Wheeeee, what a ride!
As you can see from the chart, we got a nice round-trip on the Russell in the last two sessions but it smelled a little like BS to us so we shorted into the close and picked up a nice winner (back to 1,182 for a $300 per contract gain) already this morning (see our Live, Pre-Market Member Chat Room) – and the Egg McMuffins are paid for.
We also got a near round-trip on the Shanghai, with the Chinese index popping back 3% this morning but, fortunately, we made the call to take 1/2 of our FXI puts off the table yesterday at $1.60 – up 80% from our Monday pick. If you don't like making 80% in 24-hours, DO NOT SUBSCRIBE HERE! How's that for reverse psychology? 
If you are futures-challenged and looking for a good hedge, TZA is the ultra-short ETF that tracks the Russell and our logic on this trade idea would be that the Russell is unlikely to pop over 1,200 without pulling back and, if they do, it's an easy place to stop out with a small loss. That means you can take a position with the Jan $12/14 bull call spread at 0.70 and sell the Jan $12 puts for 0.45 for net 0.25 on the $2 spread that's 0.85 in the money at $12.85 this morning.
That trade gives you a 700% upside on cash if the Russell even flinches lower and your worst-case if the Russell goes higher is you end up owning TZA at net $12.25, still 0.60 lower than it is this morning. That's how easy it is to take a hedged position. And you don't have to sell TZA – that's aggressive. You could instead sell puts on a stock you REALLY want to own if it gets cheaper, like FCX Jan $25 puts at $1.30, selling 5 of those for $650 lets you buy 10 of the spreads for $700 and gives you $4,900 of downside protection – not bad, right?
FCX was a new Top Trade Alert Yesterday. We reviewed our first few Top Trades back on Thanskgiving and it's almost time for another update. I see that our Nov 3rd Top Trade Alert was an early short on EWJ, where we took 10 of the Dec $12 puts for 0.25 ($250) in the $25,000 Portfolio and 40 of them ($1,000) for the Short-Term Portfolio. Those puts closed yesterday at 0.55, up 120% in 5 weeks!
