THE OPTION PREMIUM

Weekly Options Intelligence | May 10, 2026

Last week brought in more new readers and more kind notes than I ever expected, and I want to start by saying thank you. To everyone who has joined, to everyone who emailed with congratulations, to everyone who shared the link with someone in their life, I am genuinely grateful. I price the services fairly so I never have to lean on discounts or fake urgency to bring people in. Word of mouth has built this entire thing, and I’m incredibly proud of that.

So far - the content is the best I have ever seen in the world of trading. And I am already feeling more relaxed when I see the timeframes involved. I will actually be able to do other things during the day besides staying at the screens! - Grant

You are brilliant and offer us all so much teaching with such passion for us to succeed. It's rare to find one's purpose in life and you Andy shine. Keep up your magnificent work! - Ann

Read more testimonials.

A quick word on what is coming. The PMCC course is close to finished, which I am excited about. On the other side of that I will be rolling out YouTube videos, live webinars, and a proper community platform, which is something readers have been asking for and which I think is overdue. More on all of it as the pieces come together.

If this is your first issue, welcome. I'm Andy Crowder. Twenty-four years of professional options trading, and the thing I keep coming back to is this: most people never get a straight answer about how any of it actually works. That's what The Option Premium is here to fix. The newsletter is free and will stay that way. The paid services exist for those who want to go further. What I publish here is written to be honest, clear, and useful. Read what interests you. Send me your questions. I read everything and I respond to everything. And to those of you who have been here week after week and keep sharing this with people you know, thank you. You are the reason this community keeps growing, and I mean that sincerely.

📰 What the Data Said This Week

Six straight winning weeks. The longest streak since 2024 for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Both closed at all-time records on Friday, and the divergence between what the stock market is saying and what consumers are feeling has never been wider.

The jobs report anchored the week. The economy added 115,000 jobs in April, nearly double the 65,000 consensus estimate. Unemployment held at 4.3%. "The economy is so much better than what the doom crew has been saying," Northlight Asset Management's Chris Zaccarelli told CNBC. "There are a lot of headwinds, higher oil prices, sticky inflation and higher-for-longer interest rates, and yet the labor market is adding jobs, GDP is growing and corporate profits are expanding at a rapid pace."

The stock market agreed. The S&P 500 closed Friday at 7,398.93, up 2.3% for the week. The Nasdaq surged 4.5% to 26,247.08, powered by a tech rally that saw the sector gain over 3.27% on Friday alone. The Russell 2000 touched 2,861, approaching its 52-week high. AMD beat estimates ($10.25 billion revenue vs. $9.9 billion expected) and announced an AI cloud partnership with Rackspace. Nvidia reports May 20.

But consumers aren't celebrating. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 48.2, a new record low, down 3.2% from April's prior record and off 7.7% from a year ago. Surging gas prices from the Iran war are the primary driver. Stocks at all-time highs. Consumer confidence at an all-time low. That's the tension.

Oil pulled back from $105 to roughly $95 as hopes for a U.S.-Iran deal surfaced, with reports that Iran sent a response through Pakistani mediators to the latest U.S. draft agreement. But Brent stabilized around $100 and Trump vowed to maintain the naval blockade. JPMorgan warned that the supply buffers insulating the oil market are eroding and expects "increasing signs of demand destruction."

Kevin Warsh's Senate confirmation vote is expected this week, potentially as early as Monday. Powell's term as Chair ends May 15. The transition at the Fed is days away, not weeks.

For premium sellers, the sell zone expanded from 7 to 9 ETFs above 50% IVR. SMH surged back to 75.14% ahead of Nvidia's May 20 report. QQQ crossed 35% IVR (45.48%) for the first time since the sell zone expansion two weeks ago. Index credits on QQQ are compelling again. The tech and semiconductor premiums are the richest on the board, driven by event risk (Nvidia earnings) and momentum that has pushed SMH, QQQ, and XLK all to New Above 80 relative strength. Meanwhile, XLE flipped back to bearish as oil retreated.

