Daily candlestick scanner

Every trading book has a chapter on candlestick patterns. A Hammer after a selloff means the bulls are stepping in. A Bearish Engulfing at the top of a run means the party is over. The pictures are convincing, and the stories behind them make sense. But do they actually predict anything? Our daily candlestick scanner has been detecting these patterns every evening, so we stored three years of prices and every pattern the scanner found, then checked what each stock did next. ...

A covered call that pays $1.50 on a $100 stock sounds like 1.5%. A cash-secured put that pays $2.00 on a $95 strike sounds like 2.1%. But one expires in 30 days and the other in 45, so which one is actually the better use of your capital? Annualizing the return puts every trade on the same clock so you can compare them. It also makes it easy to fool yourself, which is why this guide covers both the math and its limits. ...

Most options advice is about picking the trade. The question that decides whether you are still trading in a year is how big to make it. Two traders can take the identical setup; one risks 2% of their account and shrugs off a loss, and the other risks 25% and has to start over. This guide gives you a repeatable way to answer “how many contracts?” before you click buy. ...

The wheel is an income strategy built from two simpler ones you may already know: the cash-secured put and the covered call. You sell options on a stock you would be happy to own, collect premium either way, and let the stock be assigned to you or called away as the cycle turns. It is popular because every step is a plain trade and the rules fit on an index card. It is also easy to run badly, usually by wheeling a stock you did not actually want to hold. ...

I have been looking at ThetaGang, an open-source trading bot designed for options traders who want to automate parts of the wheel strategy and other premium-selling workflows. The project describes itself as a configurable bot that started with a basic wheel implementation and has expanded into broader portfolio automation, including cash management, share rebalancing, VIX call hedging, exchange-hours controls, and position-management rules. This is not a “set it and forget it” money machine. It is a tool for turning a written trading plan into repeatable actions. That distinction matters because short-options strategies can still lose money quickly in volatile or strongly trending markets. ...

Markets are starting to debate a provocative macro thesis: Scott Bessent at Treasury and Kevin Warsh at the Federal Reserve are signaling that they may tolerate pain in the bond market and weakness in the U.S. dollar if that is the price of keeping nominal equities supported. That does not mean a Plaza Accord 2.0 is guaranteed. It does not mean policymakers will stand at a podium and announce, “We are devaluing the dollar.” Modern currency regimes rarely work that cleanly. But it does mean investors should take seriously the possibility that policy reaction functions are changing. If fiscal policy remains equity-friendly, if monetary policy communicates less fear of asset-price inflation, and if Treasury policy prioritizes financing flexibility over bondholder comfort, the market can do the devaluation work by itself. ...

The Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) is at the center of an old argument: is this just a healthy pullback after a big tech rally, or the start of a real rotation out of megacap growth? The latest warning sign is technical. QQQ fell 1.12% on unusually heavy turnover of nearly 40 million shares, confirming a bearish diamond top reversal pattern that had been flagged by Barchart. The move also left the tech-heavy ETF on pace for its worst July in 22 years, even as the broader tape looked more balanced: the Dow gained 0.46% and the S&P 500 finished slightly higher. ...

Cash-secured puts and covered calls are the two most common income-generating options strategies, and traders new to selling premium often ask which one is “better.” The honest answer is that they’re mirror images of the same directional bet. The real question isn’t which strategy is superior, it’s which starting position and which market view you actually have right now. How Each Strategy Is Structured A cash-secured put means selling a put option while setting aside enough cash to buy the stock if you’re assigned. You don’t own the shares yet. You’re being paid a premium for agreeing to buy them at the strike price if the stock falls to (or below) it. See Cash-Secured Put 101 for the full mechanics. ...

If you want to buy a stock below its current price, you have two common tools: place a limit order below the market, or sell a cash-secured put at that price instead. Both are ways of saying “I’ll buy this stock if it comes down to my price.” The difference is what happens to you while you wait, and that difference can be worth real money either way. The Core Difference A limit order to buy sits on the exchange with your broker. It costs nothing to place. If the stock never trades down to your limit price, nothing happens: no gain, no loss, no fee. If it does trade down to (or through) your price, your order fills and you own the shares at that price. ...

Selling a call option obligates you to sell 100 shares at the strike price if the buyer exercises. That obligation is identical whether you own the underlying shares or not, but what happens if you’re wrong is completely different depending on which one you’re doing. Understanding that gap is the whole point of comparing a covered call to a naked call. Covered Call: Defined, Bounded Risk A covered call means you already own 100 shares of the stock (per contract) and sell a call against them. If the stock rallies past your strike, you’re simply selling shares you already own at a price you agreed to in advance. Your “loss” relative to just holding the stock is capped at the difference between the stock’s actual price and your strike, plus the premium you already collected offsetting it. ...