of weeks ago. Moving up in this time frame, we do have the switch to uh positive momentum with the reversal scout trading now right at the top of the resistance zone. Here's the 78.6% fib. We'll see if it can get up there and then a retest of that prior cycle peak. So, this is looking good in this time frame. We'll just have to see how we react around these uh important resistance levels. Now, we're going to switch to some country ETFs. This one is South Korea. You can see that uh we had this uh huge move up to the 761.8% extension of this prior move. So, that is just a gigantic move. We had a retracement down into the top of the support zone at about midcycle. Could possibly put in a midcycle trough in here or a uh I'm sorry, like a a minor cycle, a minor half cycle. Now, it's trying to move back up. We do still have positive momentum. So, we'll see if we can retake this high um and then possibly get a move down into this uh monthly cycle timing window. But that doesn't start for a while. Um, it's due between April of 2027 and September of 2027. So, so far this is looking bullish. Over on the weekly chart, here is again this drop down into the weekly 78.6% bib. No close below it though. Uh, found support there right about uh midcycle and moving back up. So, we would uh consider this uh a pro possible target if we were to put in some levels here right here down to there. Would expect it to maybe get up as high as 204 before making some sort of a retracement down into the support zone between the end of September and the beginning of November. Next one is going to be Taiwan. Here's the monthly chart. As you can see, it looks similar to South Korea. Had this drop. It did not even get to the top of the support zone there. This is stronger. Uh momentum is positive. So, we'll see again if we can retake this high, which isn't too far off. 11278. We're only about $6 away. and uh then I would have to put in some higher extension levels. The timing window for a monthly cycle trough to form again April of 2027 to uh through September of 2027. This is looking bullish. So here is the weekly chart again that uh drop into the support zone uh approximately midcycle and now moving up again. uh if we are able to retake this high, this was a bearish engulfing candlestick. We'll see how it reacts once it gets up to that 112 level. Uh if it is able to hold above that, then I'll have to put in some higher levels. And also, this would be a rising [clears throat] support zone at that time. This timing window is from the uh beginning of October through the middle of November. So, a little bit higher here and then some sort of a retracement into that timing window. Next, you're going to see one that looks quite a bit weaker, and that is this Latin America uh 40 ETF, and we are late in this cycle. This one has negative uh momentum on the monthly time frame with a timing window that is supposed to start in October, and that runs through March of 2027. So, we've got this projected um early here uh to form a trough maybe at the top of this support zone which is at about uh 3167. And let me just check the weekly chart because we might have more than one cycle that's in sync with that. So, this timing window is from 9:21 to 10:30. So, that fits right here in the very beginning of this monthly cycle timing window. this next weekly cycle is due to trough way out in May. So that would be a little bit too late but not outside the realm of possibility. So that's why I've projected here to this uh early part of the timing window on the monthly chart. If we if we have a weekly cycle out here that shows weakness, then we would expect to see that trough form slightly late on the monthly chart. So once this trough comes in, we'll be looking to see if this next cycle shows a lot of strength or if it continues to be weak and that would uh help our projections over on the monthly chart. For now, this had a nice midcycle bounce up into this resistance zone and now failing from that area and moving down. Uh, the last one that I'm going to look at is Eli Lily. Okay, here is the monthly cycle. You can see we got up to this 100% extension level and now just kind of moving sideways. We do have wicks on the top of these candles showing a little bit of selling pressure, but it is still early in the cycle. This trough is not due to form until um more than a year from now. So, expect uh with positive momentum that this could try to get up to this area. That would be about $1,300. Over on the weekly chart, we are trying to form a uh weekly cycle trough. This is bullish even though we do have a negative momentum right now. This could be a slightly early trough here or it could come uh with the next daily cycle that we're in. this uh timing window goes out until mid to late September. So, expecting some kind of trough to form in here and uh if it does not violate this uh support zone and get way down underneath it, then that could set up a nice buying opportunity for the next move higher uh in this time frame as well. Those are the ones that I have unless something else uh RV came through that I should look at. >> I think we're okay. I don't know. Um there was uh uh RUN run or OCR, the Oscar um health insurance company. I don't if you have those. >> No, I don't have those. No, >> that's all right. