Equity Idea: Trading CME Common, Redux (CME)

Long time readers know we don't post many individual stock touts on the blog, preferring instead the sweeping generalities afforded by major asset classes. CME was an exception that worked out and should work out again.
From Oct. 13ths "Trade Idea: A Derivative, Derivative, Derivative":

We very rarely tout individual issues and when we do they are usually megacaps but how can one resist this little Mad Hatter's Tea Party? 
Plus we like Cup-and-handle set-ups to shade the odds a bit closer toward your favor. CME closed at $81.61 on Friday.
 
A financial exchange is a derivative of Keynes' animal spirits while an exchange that trades futures, and options on those futures, is one more step removed from reality while, and I have to be careful here because I'm getting that wilderness-of-mirrors vertigo feeling, establishing the position by way of an option should be yet another step away from the day to day.
From Dragonfly Capital...

The stock closed that day at $79.01. On Dec. 11, we posted "CME Gains After $2 Variable Dividend; Sandler Ups Price Target (CME)":

...$89.06 last, down 3 cents and a big thank you to Dragonfly Capital who spotted the opportunity.

For the record: The ideas we put on the blog are those we judge most likely to occur, not the highest return or even the highest risk-adjusted return....

...The target for the original recommendation was $89.75 so we're closing but the stock is one to keep in mind as this type of cup-and-handle formation can have 2, 3, or even 4 upward impulses after the breakout....

Yesterday, not having chickened out in December as we did, Dragonfly Capital posted:

Selling the CME Group to Stay Long

...The floor of the CME has not looked like this in years, but that does not seem to matter to the stock price. It has taken flight out of a Cup and Handle on the way to a target at 100. But with the current pullback in the market, the CME stock price has also pulled back, and is testing support of both a rising trend line and the basing platform from early December. You like the tend and want to hold it for that touch at 100, but it is looking weak. What to do?

One options is to protect your trade by flipping it to an options trade....MORE

Yesterday the stock closed up $1.01 at $88.30 and looks to open up another 40 cents this morning, $88.70 in pre-market action. We love those cup-and-handle set ups.