Testy Tuesday – Fed Pop or Drop?
by Phil - September 21st, 2010 8:27 am
Isn’t this exciting?
We popped all of our 5% levels yesterday, now all we have to do is hold them and we can start looking ahead to the 10% lines. Just 10 days ago, on Friday the 10th, we did our last multi-chart study and I said in the morning post: "I am not TA guy but If I were a bear, I’d be pretty darned concerned about the charts as it looks to me like the 20-day moving averages are registering a short-term mistake in a generally rising trend." Look at how those 20 dma’s have snapped up in less than 2 weeks (blue lines are mid-points, green circles are 5% levels):
So Gold and Transports are running away with SOX falling behind. We’ve been playing the SOX up with USD, which is up 10% since I picked it in that Friday’s post but that’s been a relative underperformer for us as we nailed the bottom with a buying frenzy into the late August drop which culminated with my very bullish "September’s Dozen" from the 3rd. There were actually 10 stocks and only 9 fit in the multi-chart (I dropped HMY, who already gained 15%) with way more than a dozen trade ideas for our Members to take advantage of the anticipated short-term moves. Of the 10, only IRM has been laying around but we weren’t expecting a quick move on them and played a conservative April spread and took the risk on Oct $22.50 calls, which are our only loser, down 30% at .20 but I still like them if we break up from here.
The leverage you can gain with option plays is truly stunning. On BRCM, for example, the trade idea was a straight purchase of the Sept $32 calls for $1.25, BRCM topped out at $35.49 with the calls close to $3 on the 14th and they expired on Friday at $2.16, which is up 72%, even for people who didn’t stop out between there and up 140% that Tuesday. That trade was a combo trade with the sale of the October $30 puts at .70 and those are down to .30 (up 57%) which are well on their way to expiring worthless for a full 100% gain. We also took an artificial buy/write that stretched from Jan to Jan 2012 so that was 3 trade ideas on one stock – you can see how quickly we get past a dozen!
We get aggressive at the inflection points – had we…
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn 
del.icio.us
DiggBuy-Write Strategist Sinks Teeth into Apple Call Options
by Option Review - July 6th, 2010 5:19 pm
Today’s tickers: AAPL, AUXL, CSX, CTRP, SNDK, CPB & SLV
AAPL – Apple, Inc. – Options investors fluttered about the iPhone maker today populating the stock with various trading strategies and exchanged more than 234,000 contracts on the stock by 3:40 pm (ET). Apple’s shares are up 0.40% to stand at $247.95 with the final bell set to ring in approximately 15 minutes, but earlier in the session the stock rallied as much as 2.37% to touch an intraday high of $252.80. One strategist expecting the price of the underlying stock to increase sharply ahead of July 16 expiration day initiated a buy-write transaction today. It looks like the investor sold roughly 1,300 calls at the July $280 strike for an average premium of $6.00 apiece and simultaneously purchased Apple shares at an average price of $251.90 each. The premium received for writing the call options effectively reduces the average price paid to purchase shares of the underlying stock to $245.90 apiece. Thus, the covered call strategy positions the investor to walk away with maximum gains of 13.87% should Apple’s shares trade above $280.00 at expiration. Shares of the iPad manufacturer have not exceeded $279.01 in the past 52-weeks. But, the bullish player certainly reduced the cost of getting long Apple shares and is positioned to benefit nicely from upward momentum in the price of the underlying stock whether or not shares are called from him at expiration day in July.
AUXL – Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. – Shares of the specialty biopharmaceutical company fell as much as 6.85% during the trading session to attain a new 52-week low of $19.99. AUXL’s shares declined following a downgrade to ‘perform’ from ‘outperform’ at Oppenheimer this morning, and are currently down 4.3% to close the trading day at $20.54. The decline in Auxilium’s shares today inspired one options investor to purchase a plain-vanilla debit put spread on the stock. The trader purchased 2,000 now deep in-the-money puts at the July $22.5 strike for a premium of $2.85 apiece, spread against the sale of the same number of puts at the lower July $20 strike for a premium of $1.20 each. The net cost of the transaction amounts to $1.65 per contract, thus positioning the bearish player to accrue maximum potential profits of $0.85 per contract if shares of the underlying stock trade below $20.00 by July expiration day.
