I’ve spent the last four decades sharing my best trading advice, and I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about interest rates. While I know that many investors are worried about a possible rate hike by the Federal Reserve, the problem the United States faces is that the deficit is so high now that any bump up in interest rates by even the smallest amount will greatly increase the deficit and cause interest payments to balloon even further.

In my opinion, the most the Fed will be able to get away with is a very small interest increase, if it does it at all. But, at the end of the day, I just don’t think they will. An $18 trillion deficit is a very big obstacle, which is likely why U.S. growth is so slow.

So, should an investor sit on the sidelines while this plays out? My trading advice is absolutely not. In fact, I’m going to share a little secret with you today about my own personal portfolio.

Within my total personal portfolio of stocks, bonds, ETFs and options, I have more than 60% in the utilities sector. That’s been the case for about four years and, all things equal, I expect to be over-weighted in utilities for a few years to come.

I’m busy stockpiling utilities. One that I’m making a play for right now is Wisconsin Energy Corp (NYSE:WEC).

I consider WEC to be a pretty safe utility. I say “pretty safe” because if interest rates do rise, utilities will fall but, as I said earlier, I don’t think interest rates are going to increase this year. That’s my bet and it’s what I’m basing my trading advice on.

Therefore, utilities are good buys right now because at least they’re throwing off some dividend yield. While you can certainly just buy shares at the market price, I like to use naked puts as a way to potentially acquire stocks that I find attractive.

Despite what you might have heard about naked put writes, you don’t need a margin account. You can execute them on a cash-secured basis as long as you have enough free funds to buy 100 shares of the underlying stock at the strike price for every one put contract you sell to open.  If this sounds far-fetched, let me say that I take very low-risk positions, and using a naked put gives me a way to name my buy price. Let’s look at how that’s possible.

My current recommendation to my Maximum Options subscribers is to sell to open the WEC April 45 put at about $0.25 or more.

As of Wednesday’s open, the puts had a bid price of about 30 cents.  While your broker does have to first give you permission to sell to open (also known as shorting or writing options), as long as you have enough money on reserve in your account to buy 100 shares of WEC at the $45 strike price of the put ($4,500) for every one contract you write, you will be able to open this trade without the use of margin.

When you sell to open a naked put, you collect a credit at the start of the transaction, which appears in your account. In this case, if you sold to open one contract of the WEC April 45 puts at the current bid price, you would collect 30 cents (or $30 in real money terms) in your account.

Let’s look at the possible outcomes, and you’ll see why naked put options are always part of my trading advice to my Maximum Options members.

Because writing naked puts is a bullish strategy, I’m essentially betting that WEC shares will stay above the $45 put strike price through April options expiration on April 17. WEC opened on Wednesday at $48.48, so, unless something dramatic happens, that’s likely to be the case.

If WEC stays above the $45 strike price through April 17, great — we get to keep the $30 credit we got at the start of the trade. While it’s true we had to have the $4,500 on reserve for every contract that we wrote, aside from commission fees, we technically didn’t have to spend any money to make money. Naked puts are as close to free money as you can get.

But what happens if WEC is trading below the $45 strike price on April 17? That’s also great. Remember, I’m ultimately bullish on utilities, and WEC in particular.

If WEC is trading below the $45 strike price on April 17, we will be “put” the shares, which means we will have to buy 100 shares of WEC at the $45 strike price for every one put contract that we shorted. Hence, this is why your broker requires that you have enough money, in this case $4,500, to do so.

I chose to write the WEC $45 strike puts because I think acquiring shares of WEC at $45 is an attractive opportunity. Now, obviously, the ideal situation would be that WEC is trading below the $45 strike price on April 17, but not too much below that level. I don’t mind losing out on a few cents, but if WEC tanks and is trading at, say, $35 and we had to pay $45 per share, we’ve started off in the hole.

But assuming WEC is trading at, say, $44.70, on April 17, then we’re in good shape because, remember, we collected a 30-cent credit at the start of the trade, which effectively makes our cost basis for WEC shares $45 ($44.70 +  $0.30 = $45.00).

From there, I will hold the shares until they show a profit and will sell them just as you would sell any stock that you owned.

I hope I’ve taken some of the mystery out of naked puts and have illustrated why they’re one of my favorite strategies that nearly anyone can do, as long as you’re properly funded. I’ll continue to focus on utilities for now because, bottom line, I think increasing interest rates at this point would be disastrous to the economy because the deficit would increase so dramatically, and we can only hope the Fed feels the same way.

InvestorPlace advisor Ken Trester brings you Power Options Weekly, which delivers his best trading advice and 5 new options trades to you each Friday. It’s the perfect ‘bridge’ between investing in ordinary stocks and the turbocharged world of options trading.

Trester has been trading options since the first exchanges opened in 1973 with a winning streak that goes back to 1984 with money-doubling average annual profits since 1990. Try Power Options Weekly today and receive 2 weeks for the price of 1 for only $19.95.