Bulls Take the Wheel, Initiate Recovery Plays Using Ford Options
by Option Review - November 23rd, 2010 4:06 pm
Today’s tickers: F, TOL, BRCD, LOW, NUAN, WAG & IFF
F - Ford Motor Co. – The automaker’s shares edged 2.45% lower this afternoon to $15.80, but investors expecting to see Ford rebound and rally in the next few months initiated bullish plays using put and call options expiring in February 2011. It looks like one trader purchased a bull call spread, while another investor put on a bullish risk reversal. The call spreader picked up 5,000 contracts at the February 2011 $16 strike for a premium of $1.24 each, and sold the same number of calls at the higher February 2011 $20 strike for a premium of $0.20 apiece. Net premium paid to establish the spread amounts to $1.04 per contract. Thus, the responsible party is prepared to make money should shares in Ford Motor Co. surge 7.85% over the current price of $15.80 to surpass the effective breakeven point at $17.04 by February expiration. The call-spreader could end up walking away with maximum potential profits of $2.96 per contract if Ford’s shares jump 26.6% to trade above $20.00 by expiration day next year. The other bullish play in the February 2011 contract appears to be the work of an investor selling 1,990 February 2011 $15 strike puts at a premium of $0.69 each in order to purchase the same number of February 2011 $18 strike calls for a premium of $0.50 a-pop. The transaction results in a net credit of $0.19 per contract, which the investor keeps as long as shares in Ford exceed $15.00 through expiration. Additional profits start to accrue for the trader should shares rally 13.9% to trade above $18.00 before the contracts expire. The net credit received by the investor provides limited downside protection should shares continue to head south. The investor will face losses, however, if Ford’s shares trade below the effective breakeven price of $14.81 in the next few months to expiration.…
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DiggGDPhriday – Low Expectations Could Make for a Good Day
by Phil - July 30th, 2010 8:25 am
Everyone is down on the GDP all of a sudden.
As I related Wednesday - the GDP, like the Beige Book report (which we expected to be poor) is made up of many factors like Trade Balance (same), Government Spending (up due to census), Personal Consumption (earnings reports indicate up), Residential Investment (HD and LOW indicate up), Corporate Earnings (way up),etc. The biggest etcetera is Inventories and they are a major wildcard. As near as I can tell, April was a very enthusiastic month and we began May with the "flash crash" but that was shaken off so I have no reason to think orders didn’t continue to outpace inventory through mid-may at least.
We did, as we discussed, get the best Beige Book in 2 years in early June so I’ve gotta go with expecting two months of inventory builds that trail off sharply as merchandise went unsold in early June as the market collapsed and even the top 10% stopped shopping for a couple of days. Still, it seems to me that that was too late in the month to knock GDP below 2.7% and I think we still have an excellent shot at 3%.
We’ll find out shortly but Asia didn’t wait and had a pity party this morning with the Nikkei giving up all of the week’s gains, back at 9,537 so I’m still loving EWJ if we head higer but, if not, look for the Dow to begin filling that gap! The Hang Seng was choppy but held 21,000 and the Shanghai can afford to take a break at 2,637. India continues to be our top global concern as the Bombay Sensex continues to move to test the rising 50 dma as they fall to 17,868 and it looks like they’ll meet up next week in the 17,600s and that will be a very critical test.
