Wrong Way Weekly Wrap-Up
by Phil - September 19th, 2009 8:28 am
I am trying to get bullish, really I am.
As I said to Members on Thursday morning in chat, like Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction: "I’m trying hard to be the (bullish) shepherd" but the data makes it hard – so very hard! Anyway, I’m not here to complain about the market forces moving against us but to review the carnage of our picks going all the way back to Sept 10th, when we decided the prior day’s beige book was not going to be enough to break out over 9,600 on the Dow. Now, with the Dow at 9,820 after testing 9,900 it’s a good idea to look back and see what we missed in this last 2.5% leg up.
On Thursday the 10th, we talked about patterns. One pattern I recommended following right in the morning post was the famous "stick save" investment. Simply buying high-delta DIA calls at about 2:30 each afternoon and selling into the pumped-up close. That was a winning play on the 10th, 11th (Fri), 14th and 16th but not the last two days, when we turned a lot more bearish – but we’ll get to that further down this review. 4 out of 5 days is pretty good for a patten and seeing it broken 3 of the past 5 days is also significant. I did promise that Thursday that we will look for more bullish opportunities once we have a clear break over our last two levels (NYSE 6,959 and S&P 1,056) and we did make those this week. If we hold it through Tuesday, it will be time and we’re going to line up some trades this weekend. True to my word on that Thursday, we chose a variety of bullish and bearish plays in Member Chat. I’m posting the plays along with suggested adjustments if needed as it’s a nice way to review our various strategies in progress – especially under "adverse" conditions.
Trade ideas of the day for Members were:
- DIA $95 puts that ended up being rolled and doubled down for a net 20% gain (too much bother to detail).
- SUN at $23.36, now $28.45 (up $5.09), short Oct $25 calls at $2.20, now 3.70 (down $1.50) and short the Jan $22.50 puts at $1.15, now .70 (up .45).
- Another buy/write at net $23.01/22.76, already up 17.5% so can be closed early here.
- FDO short Apr $25 puts at $2.10, now
NRG Takeover Spills Into Curious Option Combo
by Option Review - June 25th, 2009 5:25 pm
Today’s tickers: EXC, NRG, PALM, ANF, CAL, AMTD & PAYX
PALM – Shares of the Pre-maker, which launched earlier in June, are stable at $13.96 ahead of earnings data after the closing bell on Thursday. The fact that sales of the Pre won’t materially impact the bottom-line earnings numbers means we may have to wait longer for further developments from the company. However, investors have been in a buying tizzy for stock in the company all year and have driven shares from $1.14 to $15.25 recently. The options market, however, has been forced to maintain a careful eye on developments given the depths to which the shares plummeted earlier this year and still attributes a relatively high reading of implied volatility of 90% on options on the stock. That makes hedging a little more expensive that it ought and heading into earnings today, one investor appears to have tried to do so by implementing a put…
Continental Butterflies
by Option Review - June 12th, 2009 4:26 pm
Today’s tickers: CAL, POT, EEM, RMBS, NVDA & FXI
EEM– It appears that an option investor was drawn into looking for downside protection in emerging markets today judging by the sizeable September expiration strategy seen in this morning’s trade. Shares are currently trading at $33.71 for a 1.5% loss today. Meanwhile this…
Put sellers back General Electric
by Option Review - April 3rd, 2009 4:21 pm
Today’s tickers: GE, TGT, XLI, CBST, HAL, DELL, XRT, CAL & JAVA
GE General Electric – Shares have enjoyed a 2% rally to $10.98. GE jumped to the top of our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner after one investor took a bullish stance on the stock. The trader sold 82,800 puts at the April 10 strike price for a premium of 33 cents per contract. This implies that he does not think that shares are going to fall beneath $10.00 by expiration in a few weeks. He pockets 33 cents in exchange for bearing the risk that shares fall beneath the strike price, which would see him breakeven by $9.67 at which point his premium will have fully eroded. Should the 10 strike land in-the-money by expiration, this investor could have 8,280,000 shares of the underlying stock put to him at $10.00. Established open interest at the 10 strike is 77,000 lots and so this would appear to be the work of fresh interest in the contract today.
TGT Target Corp. – The retailer has had a slight share price rally of less than 0.5% to $36.18. Despite the modest rise today, a couple of investors were observed looking for a significant jump in shares heading into January of 2010. The first of two bullish trades was a sold straddle at the January 45 strike price. The sale of 2,600 puts for a hefty premium of 12.48 coupled with the sale of 2,600 calls for 3.08 yields the investor a gross premium of 15.56. He will retain the full 15.56 if shares can rally by 24% and settle at $45.00 by expiration. The second of the two trades was even more bullish. This investor established a bull call spread by purchasing 7,500 calls at the January 45 strike price for 3.10 each and by selling 7,500 calls at the January 55 strike for a premium of 1.02 apiece. The net cost to get bullish in the January contract amounts to 2.08 and yields a maximum potential profit of 7.92 if shares can rise to $55.00 by expiration. Shares would need to rally by 30% to the breakeven point at $47.08 in order for this investor to begin to garner profits.
XLI Industrial Select Sector SPDR – Shares of the industrials ETF have risen just under 0.5% to $19.93. The XLI ticker jumped onto our ‘most active by options…

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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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