The Strategies Don't Care If It's A Bull Run.

SPY just cracked $700. Nasdaq at new all-time highs. My feed is flooded with the same question — "Is 7000 the start of a new bull run?"

I get it. If you've been sitting in cash since the correction, watching the market rip back without you, that question feels urgent. If you bought the dip at $630 and you're up 10% in two weeks, you want to know if you should hold or take profit. And if you're still underwater on tech names from the March drawdown, you're wondering whether this rally is real or just another rug pull waiting to happen.

Here's how I think about it. I don't answer that question. I build structures that don't need me to.

What I Mean By That

Right now I have three strategies running simultaneously in the same portfolio. Each one benefits from a different market condition. None of them require me to correctly predict whether 7000 is the start of a decade-long bull market or a blow-off top that reverses next week.

The PMCCs are riding the rally. I've got long-dated LEAPS on SPY — December 2026 expiry, deep in the money. These move with the index. When SPY rips from $630 to $700, these LEAPS print. On top of those I'm selling short-dated calls at higher strikes every few weeks, collecting premium while the underlying runs. The short call caps some of my upside, sure — but it pays me cash every cycle. If the bull run is real, the LEAPS keep appreciating. If it stalls, the short calls were the right trade anyway.

I also just opened my first MSFT PMCC this week — long LEAPS out to June 2027, short call above market. Two days in, already green. The structure works the same way on any high-quality name with liquid options.

The front spreads are protecting the downside. These are put ratio spreads — I buy a put closer to the money and sell two puts further out. If SPY rolls over from here and gives back $50-60 points, the long put starts printing while the short puts still haven't reached their strike. It's a hedge that pays for itself through the short leg premium. I've been cycling these through every few weeks as the market moves, adjusting strikes to stay relevant.

If 7000 holds and we grind higher, these spreads expire worthless and I lose a small net debit. That's the cost of insurance. I'm fine paying it.

The wheel keeps grinding on MARA regardless. 46,000 shares. Selling covered calls above market, selling puts below market, rolling as they decay, collecting premium on both sides. MARA doesn't care whether SPY is at 7000 or 6000 — it cares about BTC, hashprice and its own vol. And MARA's vol is exactly what makes the wheel premium so fat. Every week that MARA stays range-bound between $9 and $12, the wheel earns its keep quietly in the background.

Why This Matters More Than The Bull Run Question

Most retail traders are asking the wrong question. "Should I buy now?" is a directional bet dressed up as analysis. You're guessing. And you're paying for the privilege — options are expensive at ATH, stock is expensive at ATH, and if you're wrong you're stuck holding at the top.

The better question is: "Do I have a structure that makes money in more than one scenario?"

If the bull run is real and SPY grinds to $750 by December — my LEAPS appreciate, my short calls get rolled higher, and I participate in the upside with a fraction of the capital it would take to buy shares outright. I don't need 100 shares of SPY at $700 ($70,000) to play the move. A single LEAPS costs me a fraction of that and gives me nearly the same exposure.

If SPY stalls here and chops sideways for three months — my short calls decay to zero every cycle, I keep the premium, and the LEAPS hold their value because they've got months of time left. The wheel on MARA keeps paying through the chop.

If this whole thing reverses and we test $650 again — the front spreads activate, the short calls I sold are pure profit, and the LEAPS take a hit but still have time value and are hedged by the front spread gains. The wheel adjusts strikes lower and keeps selling.

Three scenarios. Three different strategies leading. One portfolio. I don't need to pick which one plays out. That's the whole point.

What I Actually Did This Week

I closed out my ETHA LEAPS position — 25 contracts of the iShares Ethereum Trust, January 2027 expiry. Took a significant realised loss on that one. Not going to sugarcoat it. Crypto LEAPS with no premium-selling overlay is a pure directional bet, and the direction went against me. Lesson learned, capital redeployed.

On the same day I opened the MSFT PMCC and rolled my SPY short calls up to higher strikes to give the LEAPS more room to run with the rally. The MARA wheel had its busiest week of the year — over 100 contracts opened and closed across calls and puts, all inside the $9-$12 range.

The portfolio is up about 15% on the year. Not from one big call. From the structure doing what it's supposed to do across different conditions — correction in March, sideways in early April, rally in mid-April. Same strategies, different regimes, consistent output.

What To Take Away From This

I'm not telling you to copy any of these positions. Your account size is different. Your risk tolerance is different. What might be comfortable leverage for a $700k portfolio could be reckless for a $10k one.

What I am telling you is that the question "is this a bull run?" is less important than "what happens to my portfolio if it is, and what happens if it isn't?" If you can't answer both sides of that, the market structure doesn't matter. You're just gambling with a better vocabulary.

PMCCs, front spreads, the wheel — these aren't magic. They're frameworks. If you want to understand how any of them actually work, drop a comment below or reach out on TikTok or YouTube (Mathematical Money on both). You can also message through trueknot.sg — that filters to me too.

More posts coming. I'll break down the PMCC structure in detail in a future post — what strikes to pick, how to size the LEAPS, when to sell the short call. For now, the strategies are doing their job. That's all I ask of them.

Stay disciplined. Size your positions properly. Let's go together. 🤙