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Let me just uh just give me one second. Just working on the charts as you're as you're uh talking there. So, let me load some of the charts that we have and then we will just uh go from there. So, >> okay. >> Uh just give me one second. All right. So, that's the first one we were going to look at is the uh US dollar. So, let me pull that one up first. Okay. So, we'll pull up our US dollar grid on the intermediate term in the US dollar. You can see that we formed our low, turned our way back to the upside, stalled out, and are now pulling back. We have a low that is not due for another four weeks or so. So in the interim, the highest odds at this point is that we would form a lower high and then work our way just ever so slightly lower in this larger trading range that we have been really mired in for quite some time. So uh that is something that we have to also always you know always see right are we in a trend? No, obviously we're not. We're firmly inside of that trading range. We moved to the upper end of range, sold off and now looking as a lower high, lower low setup here in the intermediate term time frame. Shortterm uh not a good look here uh as of now. Shortterm you can see we are just holding sideways right there in this range and this is really setting up for one final wave lower uh into the end of the month here. Uh if you draw in your fibs from low to high right there, there's one draw that you could do. You have a 61.8 at right around 9920. Then a 78.6 down there at about 9850. Okay, so that's a look there at the US dollar index. Other one is gold. Gold on the weekly time frame formed its low, right, and then turned its way back up sharply to the upside acting really well. And now we would be looking for a series of higher lows and higher highs uh as it gets into that new rising phase right there. Shortterm, a low that is due towards the end of the month as well. Very, very choppy move. Finally broke out of range after going sideways for a very long period, right? moved out of range and now we are looking for flags to then be actually bought obviously and then turned their way higher. Uh the areas on the downside 4383 to about 4288. One of them was GDXU. Uh GDXU we don't uh do any charts on uh but we have it on GDX. So let me pull that up here. We'll pull this up here. GDX. So GDX uh formed its low right on time. Okay, we actually highlighted this one. It was selling off and then holding and it moved out of range sharply to the upside 9905 up to around 107 here in the GDX weekly time frame is still in play. Shortterm a low that is due 817 to run 826. Watching for one final move down form a low and then curl its way right back up. On the upside, you have a zone from around 8745 to about let's say at worst case somewhere around 83 is is really where this should hold on a move down and then turn its way uh right back up. So really nice action there. Other one I'm going to look at is IBIT for now. Uh this is IBIT on the weekly time frame. Very weak action here. A low that that is due, but again a lower low versus the old low, lower high. so far versus the old high. So clearly not acting well. We're going to be looking for this to actually fail over time here and then roll its way down on the upside. You can see the areas that that we have and a low that's due sometime around the end of the year. Shortterm really choppy action here in IBIT. I was actually um going to be widening this slightly, but a low here that formed and we just saw a little weak uptick and then a move down again. a low that's not due for another few weeks here. So, we're going to be watching if this actually sell off and see if this can finally move down towards those old swing lows in the I bit. Okay, so that's all I have here for now, Matt. >> Okay, so there was a a couple that I'll just take a look at the key levels and and the pattern structures around them. So I think we had CRCL I don't know and then socks. Uh what is that? The SO XL RV. Which one is that one? >> Is that a leverage? >> Um so yeah, it's leverage just like GDXU and >> Okay. No, I know we don't do that. I was just wondering if we cover the >> We can do Yeah, just >> I can I'll take a I'll take a look at uh CRCL first and then >> Okay. >> And we can come back to that one. >> Yeah. So, let me just I know this one this one uh what came out um is it last Julyish or no when was this? Yeah, 2025. So, there's not a ton of monthly data on this one. I'm not sure exactly what uh by pen you were looking for in terms of the outlook period. If you wanted to share that, I could be a little more precise, but I'm just going to go we'll look at the weekly and the daily. You can see that the overall pattern structure for the most part has been in a downtrend uh for you know several months now. The reversal scout just turned up ever so slightly here. So it's trying to put in a base relative to that prior low that occurred back here in February. If we're looking at key levels, the first thing I always look at is which slim ribbon band uh is in play. And right now on the weekly chart, you can see that it's trying to get up and it's testing that second band of the slim ribbon on the weekly. And then the the third band here is around 80. So then I look for a confluence of levels between that. And you can see that there's a 23.6 that comes in between the the 13 uh EMA on the weekly and then the 21. So that's going to be your first key set of uh resistance. Now, if this was just using cycle analysis as an example, if this was a intermediate swing low, then the magnitude of the retracements are usually more meaningful even when you're in a downtrend. So, it's possible that it could consolidate as it gets up into these next resistances here, move around, chop around, and then make an attempt higher to possibly hit that 38.2. This is a very negative uh a bare candle. So the likelihood of it getting through that on a relatively shortterm basis even you know few weeks or a few months on that first test is is a lower probability. It doesn't mean it can't. It's just typically you you you have a lot of reactions off of these bars. And right now I would watch for this first set of resistance from about where we are up to around 80 and see what how it handles that. If it can close above that, that would be positive. And that would suggest that even on a pullback, there's a good chance it could try to come up and retest some of these other highs of these wicks here in these candles and maybe get up to about that 90 uh level. And let me just look at the daily chart, see if there's anything else that stands out. You can see on the SMI that it's used up a lot of its a lot of its energy as it's put in, you know, this this basing period here that it started in end of June [clears throat] and then, you know, turned up and it's really used up a lot of uh the energy so far. So, you would expect to see some chopping around unless there's some some other catalyst that that pushes it through. And then, yeah, that 80 8150ish area is probably as as far as I could see it getting in the short term before some sellers would uh put some pressure on it. So, that's what I'm seeing in CRC. Harvey, if you want to take it back for a minute and then maybe I'll I'll someone asked for ES >> and I can take a look at SPX if that's good enough or I'll check in with them. