Trade Alert – (SPY) August 13, 2025 – STOP LOSS – SELL

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) – STOP LOSS

Sell the S&P 500 (SPY) August 2025 $645-$650 in-the-money vertical bear put debit spread at $4.00 or best

 

Closing Trade

8-13-2025

expiration date: August 15, 2025

Portfolio weighting: 10% weighting

Number of Contracts = 25 contracts

You can blame Apple (AAPL) for killing off this trade.

Their surprise out-of-the-blue exemption on 25% Indian tariffs constitutes a genuine black swan and took the shares up a massive $33 or 16% in days. Apple is the largest component in the S&P 500 and has an inordinate impact on the Index.

Since I have massive performance this year to protect, and there are only two days and $1.78 to the nearest $645 strike price, I have no choice but to stop out here. As a rigid no-prisoners risk control method, I always stop out of a spread when the stock prices cross the first strike price. This has not happened in 18 trades.

This is my first loss since May 20. This has been 18 consecutive profitable trades since then.

Therefore, I am selling the S&P 500 (SPY) August 2025 $645-$650 in-the-money vertical bear put debit spread at $4.00 or best.

DO NOT USE MARKET ORDERS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Simply enter your limit order, wait five minutes, and if you don’t get done, cancel your order and lower your offer 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 $4.00, $3.90, $3.80, and $3.70. You should get done on some or all of these.

This was a bet that the S&P 500 (SPY) would not trade above $645 in 8 trading days.

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

Sell 25 August 2025 (SPY) $650 puts at……………………………..…$7.00

Buy to cover short 25 August 2025 (SPY) $645 puts at…………..$3.00

Net Proceeds:………………………….………………………………………..$4.00

Loss: $4.50 – $4.00 = -$0.50

(25 X 100 X -$0.50) = $1,250

 

 

 

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.