This week, Implied Perspective members are managing June cycle positions. Every entry and exit shared in real time and archived.

👉 [See what members are trading this week at theoptionpremium.com →]

📅 The Week Ahead

This may be the most consequential week for the Federal Reserve since the 2008 crisis. Warsh's confirmation vote is expected early in the week. Powell's chairmanship ends Thursday. If Warsh is confirmed, he takes the chair immediately. His first FOMC meeting will be June 16-17 with updated economic projections. Tuesday's CPI is the other headline. With oil still near $95-100, the April reading will tell us whether war-driven inflation is embedding or peaking. Consensus expects CPI to hold near 3.3%. A hotter print tightens the box Warsh inherits. A cooler one gives him room.

📊 Weekly Market Stats

📰 Weekly In-Depth Articles

🗓️ Tuesday: Is Inflation Here to Stay? How to Profit with Poor Man's Covered Calls on Gold

🗓️ Thursday: The One Equation That Rewires How You See Every Options Trade

🗓️ The Research Desk: How to Build a Dividend Aristocrats Portfolio with a Poor Man's Covered Call

📈 Same Exposure. ~70% Less Capital. Monthly Premium Income.

Most investors who want Aristocrat-level income tie up six figures in shares. A PMCC does the same job with a fraction of the capital. Take Walmart at $131: buying 100 shares costs $13,100. A deep ITM LEAPS at the $105 strike costs $3,850. That's 71% less capital for essentially the same directional exposure. Sell a $140 call at 0.28 delta for $2.20 in premium: 5.7% return on the LEAPS in 44 days. Annualized, that's north of 45% on capital versus roughly 14% for the same call against shares. The trade-off is real: LEAPS holders don't collect dividends. But the premium income from monthly call sales routinely runs 2-4% per cycle on capital, often exceeding the dividend yield by a factor of ten. Of the 70 Aristocrats, only about 15 have options markets liquid enough to make a PMCC viable. PG, KO, JNJ, ABBV, MCD, XOM, CVX, and WMT lead the list.

👉 Read the full guide: How to Build a Dividend Aristocrats Portfolio with a PMCC

🎓 Options 101: The Options Contract: What You Are Actually Agreeing To

Every options trade is a contract between two parties. The buyer pays a premium and receives a right. The seller collects the premium and accepts an obligation. Most beginner explanations skip directly to strategy. The contract mechanics get a paragraph, if that.

One standard equity contract controls 100 shares. When you see an option quoted at $2.00, the actual cost is $200. When you collect $1.50 in premium, you're collecting $150. This multiplier applies to everything: the premium, the profit, and the loss. Understanding it before placing a first trade is not optional.

The buyer's maximum loss is the premium paid. The seller's obligation is real and binding: if the buyer exercises, the seller must perform. For a call seller, that means delivering 100 shares at the strike. For a put seller, that means purchasing 100 shares at the strike. At expiration, in-the-money options are exercised automatically. Out-of-the-money options expire worthless. There is no in-between.

Income Foundation members start here. Understanding the contract is what makes every strategy legible.

👉 Read the full article: The Options Contract: What You Are Actually Agreeing To

👉 [See the framework in action at theoptionpremium.com →]

🧠 Mental Capital: The 200-Day Moving Average: Your Portfolio's Emotional Anchor

Every trader eventually faces a moment where the market drops 3% in a week and the impulse to sell everything takes hold. What separates professionals from amateurs in that moment isn't courage. It's having a reference point that tells them whether the pullback is noise or signal.

The 200-day moving average is that reference point. It's the simplest, most widely followed trend indicator in all of investing. When a stock or index is trading above its 200-day MA, the long-term trend is bullish. When it's trading below, the trend is bearish. The rule isn't perfect. Nothing is. But it gives you something far more valuable than accuracy: it gives you discipline. A framework for distinguishing a normal pullback within a healthy uptrend from a genuine regime change that demands action. This week, SPY is 9.5% above its 200-day MA. QQQ is 17.1% above. Both are firmly in uptrend territory. The pullbacks that feel terrifying in the moment are, more often than not, temporary retreats within trends that remain intact. The 200-day MA is the tool that keeps you from selling into a pullback that the trend says you should be buying.

