Why Exxon Mobil? Hmmm - a solid 6% dividend yield, $1 to $1.5 BILLION in expected earnings from last quarter, a “Sell” price that’s 30% higher than today’s price, and a management team that is adapting this Beast to thrive in a Green Energy World 🌎

I’m giving an overview of our OIL position and my thoughts on when we will exit

Just want to give everyone an expectation that I will be sending out a new Market and Economy audio email by tomorrow and how I will be providing the Quarterly Position Updates - hint… you won’t be listening to the audio version of Ivanhoe!

We are keeping an eye on the Market. We don’t believe that you should make any changes now, but, it feels like we’re close

It’s been awhile since I felt the need to send a Market & Economy update. Technically, the 3rd Quarter Earnings season started last week, but, as you’ll hear, I consider the 2nd week the true measure and start of Earnings Season.
I outline why this Market will continue to climb punctuated by an occasional rest or stumble but it will continue forward until it meets the only foe strong enough to kill it.
The killer is unmasked and their method of execution is identified.

This “class” on Options Trading is longer than most simply because of the complexity of the topic. Not only did I try to share data regarding the amount of options traded but there is an attempt to provide a working example. Hopefully what is usually demonstrated on a chalk board translates verbally/audibly so that you can “see” the word problem in your mind’s chalkboard. We’ll see…

This is the 2nd of 3 and covers two topics:

1.The impact that certain stocks have on an Index (S&P 500, DOW, NASDAQ, etc.) based on the number of shares a stock has in an Index relative to all others and the “weight” it carries – you can compare this to Congress. Don’t look at the S&P 500 as a bunch of companies, but see it as Congress. In Congress, there are 435 representatives, BUT, not every State has equal representation or voting power, right? The Tiny State of Vermont has one (1) Congressional Representative while across the Country, the Grand State of California has fifty-three (53) – whom do you think carries more “weight” when it comes to Voting and Legislative change? Now, turn NextEra Energy (yep, our old friend FP&L) into Vermont and GOOGLE into California and you begin to see how the outcome of the S&P 500 (Congress) can be effected by one company’s stock. The combined “weight” of the top six (6) represent over 25% of the S&P 500.

2.Computers & Algorithms. I’m in awe of the advancements we’ve made from the power of computers. Add in their operating instructions and you can move mountains (Wikipedia: an algorithm is a finite sequence of well-defined, computer-implementable instructions, typically to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation). But, sometimes, left unchecked, this combo can bite the hand that feeds. In September, a textbook example occurred which gives a perfect example.