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I can take over the screen for a second and I'll show the uh VIX. We just have to um go on the site and actually pull pull all these up. So that's why >> you have to make sure we uh get these in as early as as we can. So >> sure. >> Um VIX on the weekly time frame. uh still selling off but a low that's due 831 to around 1012. So uh not acting well for now at least in IVs but there is uh you know an opportunity for this to actually turn up shortly. As you can see here on the daily bar there's a low that's due 810 to around 824. So it uh is I think overall quite reasonable shortly to be looking for a little move up in IVs. uh you know so this is something that we can be watching for closely to happen uh possibly in the next week or so. So that's the look there and uh Matt did did you want to do S&Ps or or what do you want to do? >> Uh if if you have that one and pull it up we can talk about it together. >> Yeah. Yeah. So we can pull up the uh weekly time frame. So um you know there are really two interesting things happening here. uh either this low formed early right here or we still have one more move down. Uh overall, you know, as you're seeing here, we are at new highs. So, there isn't anything happening here that can be said that is, you know, anything all that bearish, right? So, the overall bias is still up on the intermediate term. Matt, if you want to add anything, go ahead. >> Sure. Yeah, I think it's always important that and we talk about this, you start with what like is the highest weight in in terms of your decision-m process because ultimately as as investors or traders, you have to make a decision on either I'm going to enter a position long uh or I'm going to stand aside or I'm going to look to get short. I mean, if you're an options trader, it's a little different, but if you're a directional trader, you have to make a decision. And so then you want to look at your the directional condition of the patterns, the momentum and clearly that the S&P for, you know, going back here to April of 2025 has been in a very powerful uptrend on the weekly chart, the monthly chart. So the odds continue to favor higher highs. Uh then you bring in the cycle analysis to help with timing. And you really can get more granular when you go into the daily chart. But on the weekly chart, you know, this is an extreme either we're going to have an extreme right-hand translation, which means that as you look at where the the cycle lows uh start and then you get into your rising and peaking phases where we end up making the peak. If it's on the right hand of the cycle, then that's our right-hand translation and that's a typically a positive translation, meaning that or it is a positive translation, but then that also means that you're likely to see new highs in that next cycle. So either as Arvy said, either we're looking at an early low that formed, but even when that early low may have formed, the translation was still positive. So the likelihood of once that low formed that you would see a retest of the highs or breakout above those highs was was high. So that that's really the probably the most important thing to keep in perspective always is that the pattern structures and the momentum and using that that cycle timing to help us then with uh either new rising phases or the translations and right now there there's some ambiguity around whether or not we saw the low already. The odds right now would say that we have seen the low, but it's possible that you have uh you know this is get an extreme rally that we have and you could see a a peak put in to get a pullback and there there could be another another cycle that comes into play here. Uh but right now you have a new high that formed again. And if we look at the the fibs that Slim has put in and then I'll draw a couple more here, you know, they continue to point higher. I mean based on the pattern structure. So until you see these breakdowns in pattern structures with closes below meaningful swing lows, you have to look at the odds continuing to favor higher highs is uh as extreme as these patterns uh build off of each other. That's just the way that the uh the patterns play out. So that's what we're seeing right now. That next upside targets running somewhere around 8070. Uh, Slim has one around one there's a monthly 127 here around 8215. So, we're looking at that 8070 all the way up to almost 8,300 as the next upside potential targets unless we were to see something meaningful happen in terms of reversal below these key uh swing lows that formed here through June and July. So, that's what I'm seeing the S&P and Katie maybe you want to pull up the monthly just to wrap it up on S&P if there's any if you have that one. >> Sure. Yeah, of course. >> That way we've we've sort of touched touched on the bigger picture of it. >> Let me just grab it. Okay, let me share my screen. Okay, you should be able to see the monthly chart of SPX and this is again a very large dominant cycle. It is 76 bars broken into minor halves and minor quarter cycles. And let me zoom in so we can see it better. We had our minor half right here. We do have uh the minor quarter cycle trough that is due coming up. We have the timing window is starts in uh December and it runs through May of 2027. So again, it's a monthly chart, so the time periods are quite long. Anywhere in there, we could form some sort of a trough. And it doesn't have to be, you know, a long drawn out process. You can see this was, you know, just a couple months of sideways, one blip down and back up. So we could have something like that or it could