“I guess these crystals aren’t diamonds.”

I’m hanging out with my sister’s family for Labor Day weekend.

This morning her oldest spent some play time in the backyard and discovered some white, crystal rocks. He promptly ran inside to share his find with everyone.

“Wow! Look at this cool crystal! ... I wonder if it’s a diamond?”

😆

Running back out to look for more, he came in a few minutes later with two more. And with some backup rocks safely in hand, he could test them to see if they were, indeed, diamonds.

So he threw them against other rocks.

Admittedly, not the safest approach, but effective.

Alas, they broke against a harder rock, proving that they were merely cool crystals.

I guess we have to give up on the dream of opening up a diamond mine in the backyard and just stick with trading, haha!

Although, to be fair, trading my system right now is feeling a bit like finding diamonds every week. After all, I get to sell Options, collect premium, and wait for them to expire worthless or roll them for even more premium.

It’s a pretty cool job.

Better than sticking money in a savings account, in my opinion. In fact, I got rid of my savings account a while ago in favor of trading (at some point I will probably open a new savings account, but that’s a problem for ‘Future Ricky’).

Okay, well, on to today’s headlines... 

Stocks were set to pull back from a record-setting run that saw the S&P 500 cross the 6,500 mark for the first time.

Yahoo Finance

Why it matters …

From the article…

“A key Fed-watched measure of inflation rose as expected in July, new government data showed Friday. The "core" Personal Consumption Expenditures index, closely studied by the central bank, rose 0.3% on a monthly basis and 2.9% on an annual basis. Both numbers matched economist expectations.”

Basically, folks are still spending money as expected. This may help make the case for not lowering interest rates, but it is a weak argument. The markets are typically down on the last Friday of the month, so expecting a red day is reasonable regardless of the consumption data.

Comments: Markets are down a bit. This is normal on the last Friday of the month as stated above.  Also, a long weekend is in store so volume will be lighter.

It’s Friday, so roll as necessary to avoid assignment.

Here’s an idea for 1.43% return on risk for next Friday’s expiration...