Samsung knocked the ball out of the park with an 83% jump to record profits on amazingly strong memory chip sales. We can probably thank 64-Gig Smartphones and IPads for much of that gain but, holy cow! Net income climbed to 4,280,000,000,000 – too bad that was Won ($3.6Bn) but not bad considering our own chip giant, INTC, only hit $2.4Bn last Q. Despite lower chip prices, revenue was up 17% and I’ve already mentioned that Samsung has pledged $20Bn to become the World’s #1 solar power provider so you’ve gotta love these guys…
Gold Bull Buys Butterfly Spread
by Option Review - May 12th, 2010 4:24 pm
Today’s tickers: GLD, AA, KR, AMD, HAL, LOW, CTRP, STR & LPX
GLD – SPDR Gold Trust ETF – Gilded butterfly wings unfurled in the July contract on the GLD, an exchange-traded fund designed to mirror the performance of the price of gold bullion, in afternoon trading with shares of the underlying fund flying 1.30% higher at a new 52-week high of $122.24. Options investors exchanged more than 478,100 contracts on the gold fund as of 3:35 pm (ET). Overall, trading action on the GLD was dominated by bullish players tossing around more than 2 call options to each single put option in play today. One bullish individual expecting the price of gold bullion to continue to appreciate in the next few months purchased a call butterfly spread in the July contract. The investor picked up 6,500 calls at the July $123 strike for an average premium of $4.40 each [wing 1], in combination with the purchase of 6,500 calls at the higher July $143 strike for $0.63 apiece [wing 2]. The third leg of the trade centered at the July $133 strike where 13,000 calls were sold for a premium of $1.59 a-pop [body]. The net cost of the spread amounts to $1.85 per contract and represents maximum loss potential assumed by the investor responsible for the transaction. Shares of the GLD must rally at least 2.15% over the new 52-week high of $122.24 before the investor starts to make money above the effective breakeven price of $124.85. Maximum potential profits of $8.15 per contract are available to the trader should shares of the underlying fund surge 8.80% to settle at $133.00 by July expiration. The spread is a very efficient way for this individual to take a bullish stance because the potential rewards are 4.4 times greater than potential losses.
AA – Alcoa, Inc. – The sale of a large chunk of June contract call options may be the work of an optimistic investor initiating a covered call on the stock. The aluminum maker’s shares are currently up 2.80% to $12.47 with 10 minutes remaining the session. It looks like one investor sold 19,000 calls at the June $13 strike for a premium of $0.42 apiece at around 1:06:16 pm (ET) when shares of the underlying stock were trading at $12.45 each. If the calls were sold in combination with the purchase of 1.9 million shares of stock –…
Monday Medical Miracle – Health Care Finally Passes
by Phil - March 22nd, 2010 8:19 am
Paul Krugman summed it up nicely:
There is, as always, a tunnel at the end of the tunnel: We’ll spend years if not decades fixing this thing.
Love it or hate it, the US has just taken a big step towards nationalized health care so maybe now we can finally stop talking about it and move on with the investing! I think medical devices (IHI) should do well with 32M new patients – that’s a play we made quite a while ago though and, like pretty much everything else in this market – they look a little toppy.
As I noted in the Weekend Wrap-Up, we came to the decision to get back to cash on Friday, removing all uncovered bullish bets and adding our disaster plays, no longer hedges (as there’s not much to hedge) but as bets that the Global markets are due for a little correction at this point. I’m already feeling good about the decision as the futures look awful this morning (8am) as the Hang Seng dropped 2% (437 points) and couldn’t get back over 21,000 during the session and has now given up all of March’s gains. The Dow is still up about 400 points in March as well – hopefully our fall won’t be as violent as what the Hang Seng saw this morning. India held up well, only losing 1% after Friday’s surprise rate increase.
The Dollar was very strong after the Health Care vote and we’re sitting below $1.50 to the Pound and we’ve bounced off $1.35 to the Euro twice this morning – a break below there could get very interesting! The Yen is staying down at 90.5 to the Dollar, which is a relief for Japanese exporters but I’m not sure they’ll hold 90 this week. Copper broke below $3.40 on Friday – confirming our bearish turn and is at $3.32 this morning. Gold once again is testing $1,100 and silver failed $17 at $16.82 with $16.50 being a bearish signal for metals. Oil dropped all the way to $79.31 this morning and we’ll see if they can get back over $80 but we are going to be thrilled with our short plays (see wrap-up) in that sector.