👉 Read the full article: The 200-Day Moving Average

Educational Corner: LEAPS and Correlation: Don't Build Five Positions That Are Really One Trade

📈 One Number. Five Positions. The Math Most LEAPS Traders Never Run.

Most traders don't blow up because they took one bad trade. They blow up because they took the same trade five times and called it a portfolio. AAPL, MSFT, NVDA, QQQ, and XLK: five different tickers, one bet on large-cap technology going up. QQQ versus XLK correlation: 0.99. They are, for portfolio purposes, the same instrument.

The fix is thinking in categories, not tickers. Broad market (SPY). Growth and tech (QQQ, but capped). Rates (TLT, correlation to SPY: -0.02). Inflation hedges (GLD, XLE). Defensives (XLP, XLU). The four-step audit: compute delta dollars per position, treat correlated names as one position when sizing, set bucket limits (no more than 30% in any single category), and stress test the book assuming SPY drops 10% in a month. If every line bleeds, you've found the concentration the ticker list was hiding.

Wealth Without Shares members see this correlation framework applied in real time. Every trade archived.

👉 Read the full article: LEAPS and Correlation: Don't Build Five Positions That Are Really One Trade

👉 [See the framework in action with real trades at theoptionpremium.com →]

📊 The Implied Truth

The Weekly ETF Volatility and Trend Intelligence Report

New here? Read the complete guide on how to read these tables: How to Read the Implied Truth Tables

Where the Probabilities Favor Selling (IVR > 35% and IVP > 50%)

The sell zone expanded from 7 to 9 ETFs above 50% IVR. Semiconductors surged back to the top of the board as AMD beat and Nvidia's May 20 report approaches. QQQ crossed 35% IVR (45.48%), reopening index-level credits. Fifteen ETFs pass the dual filter.

SMH dominates at 75.14% IVR, 98% IVP. AMD's earnings beat and the Nvidia countdown pushed the options market to price enormous implied moves. RS at New Above 80. +DI at 50.50 vs -DI at 6.20. ADX at 40.56 (institutional). This is the richest premium and the strongest trend on the entire watchlist. Bull put spreads.

URA at 63.06% IVR, 51% IVP. Uranium's persistent elevation continues. RS Above 50. ADX at 15.45 (weak). Iron condors.

GDX entered the sell zone at 59.22% IVR, 74% IVP. Gold miners rallied as gold bounced back. RS at New Above 50. +DI at 31.62 vs -DI at 23.19. Bull put spreads with a mild bullish lean.

Also above 50% IVR: XLK 58.63% (84% IVP), XLI 54.45% (88%), XLE 54.52% (72%), XHB 54.36% (77%), XOP 53.83% (73%), RSP 51.29% (61%).

Additional ETFs passing the dual filter: EEM 45.34% (82%), USO 44.56% (84%), QQQ 45.48% (77%), EFA 41.00% (83%), XLV 41.63% (49%), GLD 36.98% (68%).

QQQ crossed 35% IVR at 45.48% with 77% IVP and RS at New Above 80. Index credits on QQQ are compelling for the first time in weeks.

👉 [Get the full ETF and 100+ equity breakdown at theoptionpremium.com →]

Respect the Trend

QQQ, SMH, and XLK all reached New Above 80 RS this week. This is the first time all three have hit that level simultaneously. QQQ's +DI at 52.96 vs -DI at 6.74, a 46-point gap. XLK's +DI at 53.86 vs -DI at 8.78. SMH's ADX at 40.56 is institutional-grade trend strength. The tech/AI trade is accelerating, not fading.

SPY remains firmly bullish. RS Above 70. +DI at 41.98 vs -DI at 14.69. ADX at 24.73, approaching 25 confirmation. Six straight winning weeks.

EEM surged to New Above 70 RS. Emerging markets rallied 5.9% this week as ceasefire hopes and a weaker dollar boosted energy-import-dependent economies. +DI at 39.44 vs -DI at 13.02.

