jack bruce wrote a song in the late 1960s called “theme for an imaginary western” but lots of people remember it as “theme from an imaginary western” i vaguely remembered an origin story for it that he was commissioned to write the song for a western movie that never got made but apparently that story was apocryphal i couldn’t find any evidence of it after a quick internet search failing that i asked the ai chatgpt 4 plus which has a beta feature that lets it browse the web per chatgpt the song is a metaphor about the breakup of the group cream and the experience of touring in a band in general theme for an imaginary western is a song by jack bruce and pete brown it was first released on bruces second solo album songs for a tailor in 1969 and has since been covered by several artists including mountain which is how many fans came to know the song despite its title the song was not originally commissioned for a western film real or imaginary in fact the imaginary western in the title refers metaphorically to the experience of being in a band on tour the song was written by pete brown who often collaborated with bruce and the lyrics are about the breakup of the band cream in which bruce was the bassist and vocalist the town in the song is a metaphor for a concert venue and the children are the fans the old men who have left the town are the band members who have moved on the imaginary western is the journey from town to town show to show like the nomadic lifestyle of characters in a western movie so despite its title theme for an imaginary western isnt tied to a particular film or a film that was never made instead its a poetic and metaphorical reflection on the experience of being in a band and the transient lifestyle that comes with it chatgpt offers a good segue into the topic of this post which was a trade i set up on the ai software company c3ai inc ai this week ai was a stock id had on my radar for a while as one where the share price had outpaced its fundamentals then it spiked more than 30 on tuesday so on wednesday i tried to bet against it ahead of its earnings release after the close figuring it was likely to pullback afterwards i placed a limit order for this put spread and shared it with subscribers about an hour before the close on wednesday c3ai inc ai 1235↑ is up more than 250 yeartodate and more than 100 in the last month it releases earnings after the close today i placed a limit order to open a spread on it expiring on june 30th buying the 35 strike puts and selling the 33 strike puts for a net debit of 095 the max gain on 3 contracts is 315 the max loss is 285 and the break even is with ai at 3405 that order hasn’t filled yet but i’m posting this now so you have to time to place it as well if you want to the current midpoint on the spread for this one is 105 but i’m not going above 095 on this one with that spread the max gain would have been with ai trading below 33 to buy a put expiring on the same date with the same cost would have required going down to a 28 strike so the stock would have had to drop further for the trade to be profitable ai was trading at about 40 per share when i placed that limit order meaning it would have to drop about 15 to hit the break even price of 3405 given the price movement required i wanted to have a shot at a 100 return if things went well that meant getting into the trade at a net debit of less than half of the spread the spread was 2 so i entered a limit price of 095 and the trade didn’t fill had it filled at 095 we would have been able to exit with a profit of close to 100 thursday morning when ai traded under 31 per share we’ll keep an eye out for similar opportunities in this space where hype leads to parabolic moves and we can profit from the pullbacks given ai’s history one of those opportunities will likely be in this same stock if youd like a heads up when we place that trade feel free to sign up for our trading substackoccasional email list below if you want to stay in touch you follow portfolio armor on twitter here or become a free subscriber to our substack using the link below were using that for our occasional emails now you can also contact us via our website