Trade Alert – (SPY) February 17, 2026 – BUY

When John identifies a strategic exit point, he will send you an alert with specific trade information on what security to sell, when to sell it, and at what price. Most often, it will be to TAKE PROFITS, but, on rare occasions, it will be to exercise a STOP LOSS at a predetermined price to adhere to strict risk management discipline.

 

Trade Alert – (SPY) – BUY

Buy the S&P 500 (SPY) March 2026 $710-$720 in-the-money vertical bear put debit spread at $9.00 or best

 

Opening Trade

2-17-2026

expiration date: March 20, 2026

Portfolio weighting: 10% weighting

Number of Contracts = 12 contracts

This is a bet that the stock market does not hit a new all-time high in the next 24 trading days, a period of time when markets usually fall. The second half of February is often among the worst two trading weeks of the year, once all of the New Year allocations have been spent.

Sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?

The themes that long supported this market are dropping like flies. AI, once considered a supercharger for the economy, now threatens to put much of it out of business: banking, finance management, entertainment, and even trucking.

It is a great time to add such a trade with the Volatility Index ($VIX) up above $22. That gives us an extra payoff on the options trade.

The economy is in a mediocre state at best, growing at a miserable 1.5% annual rate with zero job creation. The real inflation rate is 3.0% and climbing, once you back in the two months when data were not collected during the government shutdown and marked at zero. International trade has collapsed. A bond market crash is imminent, thanks to the $11 trillion the Treasury has to borrow or refi this year.

It doesn’t want you to pay an excess premium for stocks.

Therefore, I am buying the S&P 500 (SPY) March 2026 $710-$720 in-the-money vertical bear put debit spread at $9.00 or best.

DO NOT USE MARKET ORDERS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Do not pay more than $9.40, or you will be chasing

Simply enter your limit order, wait five minutes, and if you don’t get done, cancel your order and increase your bid by 10 cents with a second order.

If you don’t want to sit in front of a screen all day or live in a foreign time zone when the US stock market is closed, such as Australia, or don’t want to sit in front of a screen all day, simply enter a spread of Good-Until-Cancelled orders overnight, like $9.00, $9.10, $9.20, and $9.30. You should get done on some or all of these.

This is a bet that the S&P 500 (SPY) will not trade above $710 in 24 trading days.

Here are the specific trades you need to execute this position:

Buy 12 March 2026 (SPY) $720 puts at…………………$43.00

Sell short 12 March 2026 (SPY) $710 puts at…………$34.00

Net Cost:………………………….…………………………………$9.00

Potential Profit: $10.00 – $9.00 = $1.00

(12 X 100 X $1.00) = $1,200 or 11.11% in 24 trading days

 

 

 

 

If you are uncertain about how to execute an options spread, please watch my training video by clicking here.

The best execution can be had by placing your bid for the entire spread in the middle market and waiting for the market to come to you. The difference between the bid and the offer on these deep-in-the-money spread trades can be enormous.

Don’t execute the legs individually, or you will end up losing much of your profit. Spread pricing can be very volatile on expiration months farther out.

Keep in mind that these are ballpark prices at best. After the alerts go out, prices can be all over the map.