It's expiration week and I'm sure your guess is as good as the market makers in terms of where prices finish on Friday. Let me tell you though, after looking over option prices at the close today, there is a ton of premium that will expire worthless on Friday. Do you have the cojones to sell any options here? Me neither. However, if you are looking to grab a piece of the pie before its gone, cover a short call with a long OTM call. While you have some significant gamma risk heading into expiration, you can still generate decent credits going 10% OTM.

There is very little I like in terms of going long, and plenty out there to short. Some of the Ag names have held up well over the last few days, and you might be able to ride a few financials and tech stocks higher ahead of their earnings announcements, but other than that the best longs are ultrashort ETFs. Sell a call with them at the time of purchase to give you a little wiggle room to the downside, if that's your fancy.

If you are on the sidelines, get into an intra-day chart and start daytrading. There is a lot of room for error when the Dow has an ATR of 550 points, and collapses several hundred points into the close of most trading sessions. "Be the ball."

Peace,

OA