“Risk aversion has come up after developments in India and Greece,” said Henrik Gullberg, a fixed-income strategist at Deutsche Bank AG in London. “Any exiting of the current accommodative policy stance…
Options Trader Constructs Bullish Risk Reversal on SandRidge Energy, Inc.
by Option Review - February 22nd, 2010 4:20 pm
Today’s tickers: SD, DTV, YHOO, SLXP, MDVN, PDCO, XLE, LOW, AIG & CA
SD – SandRidge Energy, Inc. – A bullish risk reversal on natural gas and oil exploration and development company, SandRidge Energy, Inc., suggests one investor may be positioning for a rally in the value of the underlying shares by expiration in June. SandRidge’s shares slipped 0.50% during the session to stand at $8.52. The trader sold 10,000 put options at the June $7.5 strike for an average premium of $0.53 apiece in order to offset the cost of buying 10,000 calls at the higher June $9.0 strike for $0.90 each. The net cost of the reversal play amounts to $0.37 per contract. Shares of the energy firm must rally approximately 10% over the current day’s price in order for the trader to break even on the transaction at $9.37. Profits are available to the upside beyond the breakeven point at $9.37 through expiration day in June.
DTV – The DIRECTV Group, Inc. – Investors sold strangles on the subscription television services company today amidst a 0.55% rally in the price of the underlying stock to $33.83. The use of the short strangle strategy implies traders anticipate reduced volatility in the price of DTV shares and expect the share price to remain range-bound through expiration in June. Throughout the trading session options traders sold approximately 15,000 calls at the June $35 strike for an average premium of $1.77 apiece in combination with the sale of 15,000 puts at the lower June $30 strike for a premium of $0.78 each. Strangle-sellers pocket a gross premium of $2.55 per contract, which they keep if Directv’s share price trades within the range of $30.00 to $35.00 through expiration. The premium received on the transaction provides limited protection against losses should DTV’s shares swing outside of the strike prices described. Stranglers accumulate losses if shares of Directv trade above the upper breakeven price of $37.55, or if shares decline beneath the lower breakeven point at $27.45, by expiration day.
YHOO – Yahoo!, Inc. – The slight 0.15% decline in the price of Yahoo’s shares to $15.55 today did not some options traders from establishing bullish stances on the stock. One individual initiated a bullish risk reversal to position for a rebound in shares by expiration in January of 2011. The investor sold 15,000 put options at the January 2011 $15 strike for…
Prior Weekly Wrap-Up – February Expiration Day Special!
by Phil - February 19th, 2010 7:17 am
I didn’t get to do a wrap-up last week so we have a lot of trades to go over and, with expiration looming and the Fed tightening, I thought it would be good to just get the list out on Friday so we can adjust our rolls to March where neccessary (in bold under appropriate positions).
In our Feb 7th Wrap-Up, I was gung-ho bullish saying "It’s Only a 55-Point Drop You Wimps!" and we had been BUYBUYBUYing at the bottom all week, especially Wed-Fri as the market spiked through our projected support at Dow 10,000 but not enough to change our minds as we bottom-fished on AAPL (2 trades), ABX, ACOR, AKAM, AMED, BRK/B (2), C, CCJ (3), CSCO, DELL, FXI, GE, GOOG, IBM, LLY, LOW, NLY, TBT (5 times!), TM (3), TNA, USO (yep, we wen long oil) and UYG. To say we were weigting bullish by that Monday was an understatement as we has finished the weekend in a bullish stance and were relying on our disaster hedges to protect us.
Those disaster hedges are an interesting set to look at, especially now that we’ve recovered 400 points:
- DXD July $27/33 bull call spread at $2.50, now $2 – down 20%
- We can roll the $27 calls to the $25 calls for $5 to widen the spread and drop our b/e from $29.50 to $28.50
- EDZ July $3/8 bull call spread at $2.10, now $1.60 - down 23%
- EDZ Apr $10 calls sold for .70, now .15 – up 78% (pair trade)
- SDS 2011 $36/40 bull call spread at $1.30, now $1 – down 18%
- We can roll the $36 calls to the $33 calls for $1.10
- TBT Jan $35/45 bull call spread at $6.30, now $7.40 - up 17%
- TBT March $50s sold for .65, now $1.22 – down 87% (pair trade)
This is what is great about disaster hedges. The potential upside on these spreads, if the market headed south was up about 100% on the 4 trades so a commitment of 5% of your virtual portfolio to each one (20%) would give you back 40% of your virtual portfolio in cash if the markets tanked. Already, after 2 weeks, we have the markets heading in the opposite direction and what is the cost? Not even 20% of the 20% you may have allocated, a 4% insurance premium while the 80% of the virtual portfolio that is bullish caught a…
Wintery Wednesday – Are We Now Corrected?
by Phil - February 10th, 2010 8:21 am
Was that it?