be something more sustained like what happened back here uh coming into uh 2022. So right now we have uh made it through this minor 100% fib extension that is taken from this minor half cycle and we are now uh going for this next level up which is the 127.2% 2% of that minor and that is at let's see if I can get it 821328. So we'll see if we can get there. Uh these supports uh I do uh updates on these charts every other week. So I'll be doing another one next week and these supports keep rising. So this is looking quite bullish in this time frame still. Okay, I think that does that cover everything the time we have available. I >> think we hit uh everyone's question. If you didn't get yours answered, you can feel free to send us an email. Happy to happy to answer that. >> Yep. Okay, very good. All right, we're going to move on here into the next segment in just a second. All right, so that'll wrap up our member Q&A chart request segment. We appreciate all the members that do put those in. It's really helpful when you do send them to us in advance of our live events. That way we can get to as many of them as as possible uh and have those charts prepared. Sometimes it's interesting to see us do it live time and on the fly. Uh but if you did send some in and they did not cover get covered today, you can connect with us on Discord as well and in our next live events or uh during RV's office hours, we can also look to um try to cover those if there is space available in them. All right, so up next here is a a brief review of the current special that we have uh with Ask Slim and our memberships. We do have premium memberships at Ask Slim and we have a level four special offer that starts today and what it is is that you'll have an opportunity to get a month of level four for only $99. So that is our top tier membership. You' save $60 and you get access to our market conditions monitor uh pro version along with our notifications desktop app. So this is one of our most powerful tools that we have available is our uh market conditions monitor. I'll show the screen right now. And with the market conditions monitor, you have multiple time frame types that you can look at in terms of your trader style anywhere from intermediate all the way down to intraday. And if you shift it around, if I go to near-term, you'll see in real time that you can sort uh based on the the trade setup condition that you're that you're interested in in terms of either bullish, so what are the most bullish condition uh symbols and then most bearish. So, it's an extremely helpful tool to get a a real time or at a glance feel for directional bias relative to uh our two most uh dependable momentum and trend indicators, reversal scout and slim ribbon. So, we have an algorithm that takes into consideration multiple time frames, both of our studies, reversal scout, slim ribbon, combines them, and then brings you a sum of the evidence in terms of the trade setup condition. And then you see these time prints. So I'm on um Chicago CST time and you'll see it it will post as changes occur which is very helpful. So if you're tracking the markets and you want to see what is what is happening right now in terms of changes in conditions it's a great way to do it. You can go all the way down into even the intraday time frame to do that with this uh tool. So you can flip it from bullish to bearish just like that and you can see which which symbols are most bullish or most bearish. And then what you do is jump over to a chart, take a look at see how it fits into your your uh uh your needs in terms of uh how it looks on the chart and you can just keep going through them and find those that are best fit. So very powerful tool. Also you can set alerts. So if I wanted to set an alert, let's just say let's go down into some that are slightly bullish. So if I wanted to set an alert for Numont, I can go and set it either, let's say, to bullish, then I will get on my desktop notification app. I'll be alerted when those conditions shift and the conditions would push to bullish. I could get a notification. So, you can set up a I think a couple hundred notifications if you are a level four member, maybe even more, and then you will receive a live uh real-time message when those conditions shift like you can see here. So, what I usually do is have this up in one of the corners of my monitors and if I'm setting uh monitoring for changes, I can have that running so that I can see the the feed when changes occur. And then there's another notification that pops up on my desktop as well. So it's very very handy tool if you're an active trader and you do like to monitor uh trends in in momentum conditions the uh MCM is perfect for that. So that is available level four. Also all the charts that you see us working on that we did in the member Q&A the multiple time frame charts whether those are monthly charts even uh our daily weekly 2hour charts. A lot of these grids we've set up here as a team at Ask Slim uh and they're four various trader styles. You know, as we go through the charts, I'm going to go through this I IWM chart here in just a couple minutes. You know, you you will have access to these same setups, the same grids. Also, you get access then to the indicators that are under the hood with these toss grids. So, this is through thinker swim. This is what we use currently uh for and we have for many many many years. uh that is very compatible with the work that we do. So with level four that is we get a lot of questions on on what's the distinct difference between let's say level three and level four. Well, it's the MCM pro version with that desktop app and then the fact that you get access to all of our thinker swim uh grids that we put together with our annotations and our proprietary and custom studies. So that's the huge huge difference that you get and the benefit that you get with that. Then obviously you can connect with us on Discord and you get uh more prior prioritization when it comes to support on on your uh symbol requests. Uh for example, in RV's office hours, you're able to ask for uh an