Trading Block: Earnings!

• Monday - Alphabet earnings after close today

Earnings Flash Poll - $GOOGL is on deck. With $GOOGL around $993 the ATM Straddle is pricing in a 4% move. Are you a buyer or a seller?

• Buy it - 4% is cheap
• Sell it: 4% is expensive
• 4% is just right
• I'm holding out for $AMZN

More earnings!

• Tuesday - GM, McD, AT&T, Chipolte, AMD
• Wednesday - FB, Coca-Cola, Boeing
• Thursday - Amazon, Intel, UPS, Southwest
• Friday - ExxonMobil, AA

Odd Block: Puts trade in Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (SIRI) and size ratio vertical in Scientific Games Corp. (SGMS).

Mail Block: Listener questions and comments

• Question from Alberto - How does this earnings straddle thing work again? What does that tell me?
• Question from Richard - Dear Option Luminaries, It has been a while years since I have written in (the last time I wrote in Alex was still one of the hosts)! Are there any trades that if you did not have a to pay brokerage fees would be excellent types of trades?  I recently have been given the opportunity to trade options and equities for a near zero trading costs for about a year. I had in the past found some multi-leg spreads or underlyings with a really low prices unworkable because the trading costs made the potential gains or expected value too low. Thank you for your time and for the great shows you consistently point out! Uncle Mike after that 12 days of Christmas options parody from 2015 I think you should be given a "license to inflict umbrage" for at least a decade!
• Question from Louis Winthrope III - What are best options trades for the upcoming earning release for Twitter?

Around the Block/This Week in the Market

• Jul 25: Consumer Confidence
• Jul 26: New Home Sales, FOMC Meeting
• Jul 27: Jobless Claims, Durable Goods
• Jul 28: GDP, Consumer Sentiment