The value of The Trading Club Pro tracking portfolio settled at $106,126 as of Thursday, September 17 – up 6.1% since the June 22, 2026, inception date (see the detailed portfolio snapshot below). Based on last Friday’s trade alert, we made the following transaction in our Trading Club tracking account on Monday:
Bought to open one Invesco QQQ Trust (Nasdaq: QQQ) $680 put, expiring October 16, 2026, at $9.06 per share.
In this update, we review the options set to expire today, September 18, and set the stage for our next series of trades to be released next week. As a reminder, the upcoming recommendations will be shorter-duration “interim” trades, expiring in mid-October. Later in the month, we will return to our normal schedule of publishing quarterly trades, as well as a video recording that walks through each position.
Options Expiration Review
Eight options positions in The Trading Club portfolio are scheduled to expire at the close of trading today, including five covered-call positions and three cash-secured put trades. No action is needed, as we plan to hold all positions through the expiration date.
We’ll begin with a review of the covered-call positions, listed below.
Covered Calls Expiring Today
- One Celsius Holdings (Nasdaq: CELH) $35 covered call, covering all 100 shares of our 100-share long position
- Two Figma (NYSE: FIG) $25 covered calls, covering 200 shares of our 300-share long position
- One WaterBridge Infrastructure (NYSE: WBI) $35 covered call, covering all 100 shares of our 100-share long position
- Two Viper Energy (Nasdaq: VNOM) $46 covered calls, covering 200 shares of our 400-share long position
- One WaterBridge Infrastructure (NYSE: WBI) $35 covered call, covering all 100 of our 100-share long position
Based on Thursday’s closing prices, each of the underlying stock prices for these call options are well below the call strike price. As such, these covered calls will likely expire out-of-the-money and become worthless at the close of trading today. In this scenario, we pocket the premiums free and clear, while still retaining the underlying shares, meaning we are then able to repeat a similar trade.
Conversely, if any of the underlying stocks rally and close above the option strike prices today, the options will expire in-the-money. This means our shares will get “called away” and sold at the strike price after the close of trading.
We’re happy with either scenario, and thus no action is needed for these trades.
Next, we’ll review the cash-secured put positions, listed below.
Cash-Secured Puts Expiring Today
- Two Celsius Holdings (Nasdaq: CELH) $30 cash-secured puts, representing a $6,000 capital commitment to purchase 200 shares at $30
- One Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) $175 cash-secured put, representing a $17,500 capital commitment to purchase 100 shares at $175
- One WaterBridge Infrastructure (NYSE: WBI) $30 cash-secured put, representing a $3,000 capital commitment to purchase 100 shares at $30
Based on Thursday’s closing prices, shares of Celsius were well below the put-option strike price, meaning this option will likely expire in-the-money at the close of trading today. In this scenario, our broker will automatically purchase 200 shares of Celsius on our behalf at $30 per share, for a $6,000 purchase commitment.
Alternatively, if Celsius shares rally above the strike price by the close of trading today, the option will expire out-of-the-money, and we pocket the premiums free and clear, while our obligation to purchase shares disappears.
Conversely, shares of Philip Morris and WaterBridge were above their respective put-option strike prices at the close of trading on Thursday. If shares remain at or above these recent prices, the put options will expire out-of-the-money, removing our obligation to purchase shares. Conversely, if shares fall below their option strike prices, we will be on the hook to purchase 100 shares of stock at the option strike price.
In all cases, we have enough available buying power to make good on these purchase commitments. And because we are willing buyers of each of these underlying stocks at the option strike prices, we will simply hold these positions through the expiration date.
Next, we’ll briefly review our plan for Monday’s trades.
Monday’s Game Plan
To set the stage for our overall market outlook and trading plan going forward, we’ll begin by addressing the following subscriber question from The Trading Club Forum:
Today [September 15], Porter published a very worrying post about the national debt situation and rising interest rates. He recommended selling P&C insurance stocks. I know we don’t hold these stocks, but clearly he is very concerned about the market. I am hoping you can provide your thoughts on the state of the market and how you plan to prepare for what seems like an inevitable market fall. Very worrying times ahead for sure and NOT a time to take risks and not have a clear strategy in place in advance. As the Boy Scouts motto says, “Be Prepared,” which sounds smart to me.
Yes, I share the same concerns as Porter regarding the sharp rise in interest rates, along with the global energy supply crisis, on top of the risks associated with the potential unwind of the artificial intelligence (“AI”) boom. We’ve written about these threats in our prior two weekly updates, which you can find here and here. And in response to these risks, we’ve begun aggressively adding defensive positions into the portfolio, including our recent covered-call sales and protective put purchases.
