Methodology: don't predict earnings beforehand — trade the price structure the market creates after the earnings reaction, while remaining elevated option premium is still available. Every setup below is logged as PROPOSED with explicit entry conditions and invalidation levels, so it can be scored as a hit or miss once the week plays out — the same discipline as the Track Record page.
Correction applied: META was not an upside earnings gap. It gapped down ~8% Thursday then recovered 3.3% Friday. It's treated below as a gap-recovery setup, not a gap-support setup — the source material's literal structure was adjusted accordingly.
Week of Aug 3–7, 2026 — Market Backdrop
10-Year Treasury Yield: ~4.74% | 30-Year: ~5.27% — a real threat to richly-valued tech if it keeps climbing
Mon: ISM Manufacturing · Tue: JOLTS · Wed: ADP + ISM Services · Thu: Jobless Claims · Fri: July Jobs Report (8:30am ET)
Rule: close short-premium positions by Thursday, or use the Aug 14 expiry instead of Aug 7 to avoid jobs-report gamma risk.
Ranked Setups
1. AMZN — Bull Put Spread Highest Conviction
Aug 14 expiry: Sell $255P / Buy $245P (short strike below Friday's post-earnings low of ~$259)
Entry: pullback to $262–265 holding above $259, OR break above $273.20 after consolidation
Target: 50–65% of credit | Invalidation: close below $259
Best overall combination of earnings strength, gap support, and momentum.
2. MSFT — Bull Put Spread
Aug 14 expiry: Sell $435P / Buy $425P (lower edge of post-earnings structure)
Entry: pullback holding $445–450, OR break above $467 with successful retest
Target: 50–60% of credit | Invalidation: decisive close below $432
Strong setup but already extended — prefer the pullback entry over chasing.
3. META — Call Butterfly (defined-risk)
Buy $555C / Sell 2× $570C / Buy $585C — targets partial gap fill toward $570–580
Entry: only after META holds above ~$550 AND breaks Friday's high near $558
Invalidation: fails below $539 | Avoid the naked/partial 1×3 ratio variant — defined risk only
Gap-recovery trade, not a premium-selling-under-upside-gap trade. Confirmation-dependent.
4. AAPL — Conditional Put or Call Spread Lowest Conviction
Bullish (after $300 confirmed): Sell $295P / Buy $285P
Bearish (if rejected at $310–315): Sell $320C / Buy $330C
Do not sell an uncovered $300P purely on round-number-support assumption
Treat $300 as a level to observe, not guaranteed support.
Portfolio Construction
Max risk per position: 0.5–1.0% of trading capital | Combined across all four: ≤2–3%
Allocation: one primary (AMZN), one secondary (MSFT), one smaller tactical (META or AAPL, not both — all four are correlated megacap tech exposure)
Prediction Log (for profitability scoring)
| Underlying | Structure | Bias | Status | Outcome |
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Full structured detail (entry conditions, invalidation levels, per-trade IDs) lives in data/shadow_trader_log.json. Once trades are entered/closed this trimester, update that file's status / outcome / realized_pnl fields and this table reflects it automatically — same measurement discipline as the main Track Record page.