XLE flipped back to bearish. RS Below 50. -DI at 33.40 vs +DI at 18.03. Oil falling from $105 to $95 reversed the bullish trend from last week. Bear call spreads on the rich 54.52% IVR.

The Indexes: QQQ Crossed 35%

QQQ's IVR jumped from 34.87% to 45.48%. It now passes both filters (IVR > 35%, IVP > 50%). RS at New Above 80 with a 46-point +DI/-DI gap. This is the strongest QQQ setup for premium sellers in months: rich IV, confirmed parabolic trend, and Nvidia earnings as the catalyst driving the IVP expansion.

SPY at 26.30%. DIA at 29.52%. Both remain below 35%. The QQQ-specific opportunity is the play.

Breadth: Stable

$MMFI at 63.14 (was 63.72, essentially flat). $MMTH at 56.34 (was 55.90). Both remain above 50 with +DI slightly above -DI. The breadth trend is stable but the +DI/-DI gap is narrowing on $MMTH (24.42 vs 25.81, nearly equal). Leadership is concentrating heavily in tech and AI while the broader market treads water. The rally is real but narrow.

The full Notable Moves section, this week's complete framework, and the 100+ equity volatility breakdown are available in The Implied Perspective.

👉 [Read this week's Implied Perspective at theoptionpremium.com →]

The Bottom Line

Six straight winning weeks. S&P at 7,399. Nasdaq at 26,247. Both records. Jobs beat by nearly double. And yet consumer sentiment is at a record low.

That divergence is the story. The stock market sees AI capex, earnings growth, and a labor market that refuses to break. Consumers see $4.50 gas, 3.3% CPI, and a war that hasn't ended. Both are right. Both can coexist. Until they can't.

For premium sellers: the sell zone expanded from 7 to 9 above 50% IVR. QQQ crossed 35% with New Above 80 RS. SMH is back to 75% ahead of Nvidia. The premiums are rich in tech and semis, driven by event risk and momentum. XLE flipped back to bearish with rich IV. Energy bear calls are back on the table.

Warsh's confirmation vote is expected this week. CPI Tuesday. Powell's last day Thursday. The Fed is about to have a new leader for the first time in over a decade. Size conservatively. Let the math work.

🎓 Coming Soon: PMCC Mastery

The complete implementation system: LEAPS selection, short call management, roll decisions, and every step from first position to sustained income. Followed by Credit Spreads and Wheel Strategy courses.

Reply "PMCC" to [email protected] for early access. Annual all-access members ($1,495/year) receive every course at no extra cost.

A Quick Note

Something I've noticed over the past few weeks: the questions I'm getting are sharper. More specific. More thoughtful.

Someone asked me Thursday about the theta-to-gamma ratio on a 38 DTE iron condor versus a 22 DTE. Another reader emailed about whether the VIX-up/stocks-up divergence we identified two weeks ago had resolved (it has, mostly). A third wanted to know how to stress test a LEAPS book for a 10% drawdown, which is literally the topic of this week's Educational Corner article.

That's not random. That's a community that's learning. And it's the single most rewarding thing I've experienced in 24 years of doing this.

Thank you for every question. Thank you for every email. Thank you for being part of something I'm genuinely proud of.

For those ready to go deeper: The Implied Perspective at $129/month. The Income Foundation at $9. Wealth Without Shares at $49. All three for $149. The $1,495 annual plan includes every course, webinar, and video I build.

See you next Sunday.

🔗 Let's Stay Connected

Have questions, feedback, or just want to say hello? I'd love to hear from you. 📩 Email me anytime at [email protected]

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Thanks again for reading. I hope you found today's insights valuable and worth your time.

Trade Smart. Trade Thoughtfully.

Andy Crowder Founder | Editor-in-Chief | Chief Options Strategist | The Option Premium

The Option Premium is published for educational purposes only and does not constitute personalized investment advice. Options involve risk and are not suitable for all investors. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Always confirm details and manage risk prudently.