There's nothing we like more than a good deal. As long as we picked something up "on sale," we feel like we've saved, even if our wallets are empty.

So, no doubt you're wondering if now is the time to pick up stocks at bargain-basement prices.

Our take at Fast Options Profits is that you should save your capital — and your sanity — and buy put options instead.

We know a put becomes more valuable as the price of the underlying stock depreciates relative to the strike price. In short, you make money as the stock diminishes in value. This is your key to profits and success, especially as some of the country's iconic stocks have hit bottom-dollar prices.

In fact, just a few weeks ago, I recommended a Texas Instruments (TXN) put option.

We bought our puts when TXN traded at $17 and change, nearly a 50% discount from its price at the beginning of the year. Sure, it looked cheap at $17, but it's now hovering around $14. Does that make buying it now really cheap…or just a bad idea?

So, while long TXN investors lost about 15%, we made 130% in just 14 days, thanks to our put option. If that doesn't make the case for staying away from cheap stocks, I don't know what will.

The Perfect Storm for a Windfall of Profits

I started trading options the day the public market opened in 1973. In those 35 years, I have never seen a market so volatile with such sustained direction as we have today. To use the cliché, this is "the perfect storm" for options traders.

I don't want to get overconfident, and I certainly don't want to pretend to guarantee future profits, but we options traders are in a sweet spot. Since Nov. 7, the Dow has lost nearly 4.5% of its value, but we've banked triple-digit winners in two weeks or less.

And I provide my Fast Options Profits subscribers with new recommendations each week that will profit from the continued trend, along with my latest market outlook.

And our latest indicators are…