extra symbol uh when there's space. So there's a lot of lot of great perks that come with level four as well. But bottom line is just the power of the tools that you receive and the act direct access uh to our charts. So again, that's our level four special uh that we have going on today. And that includes $60 off. So it's one month. Even if you're a level, whether you're free or even a level three member, if you have an interest in upgrading, we could pause your current membership, you could try it out for a month, see the benefit of it, and then make the decision either to continue with it. And uh that would continue then at the regular rate or or you could cancel obviously not get rebuild and you could go back to your regular membership. So a lot of flexibility uh with that option. But again if you have an interest you can write to me directly or you can go right to the site uh and you can purchase that one month if you're a current member. Probably easier to to write to uh team@ askslim.com. Let them know you want to pause it and you're interested in that special promotion. So that's what we have available here uh as part of our specials that we're running. And this is the current special that we have. All right. So up next, we're going to take a look at how we're how we translate technical analysis into option strategy selection. So Katie and I are going to do a review of IWM uh in terms of the technicals that are currently happening with IWM and the Russell. give you a look at the monthly chart and the weekly chart on the Russell. I'm going to look at uh more the the daily chart here perspective and we'll talk that through and then then we'll uh Katie you will help translate this information these insights these technical insights into option strategy selections. So we've been talking about IWM. We we typically cover this one and it's interesting how I feel like when we have our our live events more often than not IWM is sort of in this position meaning it's it's rallied again and it's making new highs and we're talking about sort of the bullish conditions and that's you know the the theme I think that's really important that we try to educate around here at ask slim is the importance of understanding uh the dominant pattern structures at the larger your time frames, understanding the momentum and believing that that is the highest probability of uh opportunity is being in alignment with the dominant conditions. Uh yeah, you can always catch a reversal, you know, and reversals and and tops and pullbacks are meaningful. they can provide opportunity but over a longer period of time as you can see here with IWM if you do not get out of your your uh your short right if you are trying to catch those peaks and finally you caught this peak here and you don't exit within days it's back and you're at a loss so I mean the key is managing managing obviously managing your risk but starting with you know how am I going to make a decision on my directional bias my position bias you Am I going to be do I want to be long? Do I want to be short? Do I want to be more neutral based? So this segment is more about option strategies. And we talk a lot also about how you can maximize option strategies when you are more directionalists uh or there's a slight lean one direction or another. And IWM has given us some opportunity in that uh in that way as well where we've talked about iron condors and uh but K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K Katie talked about a lot of a lot of these great strategies where you can maximize the technicals with IWM and right now it's the same really the same story with IWM. Uh we're clearly at uh new highs again. Uh so that means we have positive pattern structures. You can see in the weekly momentum's positive again. So I've identified a fib confluence. Okay, this would be the next upside target. Uh I would say here over the next, you know, two to three weeks. Uh if I was to stretch it out, you know, maybe a month, you know, maximum. So we could look at strategies 3 to four weeks out. Uh 30 307 to 311 right now with support, you know, looking at the slim ribbon. And then also I'll just do some fib a quick fib draw to see where the direct supports would come in. So the the supports it should hold, you know, based on the pattern structure around 298 to about 296. So there's where the at this point the key supports are from a short-term perspective and then the upside opportunity runs from about 307 to 311. So you can utilize that. If I step over to the some of the other information here for those of you that are maybe newer with Ask Slim, we have other proprietary and custom studies that we build and they're extremely helpful. And what we get a lot of questions, well, how do you deal with the fact that if something's really trending and it doesn't seem like it's pulling back much as you look at [clears throat] the last couple weeks here in IWM, excuse [clears throat] me, there hasn't been much of a chance, it looks like on a daily chart or a weekly chart for an opportunity to maybe re-enter a position. Well, that's where you have to go down into the lower time frames to to see where those opportunities might exist. And here you can see how if I if I look at I'm going to just uh bring this step this out just a little further so we can look at the SMI. So we have a stochastic momentum index. This is probably the most sensitive of the studies that we have and it's going to be more choppy. But if you're just looking for turns, the SMI really gives you a feel for it. So if I if I'm bullish on IWM and I'm looking for any kind of pullback into strength, the SMI is going to help with giving you a sense of when the turn occurs. So this is in the two-hour chart. So that's I just want to show each one of these. See the SMI that turned turned up here. You can see that the 2hour reversal scout um my reversal scout disappeared on here. Put this back on. Okay, my reversal scout. you can see turned up. So, it's more sensitive than the slim ribbon slightly. And you can see that turned up right here. So, that was another great heads