With this holiday foreshortened trading week, premium selling pickings remain slim. The vast majority of underlyings with 52-week >70 implied volatility rank are in stocks that are ramping up for earnings -- e.g., QCOM (71) with earnings in 15, MSFT (79) (16 days), AAPL (75) (21). In that case, you might as well wait to look at those closer to announcement to see whether they are worth a play, rather than diving in here and falling victim to volatility expansion.
On the non-earnings front, two broad sector or index exchange-traded funds stick out -- XLK and QQQ, with the former having a 52-week implied volatility rank of 67 and background implied volatility of 19; the latter, rank -- 65, background -- 20.
Possible XLK Setups
Aug 18th 52/57 short strangle Max Profit: $106 at the mid Max Loss/Buying Power Effect: Undefined Break Evens: ~ 1 SD, both sides Theta: 1.99 Delta: 7.87
Aug 18th 54 short straddle Max Profit: $281 at the mid Max Loss/Buying Power Effect: Undefined Break Evens: Between expected and 1 SD put side, at expected call side Theta: 2.79 Delta: -10.71
Aug 18th 50/54/55/58 "near" iron fly Max Profit: $203 at the mid Max Loss/Buying Power Effect: $197 Break Evens: ~ Expected, both sides Theta: 1.35 Delta: -3.45
Notes: I excluded the 20 delta iron condor because it just didn't look "worth it." The "near" iron fly I widened to put a strike between the put and call sides to get break evens around the expected move.
Possible QQQ Setups
Aug 18th 126/129/142/144 iron condor Max Profit: $86 at the mid Max Loss/Buying Power Effect: $214 Break Evens: Between expected and 1 SD put side, expected on call side Theta: 1.22 Delta: -1.72
Aug 18th 129/142 short strangle Max Profit: $219 Max Loss/Buying Power Effect: Undefined Break Evens: 1 SD put side, between expected and 1 SD, call Theta: 5.57 Delta: .70