You will still lose money even if 100% right.....

In the past 3 weeks or so, the market has been virtually doing nothing, fluctuating within a very tight range roughly between 4190 to 4230 for S&P. This is consistent with the Big Money flow, which is large flat for the period.

This must be very frustrating for option traders if they only trade via either calls or puts for one direction. In such a kind of situation,  you can be right 100% on the daily direction of the S&P over the past three weeks and still lose money because the move hasn't been enough to cover the premium decay in the option prices. Indeed, I've heard moans from frustrated traders on both sides (bullish and bearish) who have all lost money trying to trade during the recent choppy action. Fortunately, I'm not one of those losing money in trading options in the past few weeks😇. You can guess that I'm not simply buying calls or puts in betting for the near term direction. Using a little bit more sophisticated option strategies, e.g. virtual option spread or more complicated calendar or diagonal spread, my winning odds have been substantially increased. With such strategies, I can make good money when the market is not moving much or even gain more when I'm a bit wrong😜.  Sounds impossible, right? Sure for those who don't know much about such strategies, it is indeed too much beyond their imagination. Before you accuse me of talking nonsense, better to educate yourself first what I'm talking about😏  

Last Friday S&P just closed a hair below the all-time high it made in early-May. If the bulls care to push it higher there's probably enough fuel to do so. But, there's not enough fuel to sustain a multi-week rally from here. There are just too many technical indicators too close to "overbought" for the market to start a major run higher. And, the VIX is too near its lower Bollinger Band. Sure the market may challenge its all time highs but that move may just be an exhaustive one before a more severe correction in the weeks ahead. For the next week or so, we probably won't see much of moves just like in the past 3-4 weeks. The real fireworks in either direction may come after the FOMC meeting next week (June 16).  I have no crystal ball which major direction the market is going of course, but my bet will be towards the downside due to the various technical indicators as well as the seasonality.