The Do's and Don'ts of Trading Through a Recession

Never in my lifetime could I have imagined an event like this.

Just a few months ago, COVID-19 hadn't even been named. It was simply considered a different strain of the flu. Today, it's a worldwide pandemic that has taken over the globe, eclipsing tragedies and disasters like 9/11 and the financial crisis of 2008.

Based on the numbers coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this pandemic should run its course by the end of July if it continues on its exponential trend.

But that's more than three months away. And already, at its lowest, the market fell 37%, breaking all the wrong kinds of records.

Trading has been halted multiple times. Stocks have seen their worst days in history. People everywhere have lost a ton of money.

Yesterday's bounce was welcome - but we're not in the clear. If the CDC has anything to say about it, we're just getting started. We could be dropped into a recession any day now, and the panic is evident in the up-and-down movement of the market.

The word "recession" is scary. But it's not the end of the world - not even close. In fact, you could come out of it even stronger than you were before.

See, the stock market is typically two to three months ahead of everything else. If the pandemic lasts through July, then I expect the market's bottom to hit by the end of April.

Now, the move higher from there will be slow. It could take until the end of the year before the market begins to rise significantly. But don't wait around - there's a lot you can do until then...

  1. Risk less by using options in place of stocks. At the start of this year, I had about 50% of my money invested in stocks and options. Last month, I bumped my cash position up to 75%. In the last two weeks, I have let options expire, sold off the few long-term holdings I had left over, and am now nearly 90% in cash and 10% in stocks and options.
  2. Find what's going up in a down market. In March, this consisted of bonds, the eurodollar, and gold. In April, I think it's going to be the U.S. dollar, and believe it or not, natural gas.
  3. Exploit volatility. This will continue to be most important now. This means reducing risk with options spreads and getting breakevens closer to the market. Just keep in mind that bid/ask spreads will continue to widen as volatility rises.

You should follow this philosophy... but with one additional caveat...[mmpazkzone name="in-story" network="9794" site="307044" id="137008" type="4"]

How to Make a Short-Term Profit Now

History tends to repeat itself in the stock market. I'm a pattern trader, after all. That's a fact I've made my entire fortune on. And history says that this is far from over...

Back on Oct. 9, 2007, the Dow hit an all-time high, closing at 14,164.53. By March 5, 2009, it had dropped more than 50% to 6,594.44. But this wasn't a straight line down. Lower highs and lower lows took nearly 17 months for this pullback from start to completion.

The worst of the financial crisis was in September and October of 2008. Though we did push lower 90 days following this, these were the two worst months on record as volatility had skyrocketed.

That's two months of chaos.

Fast-forward to today, and we are predictably only halfway through... with possibly the worst yet to come. We could have another 20% to go.

So for the next 30 to 60 days, we should get bearish. That means bearish put spreads on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEArca: SPY), going deep out of the money (OTM), looking for those 9-1 or 10-1 reward-to-risk ratios using April options.

Even if we're wrong on this, we won't lose much - that's the beauty of these low-risk put spreads.

A put spread consists of buying higher-strike puts and selling lower-strike puts simultaneously. The put option you sell helps pay for the put option you buy, thereby lowering the cost of the trade overall. And with volatility at multiyear highs, you want to create low-risk trades.

Take this bearish April put spread, for example. You're selling the $200 put for $7.24 and buying the $220 put for $12.65, bringing your total to just under $5.50, or $550 for control over 100 shares.

This is less than half of the cost of simply buying the OTM put, which would cost over $1,265!

How to Make a Long-Term Profit on the Recovery

Although it may take a while for the market to recover, it will recover. And with this strategy, you can profit when it does.

I'd suggest using LEAPs, short for long-term equity anticipations. Look at that last word for a moment - anticipations. We anticipate that the market will recover - and we want to give ourselves plenty of time to be right.

Basically, a LEAP is just a long-term option with more than nine months to expiration. When it comes to the eventual recovery, this is exactly what we want.

Just like the bearish example above, we want to trade the upside using spreads. But instead of puts, we'll use bull call spreads. And we don't want to use a typical option - we want to use LEAPs to give ourselves plenty of time for the recovery.

A call spread involves buying lower-strike calls and selling higher-strike calls. This is done for lower cost, lower risk, and a lower breakeven.

Here is an example below using 2022 options on the SPY, nearly two years from now.

As you can see, buying the $325 call while selling the $350 call brings your total to just about $3, or $300 for control over 100 shares - a bargain compared to the $750 the long call would run you.

Now, this case study has a 7-1 reward-to-risk ratio. That means if the SPY were to trade back up near its pre-crisis highs, this spread would have a 700% profit potential!

It's impossible to truly know what the future holds right now. A vaccine could be created, or the world could temporarily shut down to eradicate the virus completely.

No matter what happens, know this - we will come out on the other side better for it. Especially if we use the strategies above.

In the meantime, be sure to watch my crisis response webinar on how to trade amid the COVID-19 crisis...

You see, I rarely open the doors to my command center... but today, I'm granting virtual access to explain exactly how the markets have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

I'm going to dig into the market's most crucial areas: stocks, bonds, the dollar, gold, oil... and show you where each sector stands - and where they're headed next. Tune in right here...

Follow Money Morning onFacebook and Twitter.

About the Author

Tom Gentile, options trading specialist for Money Map Press, is widely known as America's No. 1 Pattern Trader thanks to his nearly 30 years of experience spotting lucrative patterns in options trading. Tom has taught over 300,000 traders his option trading secrets in a variety of settings, including seminars and workshops. He's also a bestselling author of eight books and training courses.

Read full bio