Over the last few days, shares in the Utilities SPDR ETF (XLU) have been moving higher and eclipsing our strike price associated with our XLU September 15, 2017 $52 calls (XLU170915C00052000) on the Tematica Options+ Select List. This has sent the XLU calls vastly higher and they are currently trading at 1.60 vs. the 0.85 entry point.

• Given our concerns with the overall market, we are going to lock in some gains by selling half the XLU September 15, 2017 $52 calls (XLU170915C00052000) at market today, while keeping the other half intact.
• As we do this, we will boost our stop loss on the remaining calls to 1.30, which will lock in a profit of more than 50 percent.

We’ve also seen shares of AXT Inc. (AXTI) gap up following a solid quarterly earnings report last week and a bullish outlook for the back half of 2017. No surprise, given its products are key building blocks in a number of wireless and other telecommunication products that are a key part of our Connected Society investing theme. As AXT shares have climbed, our AXT Inc. (AXTI) November 17, 2017 calls (AXTI171117C00007500) have soared as well and are now trading at 1.70 vs. our 0.55 entry point.

• We’ve trimmed the position back last week and today we are going to sell another half of the remaining AXT Inc. (AXTI) November 17, 2017 calls (AXTI171117C00007500) at market.
• Much like our XLU trade above, as we do this we are boosting our stop loss to 1.30 from 0.55, which will secure a profit of more than 130 percent on the remaining AXT calls. 

As a quick reminder, this week we’ll be coming at you on Wednesday with the weekly issue of Tematica Options+, that’s a day earlier than normal, as I will be traveling to Singapore to speak at a conference over the weekend.