Hourglass Trader

Week ending August 7, 2026: +$10,138 net profit, +3.38% for the week, +23.76% YTD✅ We finished May at +11.35% YTD. A great June and July pushed that to +20.38%. One week into August, we’ve already added another 3.38% and cleared $71,000 in YTD profit. Pretty insane run. $BFLY, $RR and $MCHP led the week. $XSP was a hedge so I’m not worried about that loss. Only real issue this week was $TTD , but the account still gained five figures. We’re now about 11.7 percentage points ahead of the S&P 500 and 10.6 points ahead of the Nasdaq YTD. We’re sticking with the same sizing and process. A hot streak is when discipline matters most. If we keep executing, August could end up better than either June or July, but it’s important to recognize when to grab your chips and step away for the table a bit. We’re set up with significantly lower risk for next week and starting to lean into some more bearish trades.

Reminder that a stock can drop 70% multiple times

One of the more delusional funds and fund managers that I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch from the sidelines. This also conveniently excludes Jan26 and Dec25 👀

And now $BMBL is being acquired for $1.3B less than a year later. Mission accomplished.

$TTWO quickly dropped 10%+ after we entered. The stock is still sitting below our entry, yet we are profitable. This video illustrates the benefits of option selling and how we’re able to win, even if something pushes against us.

This tweet doesn’t directly address it so I’ll say it: The equal-weight S&P 500 seems very attractive right now. 2000: equal weight beat the S&P by ~10.7%/yr for 5 years. Lost decade was EW +65%, SPX -9%. 1973: from the '74 low, EW won 9 of 10 years. 410% vs 173%.

Quite often we deal with short-term gains in option selling. Today marks the expiry of my first ever long-term capital gain from option selling, thanks to a trade we made 1 year and 6 days ago on $GLXY

This is why fundamental analysis and “knowing what you own” is so important. Anyone with eyes could see that stocks like $WING and $CAVA were destined for something like this. And this isn’t just hindsight - we said it explicitly two years ago.

Been slacking on weekly updates, but August was an incredible month for us. Really healthy outperformance of the S&P as we continue to build our lead over the larger indices. Will have a full writeup coming soon on our blog to dive a little deeper into what's been winning.

$LULU has had a brutal year. But now that it's hovering around $100, it's a good time to evaluate if this is a good entry, and what exactly you're getting when you're investing in the company at this level. Read our analysis for free: hourglasstrader.com/blog/lul…

Great day for $MRNA, but an incredible day for the person that sold $6M worth of the MRNA Dec 2027 40p a week ago 👀

$TPR up nearly 5% today despite the market sliding. We wrote about it this past weekend. Read the analysis for free: hourglasstrader.com/blog/tpr…

“Decent earnings + sell-off” is a combo that is really attractive when looking to sell puts. $TMDX was a great example of that. $TMDX traded down to $68 after earnings as margin pressure and an EPS miss overshadowed 21% revenue growth and a raised full-year outlook. We sold a couple 70p and made a decent profit. By last Friday, the stock had recovered to $88.58, up 15.8% from the August 5 close.

As expected, $SEZL rebounded very nicely after the post-earnings dive and our 115p is on track to safely expire for max profit next week.

On August 7, someone sold 704 $MU 8/10 $870 puts at $18.80, collecting about $1.32 million in premium. The trade size was 5.5 times existing open interest and created an $851.20 breakeven. That was unusually large, short-dated bullish exposure with earnings still more than a month away. $MU closed that day at $877.57. By August 14 it closed at $971.66, a 10.7% move in one week, and the puts expired out of the money. Add it to the long list of unusual put sale trades that have preceded big moves in a stock.

A couple of months ago we wrote that $PL was still expensive in the low $30’s even though it had just pulled back from $50+. It’s a much more interesting stock today in the low $20’s and appears to be stabilizing. Option premiums are ripe for selling as well.

Another green day for $SPY as we head into a historically difficult time in the market. End of summer, heading into midterms, some instability in the Middle East. Good time to start taking some chips off the table and scaling into some more bearish positions 🐻

Big market week ahead. CPI hits Wednesday morning, followed by PPI on Thursday. Some volatile names reporting this week as well. $SMCI and $CRWV report Tuesday, $CSCO follows Wednesday, then $AMAT on Thursday. Full earnings and economic calendar: hourglasstrader.com/calendar

The eventual memory stock capitulation is going to present a generational option selling opportunity

$SEZL fell 35% Friday, from $178 to $118, after a quarter that beat estimates and raised full-year guidance. Cautious 2H commentary caused a sell-off. The guidance raise + sell off combo is always one that catches my eye. Sold an 8/21 115p for $4.50. Great return + breakeven.