Monday handed you a gift that might be overlooked. The Nasdaq jumped about 3%. The AI names led it. Micron ripped roughly 11%, Marvell about 10%, Western Digital around 16%, AMD near 7% in the latest session. If you own this stuff, your account looks great. But here’s the part nobody is saying out loud. That rip just made the cheapest insurance of the month. And the window to buy it closes Wednesday at 2:00pm ET. That is when the Fed speaks. The next morning, a quarterly expiration hits the tape. Two big events, back to back. The market is calm right now because everyone “knows” the Fed holds. Calm is exactly when protection is cheap. So no, this is not a sell-everything note. It is a protect-the-gains note. Keep the Shares. Buy the Insurance.There’s no reason to sell winners right now. But putting a hedge on them before Wednesday is smart. The Fed wraps its two-day meeting Wednesday. It almost certainly leaves rates alone. Markets put the odds near 98%. That is the trap. A near-certain hold sounds boring and safe, so people stop paying attention. The risk isn’t the rate. The risk is the “dot plot,” the Fed’s own map of where rates go next. And the risk is the tone of the new chair running their first meeting. That is the part the market hasn’t priced. The story already shifted from “how many cuts” toward “could they even hike.” A single hawkish line can swing a hot tape fast. Then Thursday brings triple witching. That is not “some options expiring.” It is the big quarterly event. Three things expire at the same moment: stock options, stock-index options, and stock-index futures. It normally lands the third Friday. This June it’s Thursday the 18th, because Friday is Juneteenth and the market is closed. When that much expires at once, dealer and options flows turn mechanical. They can shove prices around for reasons that have nothing to do with your companies. Fed Wednesday. Witching Thursday. A compressed window where the tape moves on plumbing, not fundamentals. Now the nuance that makes this smart instead of scared. The hot inflation print everyone fears was an energy story. May headline CPI ran about 4.2% year over year, the highest since 2023. But core actually cooled. And energy just broke the other way. The US-Iran peace deal knocked crude down roughly 5%. That quietly eases the very pressure the Fed was reacting to. So the setup leans constructive. That is exactly why you hold, and don’t dump. There are real reasons not to run, either. No major tech bellwether reports this week. So macro owns the tape, not company news. And the catalysts sit just past the noise. Marvell joins the S&P 500 on June 22, which forces index funds to buy it. Micron reports earnings June 24. Sell now and you hand away next week’s setup to dodge two days of mechanical chop. So here’s the move. Keep the shares. Buy a short-dated put on your biggest position. Or put on a collar: sell a call above the market to help pay for a put below it. That is the desk’s whole options philosophy in one trade. Options supplement a position; they don’t replace it. You risk a defined premium, not the full value of your stock. Risk less to protect more. And understand what a hedge is. A collar is not a bearish bet. It keeps your upside while capping the downside through the event. You stay long the AI trade. You just stop letting two calendar days decide your quarter. The counter-beat, honestly: a hedge costs money, and if the Fed is friendly and the tape rips, you’ll wish you hadn’t paid for it. That is the tradeoff with any insurance. In 22 years around options, the desk’s read is simple. Go into a known event on a hot, emotional tape, and a defined-risk hedge beats panic-selling your best names every time. You don’t insure the house because it’ll burn. You insure it because that’s how smart investors protect their wealth. What to Watch
About This Journal: Every entry documents what really happens at my desk — the losses, wins, and everything between — from an ex-Wall Street trader who’s been in the markets for 22 years. Trading Alliance -- Every alert I send, every research report I write, real-time. Group Mentorship -- I’ll teach you how to trade. The real way. Josh Belanger's results are not typical and are not a guarantee of your success. Josh is an experienced investor and your results will vary depending on education, work experience, and background. Josh does not personally participate in every investment alert he provides. Due to sensitivity of financial information, we do not know or track the typical results of our students. Josh’ strategies may not always be accurate, and his investments may not always be profitable. They could result in a loss of an entire investment. We cannot guarantee that you will make money or that you will be successful if you employ his trading strategies specifically or generally. Consequently, your results may significantly vary from his. We do not give investment, tax, or other professional advice. Reference to specific securities should not be construed as a recommendation to buy, sell or hold that security. Specific securities are mentioned for informational purposes only. All investments involve risk, and the past performance of a security, industry, sector, market, financial product, investment strategy, or individual’s investment does not guarantee future results or returns. Investors are fully responsible for any investment decisions they make. Such decisions should be based solely on an evaluation of their financial circumstances, investment objectives, risk tolerance, and liquidity needs.
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