up that this more dominant condition overall because uh IWM's been in this bullish overall condition. We have a turn up in the 2hour and that gave you another heads up. And then you can see here our U MCI. So we have a market condition indicator that goes between uh negative 100 and positive 100. When it gets over 25 that means that it's transition back into a bullish state. And then we also have something that that Slim uh coined the the uh what do we our swing zone. So what happens is you're you're in a bullish condition. I have to back this up a little further because this is a very very powerful indicator as well. and you pull back into what he called the swing zone where you're basically in a neutral condition and it's represented between the plus 25 and negative 25 the MCI here and then it breaks back out out of that swing zone that into if it's back into that prior same direction there's a higher probability of a continuation opportunity. So understanding where you have continuation opportunities when something is trending is very very powerful to you to be able to uh discover and then to be able to bring into your your your trading uh because that tells you that there's a high probability of another move to likely new highs or at least retesting prior highs. So there's a lot what we've built here is very purposeful uh to give us a sense of direction to give us a sense of timing to give us a sense of what's the maturity of the move to give us a sense of do we have a continuation opportunity uh do we have a shift in momentum and you can see here also this is what we call our slim ribbon PO so it monitors whether or not the condition is positive or negative and it's green if it's positive it's red if it's negative and if it's a gray or a blue then it's going to be more choppy neutral didn't stay choppy neutral for very long, but then you can see how it comes into an oversold condition within the strength. So, we're in a period of strength. It stays green. Then, you break out back out of uh the oversold, and that tells you that there's a high probability of a continuation again. So, we have a a continuation indic indicator and that gave us another. So, if you're a short-term, near-term trader, you know, we're looking at from when this signal occurred to now, you're about 7 days out. So, this is great for near-term short-term traders. For those of you who are trying to figure out, well, how do I participate when something's really trending? You've got to go down to a lower time frame, and you have to have tools and indicators that really help to pinpoint those opportunities. There are absolutely no certainties when you're a trader. There's only probabilities and you try to create these probabilities with the tools and we have a lot of those tools. So, that was a little more than normal, but I, you know, it's been um probably a good couple months since our last live event that we we've done together, so I wanted to share some additional pieces. All right, Katie, I'm going to pass it over to you to to go from there. >> All right, let's take a look first at the uh Russell monthly charges to get kind of an overview in terms of context. Okay, this is the monthly chart of the Russell and again we have a very large dominant cycle here that's 76 bars broken into minor half cycles and we're approaching the uh peaking phase of this cycle. That just does not mean that we're expecting a peak. It just means that that's the ideal phase here up at the top of this cycle. As many of you have seen, you can go you can you can just look at this cycle. We peaked way over here on the right hand side. So that's a a translation right-hand translation that's very bullish. So we are uh with positive momentum here uh approaching this minor 161.8% extension. That's just $5 away. 306787 positive momentum we would expect to be able to continue higher there. So we have this dominant 100% extension 315723 that is the next level up. Again I will have to raise these support zones and uh this cycle isn't due to trough until um the fall of uh 2028. So still a long ways to go until we get um this dominant cycle to trough out here. Um that is about it as far as the monthly chart looks bullish. So let's go now to Tasty Trade and we will look at IWM. Okay, here is the uh options chain for IWM. And the first thing that I like to look at and call attention to is this IV rank right here. It's 8.6. that is quite low. So, if you're trying to sell premium um doing something like a short put spread, which is a bullish trade, that is going to affect how much premium you're going to be able to collect. Um and let's go out and demonstrate that. Uh we're talking about 3 to four weeks, correct Matt? >> Yes, that's correct. >> Okay. So 3 weeks would be the September 4th uh expiration cycle and I think we had a support zone right around 296. Correct? >> Yes. >> So if you wanted to just sell a put just do a naked put and this is this brown bar here is the expected move. So basically 296 is right at the expected move for IWM. That will give you a credit collected of $1.79. But of course, this is the problem right here. For many of us, we are not going to want to put up over $5,000 um to do this uh short put. So, in that case, we like to do a shortput spread, which we would buy a further out of the money put in order to define our risk and also to cut down that uh buying power requirement. So, for demonstration purposes, I could go out and do a $5 wide. So, here I would buy this one. Now, look what happens. Your buying power is cut down to $431, but uh you are only collecting 69. And that is going to be a function of the fact that we only have 21 days to expiration. So, there's not a lot of theta left in here. And also the IV rank being so low, it depresses the options prices. So if you wanted to go even further out, let's say you were going to do a $10 wide, we'd go all the way out to 286. Now you're collecting just slightly over a dollar. But it really isn't a good riskreward in terms of um your your max profit and your max loss. You can see those uh those metrics right here on the Tasty Trade platform. So if you were if you really wanted to sell premium in here, you would probably have to sell the other side as well. So that of course adds risk. Um so let's just take a look at the risk graph for the short put spread. And you can see that if I drag this over, there's no risk whatsoever to the upside. So now if we go back to the table view and we sell the other side let's say what was the um target zone Matt >> on the upside you asked. >> Yes >> on the upside around 3 30 307 to 311. >> Okay so let's go to 311 which is slightly inside of the expected move and we could try to do a $10 wide there. So, now we're getting to um a more reasonable credit collected. 