A 10% correction (David Fry chart on right) and we’re done? If so, this is still a fairly bullish market, and it should be, as our sell-off last year was, beyond a doubt, way overdone. Often people forget the fundamentals of investing and the biggest fundamental of them all is: "Where else are you going to put your money?" There many fine companies out there with P/E ratios that are below 15. That means if you give them a dollar, they will return 6.6% in earnings. IBM has a PE of 12, which is an 8.3% return on my money and, according to projections, that will improve to 11 next year, generating 9 cents for each dollar I give them.
Call me an optimist but I think IBM is a fairly safe place to keep my money. Perhaps as safe as 4% TBills, or 7% Greek bonds or 3% Yen Notes or, Heaven forbid, a bank! In fact, not many banks are paying 1.8% on your deposits but IBM does through dividends. IBM was my example trade in the Weeekend Wrap-Up so I won’t get into strategies here but that is what our whole Buy List is about – picking up great long-term values and hedging them to even more effective entries.
Not every stock is as rock solid as IBM but (going back to the Wrap-Up) who did we buy when the chips were down last week? C, CCJ, TBT, GOOG, XLF, AAPL, AMED, CSCO, TM, LOW, AKAM, LLY, NLY, GE, TNA, USO, ABX, DELL, FXI, UYG, BRK/B. Not exactly a radical collection of picks is it? Yesterday, with the market up 2.5% from our shopping spree – we bought NOTHING. Part of the "buy low – sell high" philosophy is waiting for the market to be either high or low. Two weeks ago, on Jan 29th, I charted 10,058 on the Dow as a critical support line and, from our Buy List Update this weekend, I put up the following chart for Members:
And where did we finish yesterday on the Dow? 10,058. See, this charting thing is easy – that’s why I don’t usually bother, it’s dullsville! Let’s now turn our attention to our other major levels of 10,165 and 10,300 which, keep in mind, is nothing more than our predicted "weak bounce" off the drop from 10,700. As I said in the above chart, we can expect…
Weekly Wrap-Up, it’s Only a 55-Point Drop You Wimps!
by Phil - February 7th, 2010 12:19 pm
That’s right, I said WIMPS!
I have never heard so much whining and crying and complaining about a market drop as I have the past few weeks. Last week, I pointed out that we had only fallen 105 points from the prior week (10,172 to 10,067) and this week we fell ALL THE WAY to 10,012 to finish the week and you would think the world was ending (again) from the way the MSM has been acting.
By Friday the panic was palpable as we gave up Monday and Tuesday’s bogus gains to test new lows for the year – testing, in fact, the lowest levels the market has hit since last November and I pointed out in Friday’s post that it reminded me of when BSC and LEH went under and everyone panicked and sold Financials off to the point where Warren Buffet was willing to give GS $5Bn AFTER they bounced 50% – THAT’s how undervalued the financials were in November of 2008.
What do we do while people are panicking? We BUY! We don’t BUYBUYBUY like Cramer’s Pavlovian Peons but we sure do BUY and take some nice entry positions with sensible hedges. I was finally motivated to finish updating our Buy List on Friday and 18 of our 38 positions were highlighted (immediately actionable) on Friday. Sure they may go lower, but we’re buying them with 20% buffers built into the positions and then we can double down if they drop 40% (back to Nov 2008 lows) and then we’ll have our entries down 10% from the lowest levels of the past decade or so that we can hold until the next decade – what’s there to panic over?
