SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY)

Some recent index changes are putting in some better companies into the US indexes and this could benefit index ETFs. SH-N you could hold if the market fails to break August highs.

(A Top Pick July 19/12. Position expired worthless. Loss of 100%.) Bear Call Spread. Selling $140 September Calls and Buying the $145 September Calls.

The original ETF. It is almost as big as RY and BNS combined. Any other ETF trying to track the S&P is secondary to this one. If you have an investment horizon of more than 3 years you should be in stocks.

Short? He is still long here so the market has done nothing bad yet. He took half his position off on Friday. If it breaks the trend line (retracing back to it) then buy a ‘bear’ ETF on the S&P, rather than short this one. We need to see improvement in the economy to see this go up for any other reason than zero interest rates.

Buy Feb $143 Calls / Sell Feb $143 Puts. This is a straddle. Betting market will move up or down due to the fiscal cliff.

Doesn’t actually own this one, but owns the subsectors and they are all outperforming this one and starting to show positive seasonality.

Iron condor options strategy? These are just 2 Spreads. You have a Bear Call Spread on the top end and a Bull Put Spread on the bottom end and you are really trying to frame a trading range for the underlying security. If the market stays within that trading range, you profit. This limits your risk. Very complicated strategy. Expensive with 4 commissions in and 4 commissions out. (See Top Picks.)

Buy March 141 Straddle at $12.68 with a Call at $6 and a Put at $6.68. This will profit if the market moves significantly one way or the other and he would take a hard look at actively managing this straddle after you put it on, because the straddles are relatively cheap right now and there are ways to actively manage this.

(A Top Pick Dec 21/11. Down 20.4%.) This was a straddle on S&P 500 ETF. This is a non-directional trade that goes up or down but you need the market to move more significantly than the $25 you paid for it. However, the Call is up and if you are holding it, you should sell the Call and just hold onto the Put until December.