258 is what you are um your max profit if it stays in between your short strikes. And then your max loss is the difference between the width of the spreads and the credit collected. So, in this case, uh $742. But in exchange for that higher credit, you have added risk to the upside. And so, you can see that here. And I can um zoom in so you can see it better. Now we do have risk to the upside and the downside whereas with the short put spread we only had risk to the downside. So again that's going to be a function of the fact that this is a low IV and also that uh with only 3 days left there's not a lot of theta left in the out of money options. So instead of that, we could look at a long premium strategy, which is our go-to when we do have an IV rank because those will benefit from a pop in implied volatility because you are buying premium. And so in order to close those trades, you have to sell it. So you want to buy when the price is low and if implied volatility increases, the options prices will become more expensive. And so you'll be selling when the option prices are higher. And of course, they also benefit that the long premium strategies are more directional as opposed to neutral like we just showed with the iron condor. So you do need your correct directional move. So we could do something like a uh debit spread called debit spread. If we just did something right around the M. Let's just try to do 300 310. We want to get as close to one one here with the max profit, max loss as possible. Just wrapping those around. And so you can use these strikes buttons to kind of play with that and see what there. That's perfect. 301 311. It's almost exactly one for one. So let's take a look at the risk graph. you are spending about $500 to buy this debit spread and uh that is going to be your max profit. Your max loss is the difference between uh the width of the spread and the amount that you paid for it. So if you're doing one one it would be about 500 each way. And here is let me zoom uh back in a little bit so you can see that. Now you need to cover this gap. That's what I mean by you need to be correctional uh directionally correct. So, you need to move up and then um as you are getting uh closer to expiration, you can see this orange line will be your uh profit. If you were just to get a move, let's say right here, even at expiration, you wouldn't have um full max profit. You would get, you can see the profit and loss at expiration would be about $300, but that's still better than taking a loss. And down here is your loss zone. And that is uh the amount that you paid for the spread, which is about $500. Could also look at something like the zebra. I know that uh we show that from time to time. >> Sure. >> And the way that we would start with that is by looking I have exttrinsic [clears throat] value loaded into this column right here. You can change what the columns show. For me, I put exttrinsic value here when I'm going to be demonstrating the zebra. $432 is the exttrinsic value in this just out of the money call. So now I'm going to go and look at the in the money calls and I want to find something that's about half of that. So I'm looking for right around 216. So, let's look at this 295 and we're going to buy two of those and then sell one that is me just put this one back down. So, you can see down here I've got two of the long 295 calls and short 135 call. Very little on the exttrinsic value. That's what we want this to be. As close to zero as possible. Now, of course, this is going to cost more. You're going to pay $1,850 for this, but it is going to give you 102 deltas. So, it's going to earn very much like stock and it has uh unlimited profit potential to the upside. So, that is another option that you could consider depending on uh your trading style. If you want to spend more money and have unlimited upside or if you want to kind of balance your riskreward, those are the options that we would look at for this time frame. >> Okay, that was that was great. We took a lot of um a deep look into the various option strategies based on that on that technical review that we did at multiple time frames. So, good work there, Katie. And uh yeah, always [clears throat] very interesting to see it play out as we get into the option the options world here. I think what's also always of interest and insightful is how you determine your your decision around uh the strikes based on the the max profit and max loss. I think that's very helpful to hear that as well, especially for newer option traders, is you try to determine, you know, what is the optimal selection. I mean, what we do first with the with the analysis to help give us a directional cue, right? And then with the the projections to give us a feel for the the upside and the downside, the support, the resistance, the targets. So then when you bring it all together to help pinpoint it based on the risk and reward, I think that's also very important. >> Right. I just uh you gave me an idea. Let me show something that is um probably going to be a little bit less expensive in terms of the debit spread. If you did something like a three 304 long call and like if you wanted to do $10 wide still again this is just for demonstration purposes >> and that we would go out to selling the 314. Now you can see that instead of spending $500, now you're spending $378 and you have a greater max profit potential. And the reason for that is