The Trader’s Holiday Guide 2023: How to Profit From Trading During the Holidays 

People tend to reflect as the year winds down… And 2023 has been a bit of a mixed bag.

Stocks have in many ways recovered from their pandemic lows, and coming into the end of November, they showed signs of a surge…

But at the same time, inflation is still high, house prices remain astronomical, interest rates have been on the rise for years now and the Fed’s future policy remains a mystery.

There’s cause for both optimism and caution as we enter 2024, and there are a few plays you can make at the end of 2023 to put yourself in a good spot to take advantage of every opportunity the rest of 2023 and 2024 bring, regardless of what the market has in store for us…

Step 1: Wait for End-of-Year Pullbacks and Time Your Plays Accordingly

As each year winds down, many stocks experience pullbacks as trading cools down. Stock pullbacks can happen at any time of the year, and the reasons are myriad – anything from lackluster sales to a competitor releasing a new product. But the lower volume of end-of-year trading tends to cause pullbacks reliably.

In those cases, a stock’s short-term direction will be down, but it doesn’t mean the stock is entering a reversal and a long-term downtrend.

That offers us the perfect opportunity to buy in, as the end of one year and the beginning of another often brings a surge in buying and selling activity as people rebalance their portfolios.

If a stock has a pullback at the end of the year, I’m looking for it to have a rebound early in the next, likely later in January or sometime in February.

It’s hard to position ourselves right this second after the run-up we saw at the end of November, but if we do get a pullback in early December, I’ll be looking to load up on longs to hold through the end of 2023 and into 2024.

Stay patient, buy low.

Step 2: Take Advantage of Portfolio Rebalancing to Make Some Tax-Harvest Plays

As I mentioned in Step 1, as one year turns into another, many investors rebalance their portfolios. They take their wins and cut their losses. But not every stock that sees a loss is bad by any stretch of the imagination.

A good stock can very easily have a rough year. And many people will sell some shares to write off the loss on their taxes to lower the capital gains tax on their winners that year. But those people often have every intention of reentering the stock as soon as the year rolls over because it’s a solid play over the long term.

This usually happens in the last week of the year. And around that time, we will be hunting for some of those beaten-down names and buying them as people sell for tax purposes. The prime example here is Peloton (PTON) in 2022.

Throughout 2022, the stock fell from its highs in 2020 and 2021. Some of the worst of the fall came in the last month of the year, as people sold off Peloton to write off their 2022 losses.

But early in 2023, many investors reentered the stock and caused a surge that anyone who bought in the dwindling days of 2022 could have taken advantage of.

Be on the lookout for the next Peloton this December.

Step 3: Beware Low Volume

Now, while both of these steps have to do with capitalizing on stocks seeing declines going into the end of the year, one thing you have to be careful about is volume.

Volume is the number of people buying or selling shares of a given stock at any time. Positive volume means more people are buying, and negative volume means more people are selling.

During the holidays, volume tends to be lower. A lot of people take time off and focus on family. They have other priorities than playing the market.

Lower volume can actually lead to bigger moves. With fewer people trading a stock, it doesn’t take as much pressure to tilt the direction a stock is moving and by how much.

Because of this low volume, stocks are usually considerably more volatile during the holidays. That can easily add a lot of risk to options trading, so you’ll want to factor that into your plays in the next few weeks.

You should gravitate toward more liquid plays and avoid the less liquid ones. Less liquid plays will move even more off a sudden spike in volume.

This can also be a big opportunity. Big moves mean big gains for options traders, after all. Just be careful.

Step 4: Attend Our FREE All-Day Holiday Blitz on Thursday, December 14

Make sure to attend our all-day Holiday Blitz that’s EXCLUSIVE to Profit Surge Trader members like yourself.

Starting at 9 a.m. ET on Thursday, December 14…

I’ll be making my Daily Profits Live stream available to Profit Surge Trader members… FOR FREE!

We’re going to break down charts…

We’re going to find the best opportunities in the market…

And most importantly, we’re going to try to make as much money as we can within a single day…

ALL 100% LIVE FOR AN ENTIRE DAY!

Consider it my gift to you for the holidays!

Heck, we might even find our next 100% winner. 

(We’ve had 25 of them inside Daily Profits Live since we launched in March.) 
 
It’s the perfect opportunity to have one more big day in 2023! 
 
It’s all happening on Thursday, December 14, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET…
 
Inside the normal Profit Surge Trader chat room.

Click here to add it to your calendar.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy (and Profits) 

Who knows what the market or the broader economy will bring in 2024? Nothing has been predictable for traders for a few years now.  

But if you take advantage of the unique opportunities this time of year brings us, you’ll be in a good position to close out 2023 strong and capitalize on whatever 2024 throws at us.  

And no matter what you do in the markets, don’t forget to put your feet up by the fire with a warm drink in hand, surrounded by the people who matter most to you, this holiday season.   

Good trading and happy holidays!