If I wanted to buy IBM in January but thought it was a little pricey at $134, why would I not be HAPPY to have the opportunity to make an enty at $122, back at where they were pre FABULOUS October earnings? I can buy IBM for $122 and take advantage of the panic-induced VIX at 26 to sell July $125 calls for $6.60 and the July $120 puts for $6.65 for a net entry of $108.75 with a call away at $125 for a $16.25 profit (15%) in 5 months. If IBM should fall below $120, we will have a second round of the stock put to us as $120 for an average entry of $114.38, another 6.2% lower than it is…
Two Week Wrap-Up – Trading Our Range
by Phil - December 6th, 2009 7:58 am
Your "crystal ball" was dead-on with the insights into the report on jobs as well as the initial rise and then correction. Truly impressive. – Champstar2
We didn’t have a weekly wrap-up last week because of the holiday.
In our Nov 21st Wrap-Up, I had said next week we’ll be watching to see if we can get more bullish above our 25% lines at: Dow 10,250, S&P 1,100, Nasdaq 2,187, NYSE 7,000 and Russell 600 and that became the bottom of our new range while I sent out a 9:41 Alert to our Members on Nov 23rd sticking with our upside targets of Dow 10,471, S&P 1,113, Nas 2,205, NYSE 7,266 and Russell 605. That has been a very reliable range to play for the past two weeks and we’ve been having a good time playing both ends of it.
Rather than just wrapping up this week’s moves, I thought we’d add the prior week as the pattern is very much the same (and it was the same the week before) so it certainly bears (oops, don’t say bears!) studying. Of course, when I talk about patterns, I don’t just mean the chart pattern where we have all of our gains for the week on Monday and Tuesday on low volume and then larger volume selling for the rest of the week as the funds who pump the futures up dump their ill-gotten gains on retail investors. I’m talking about the global new patterns, as reported by the MSM, that make this sort of manipulation so effective. It’s not that I’m so good at predicting things – it’s really just that I’m good at spotting the BS…
Monday - Stuffing the Futures for Thanksgiving
I was pointing out that morning that 90% of the market gains since October had been coming on a single day each week and how a lot of that was happening in the very thinly-traded Futures market, where a few thousand shares traded overnight are able to lever the entire US market up by Trillions of Dollars. It’s a very sick and broken system that has been seized by manipulators to yank investors around, making sure retail investors have little ability to participate in these wild market moves as the game is already over by the time trading starts the next day.
This week, we had 2 days like that with both Tuesday and Friday gapping up over 100 points…
Tuesday: The Brown Booster Shot
by Phil - September 22nd, 2009 7:58 am
What a morning already!
The futures were drifting along until 3 am and the Shanghai Composite had closed down 2.3% at 2,897. At 3:23 the Hang Seng was looking to close down as well but then Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister, on his way to the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh this week said:
The stimulus that we have still got to give the world economy is greater than the stimulus we have already had. What we want to do is safeguard a recovery from a recession we feared would develop into a depression… By meeting at Pittsburgh, we are looking at how we can put in place for the future the mechanism or path that can lead us to either making decisions about better ways of creating growth that is sustainable in the future, a better early warning system for the world economy about potential crises, a better way of resolving difficulties or imbalances around the world.. I have been talking to many countries in Asia as well as in Europe, and I have been talking to President Obama and others, and I believe that there is support for that framework.
WooEee! More free money!!! No sooner did the words come out of Mr. Brown’s mouth than the Hang Seng began to climb, reversing a down day to finish up 228 points, right at the 21,700 line they have been struggling to hold since last Thursday. Gold flew up to $1,020 and oil jumped to $71 worthless-looking dollars and, as usual, once Asia closed, the dollar was free once again to drift down to 91 Yen (Japanese markets were closed today). But, despite his performance, Gordon Brown may not win today’s Globey Award for blatant market manipulation.
Brown’s performance was great – make a bold statement that indicates another $13Tn or more may be dumped on the Global economy and insinuate the the whole G20 is behind him before jumping on a plane, leaving the British tabloids (owned by Gang of 12 member Rupert Murdoch) to boost the market for 2 days in a row – BRILLIANT!
But, he does have serious competition this morning by not one, not two but THREE Gang of 12 members as UBS, GS and JPM triple teamed up and all issued reports saying "Russian stocks are poised to surge, extending an 88 percent rally this year, as the economy’s recovery spurs profits." "Earnings growth is set to be…
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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...
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