because your profit potential again is the width of the spread minus the debit that you paid. So there has to be with that kind of a gimme where you have a greater profit potential and you're paying less, there also has to be a gotcha. And so if we look at this then you have you you have to cross a greater divide. You have to um make a bigger upside move to get to that amount. Right? So that's the gotcha. You have to you have a lesser probability of making the profit because you are further um out of the money with your short call and just right at the money with your long call. >> Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of uh especially newer option traders and even if you have experience, you know, you get sort of hung up on wanting to maximize that full, you know, time decay and that that can be a challenge when you hit your if you hit your price target earlier on. So Katie, in the in the past, you know, if you have for me, if I have multiple contracts, then you know, you might take a portion of it off, right? And then see how it plays out a little bit more. But I think understanding where your exits are are also very important. And I know a lot of option traders also just look at a percentage of premium collected to also help with their decision-m. So how how do you sort of make that decision as you as you reach price and time uh as as you go with your option? >> A lot of people who do short premium trades, they like to set their [clears throat] um their profit target right around 50% of max profit. That's kind of um something that >> that people have learned to do. Um it depends. For me, I I would probably It depends because if you place a short premium trade and it's, you know, going maybe just sideways and not really doing what you, you know, the very bullish scenario that you had envisioned, I would probably then take it off at 40 to 50% of >> sure >> of max profit. If it's going your way and you know you get this very strong upside move, you placed a bullish trade, then I would leave it >> and take I'm not going to leave it till uh 100% unless I don't it's gone so far to the upside there's no longer a bid on my strikes and I can't, you know, really sell it. But um >> but otherwise I would probably do and have done 70 75% of max profit. Um, also, um, I'm looking at the screen every day and a lot of people who are short premium, they don't want to be looking at the screen every day. So, for me, it's a little bit different. I'm also evaluating um the levels. Oh, this is um has gotten too far to the downside on a bullish trade. It's crossed like let's say a 78.6% bib or it's broken below a cycle low support. I'm certainly going to get out of that right away because technically it's no longer [clears throat] appropriate even if the trade is still, you know, has some amount of time to go. >> Sure. So, >> yep. Very good. That's those are great insights, too. I think those are all things that you you learn and and that we can help sort of pass along if you do have >> Yeah. I mean I think that technically you know if you have to if you are using our analysis to help you with your trades then you would want to ask the question where is the point at which this is >> technically not >> um doing what you are right supporting your hypothesis if you had a bullish hypothesis or bearish uh at what level is it um kind of throwing a caution flag and you would want to use whatever platform you're using maybe to set an alert at those price levels if you're not watching this every day so that you could go back in and take another look and re-evaluate at least. >> Yes. Very good. Yeah. I mean that's how you build uh discipline and and you gain confidence in your ability to make decisions is by uh having having that process in place uh where when your your thesis is no longer validated by the technicals then you make decisions around that and most likely that is exit that position and if it was to reset itself and come back into a tech a technical scenario that makes sense again you you re-evaluate. So I think the most important thing out of that is having a plan having that plan be based if you're a technician on on the technical evidence in front of you so that you can get a sense of time get a sense of your your projections and also the maturity of the move to help with that. That's really what we're trying to I think educate around is those variables that make up the decisions when you then step over to the to the options [clears throat] platform to make that decision. And you got to be thinking about those things and instead of it being more of a random process, you have a very deliberate uh you know purposeful process uh based on the style of uh trading that you do you know as a technician. So okay, I think we covered it really really well uh and we're going to wrap wrap that up and then we're going to finish this off. So if there isn't any other final questions coming in from the members which I don't see any at the at the moment then uh that concludes our segment on translating technical analysis into option strategy selection. So we appreciate uh your your interest in that uh segment. If you do have questions you can reach out to Katie on discord. She is our lead option specialist and if you are a premium member you can connect with all three of the analysts. Uh but when it comes to options, uh Katie's our our lead on on those and we appreciate all of you that joined us today. So, thank you for attending and thanks for all the uh questions. Uh we look forward to having you in another live event in the future. Um reminder that our level four special is starting today. It is only $99 for a full month of level four full access. That is our toss grids, our momentum um market condition monitor with all of our momentum tracking when it comes to reversal scout and slim ribbon. It's $60 off. So, take advantage of that. If you have questions, you can reach out to me. Otherwise, uh great trading and all the best to to the members out there and to the public that are watching us on YouTube. >> Have a great weekend. >> All right, take care everyone.