Of course, it’s also worth pointing that Porter included one key caveat with his warning about the threat from higher interest rates. That is, no one – not even God himself – can predict the future path of interest rates. And I would extend that caveat to the broader idea that no one can reliably predict the near-term swings in any market prices. The past week provided yet another reminder of this fact. Energy prices fell despite additional attacks on energy infrastructure. Long-term bond yields fell despite the Federal Reserve hiking overnight interest rates. And technology stocks rallied even as the two leading AI companies warned of an imminent AI-apocalypse and a potential slowdown in large-language-model development.
So, yes, we are mindful of the downside risks in the market. But the flip side is that we can be wrong, or early (which is the same thing), in recognizing and reacting to these risks. And ultimately, it’s up to every individual investor to decide how they will allocate their capital in the face of the potential risks in the market.
As for our approach in The Trading Club, our goal is to strike a balance between both sides of the risk/return equation – a goal we believe is made possible with a prudent options-trading strategy. Right now, that means foregoing upside on a substantial portion of the portfolio in order to harvest consistent options premiums with our covered-call and put-selling strategies. And to reinvest a portion of these premiums into downside hedges in the technology sector, which we believe is most at-risk from an inevitable (but unpredictable) turn in the market cycle.
Finally, we also plan to maintain a focus on stocks that are beaten down and out of favor, where the discounted valuation means the long-term risk of capital impairment is low. But of course, that doesn’t mean that a cheap stock can’t get cheaper, or won’t get swept up in overall market volatility, as we’ve seen across a large number of our holdings recently.
Over a full market cycle, we have confidence that this basic process of buying good stocks on the cheap, harvesting consistent options premiums, and hedging the downside is a winning formula. That confidence comes from having seen this process work in our own investing portfolios, and it’s why we put real money behind this strategy and promised to show you every trade along the way, warts and all.
On Monday, we plan to continue executing our same basic strategy with a series of similar trades to the ones that expired today. We remain bullish on each of the existing holdings in the portfolio. But given the risks we see in the broader market, we will continue playing defense by harvesting consistent options premiums on many of these stocks, and reinvesting a portion of these premiums into additional hedging trades.
Stay tuned for more on Monday, when you can expect to receive the next trade recommendations in your inbox.
Next, we’ll show each position in the portfolio broken down by trade type.
Portfolio Review
The table below shows all current holdings as of the close of trading on Thursday, September 17. Please note that we have recently modified some of our recommended prices.
A few notes on how to read and interpret this portfolio table.
Please pay special attention to the “Action” column, where we specify whether each trade is a “buy” or “sell to open” transaction.
Next, the position size for each trade is equal to the current value of the position, with the exception of the cash-secured puts. In the case of the cash-secured puts, we define the position size as the total value of our future commitment to purchase 100 shares for each contract. This number is calculated as follows:
Position size = number of contracts x 100 x put strike price
We use this number because it accurately reflects our total capital commitment, and thus our total risk exposure on the trade.
For example, in the case of the WaterBridge Infrastructure (NYSE: WBI) $30 puts, the position size equals 2 x 100 x $30 = $6,000. We use this number because it accurately reflects our total capital commitment, and thus our total risk exposure on the trade. It’s commonly referred to as the “notional value” of the trade.
To see the current profit/loss across each open position and other details, please see the live snapshot of our tracking portfolio at the end of this update.
We have compiled a summary overview of the latest quarterly trades released on June 22, which you can find here. Since then, we have recommended the additional trades listed below:
- On July 17, we recommended purchasing shares of Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO), which you can find here
- On July 21, we recommended purchasing shares of Hims & Hers Health (NYSE: HIMS), and we provided the analysis for the company on July 24, which you can find here
As a reminder, we calculate the leverage ratio using the following formula:
Leverage ratio = total long exposure/portfolio equity value
We define total long exposure as the sum of all long positions, including uncovered stocks, covered stocks, cash-secured puts, and option purchases. In the current portfolio, as of Wednesday’s close, these values were as follows (note: we show each value in our portfolio table below):
- Uncovered stocks: $51,969
- Covered stocks: $49,161 (netting out the underlying stock value against the covered-call value)
- Put sales: $29,500 (this “notional value” is the value of stock we’ve committed to purchasing)
- Long options positions: $534
Adding up all of these values gives us $131,164 of total long exposure in our current tracking portfolio. We then divide this number into our account equity of $106,126 to arrive at a 124% leverage ratio – well within our self-prescribed limit of 150%.
If you have any questions or feedback, The Trading Club Forum is the best chance to get a quick response from our team.
Alternatively, you can always email us at mailbag@porterandcompanyresearch.com.
Good investing,
Ross Hendricks
Porter & Co.
The post Trading Club Pro Alert And Update – Week Of September 14, 2026 appeared first on Porter & Co..
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