CSX – CSX Corp. –…
Investor Uses Options to Strangle Ford’s Share Price through June 2010
by Option Review - January 6th, 2010 4:14 pm
Today’s tickers: F, WLP, IBN, SWHC, UNG, SNDK, MU, DTV, FDO & MON
F – Ford Motor Co. – A short strangle play in the June contract on Ford suggests shares of the automaker are likely to remain range-bound through the next six months to expiration. Ford’s shares continued to rally during the current session following yesterday’s news that the firm enjoyed a 33% increase in December auto sales over the previous year. Shares reached a new 52-week high of $11.42 today on a 4.20% increase over Tuesday’s close. The sold strangle transaction implies one investor expects the recent boom to dissipate along with option implied volatility. The strangler sold 15,000 puts at the June $10 strike for a premium of $0.80 cents apiece in combination with the sale of 15,000 calls at the higher June $12 strike for $1.10 each. The investor pockets a gross premium of $1.90 per contract, which he keeps if Ford’s share price stays within the confines of the strike prices described through expiration. The premium received provides limited protection should shares swing outside the boundaries. But, the investor faces losses in the event that shares move above the upper breakeven price of $13.90, or trade beneath the lower breakeven point at $8.10 by expiration in June. It is possible the strangle-seller expects to benefit from a move lower in volatility. Option implied volatility on Ford rose significantly by 18.87% over the past 48-hours, from a low of 40.85% on Tuesday morning, to today’s high of 48.56%. Shrinkage in the reading of volatility on Ford may allow the investor to close out the short position at a profit because, as a general rule, declines in volatility weigh down option premiums.
WLP – WellPoint, Inc. – Shares of the health and benefits company reached another new 52-week high of $61.45 today, adding to gains experienced earlier this week. The stock appreciated 5.5% from $58.27 on the final day of 2009, up to $61.45 today, the highest price attained in the past 12 months. Option traders displayed diverse strategies on WellPoint during the trading day. Near-term players banked gains by selling 7,000 calls at the now in-the-money January $60 strike for a premium of $1.70 apiece. One trader rolled 3,500 calls forward to a higher strike by selling-to-close 3,500 lots at the January $60 strike for $2.00 each, and buying up 3,500 calls at the higher February…
Caterpillar Sees Sizeable Options Activity
by Option Review - October 22nd, 2009 7:32 am
Today’s tickers: CAT, EEM, FITB, VALE, SLM, EXPE, SNDK, SLM & YHOO
CAT – Caterpillar, Inc. – A long-term bullish play on the world’s largest maker of bulldozers and excavators proved highly profitable for one investor who banked hefty gains in the January 2010 contract this afternoon. Shares of CAT are currently up less than 0.5% to $59.80 on an upgrade to ‘neutral’ from ‘sell’ at Goldman Sachs. It appears the trader originally purchased 15,000 calls at the January 55 strike for 3.50 apiece, and 20,000 calls at the higher January 60 strike for 1.95 each, back on September 25, 2009. Today the investor sold the January 55 strike calls for 6.90 and the January 60 strike calls for 3.85 per contract. Net profits to the trader amount to $8.9 million. Elsewhere, it seems a large bullish call position was partially financed through the sale of put options. It looks like a chunk of 25,000 put options sold for 68 cents apiece at the December 50 strike at the same exact moment 40,000 call options were purchased for 1.50 each at the February 70 strike. The investor responsible for the trade likely expects shares of CAT to remain above $50.00 through expiration in December. This short sale partially offsets the cost of taking a massive bullish stance through expiration in February.
EEM – iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index ETF – Shares of the emerging markets exchange-traded fund are trading more than 1% higher today to stand at the current price of $41.45. A 100,000-lot straddle caught our attention in the November contract this afternoon. It appears one investor has taken advantage of lower volatility on the EEM by purchasing a long straddle. The transaction involved the purchase of 50,000 calls at the November 41 strike for 1.53 apiece, and the purchase of 50,000 puts at the same strike for 1.21 each. The net cost of the trade amounts to 2.74 per contract. Volatility on the EEM has fallen to 27%, the lowest reading on the fund since August of 2008. Perhaps the long-straddle player expects volatility to jump higher before the options expire in November. The nature of the strategy is such that he will benefit given a sufficient shift in the price of the EEM in either direction. Profits are available if shares swing either above the breakeven point to the upside at $43.74, or if shares dip beneath…
Which Way Wednesday – The Beige Book Boogie
by Phil - October 21st, 2009 8:14 am
The last Beige Book report was on September 9th.
At the time the Dow was looking toppy at 9,650 and we had poor consumer confidence numbers (just like yesterday) and poor consumer credit number (no change) and the book had very little "good" news to report (see my analysis) - Yet the market broke over 9,600 again that day and then took off all the way to 9,900 a week later. At the time, we were looking for any excuse to go higher on the hopes that this earnings period will look like last one but have we now come too far, too fast?
It seems we are finally hitting the point of diminishing returns for earnings. Expectations have finally gotten so high that even big beats aren’t enough to keep the momentum going.
Last earnings Q, we were down from 8,900 in June to 8,100 on July 9th as companies began reporting and we had a nice, 1,000-point relief rally over the first two weeks of earnings. This time, we went up an additional 500 points in the past two weeks, over our 9,600 line and that has been in anticipation of a repeat of last earnings but the circumstances are very different this time and it takes a lot to justify a 20% run off the July lows.
Keep in mind that, looking at the sector charts, Energy, Materials and Tech are leading us. Since semiconductors are simply another form of commodity – this is almost entirely a commodity rally in the midst of a recession with Consumer Staples, Financials, Health Care, Industrials, Telcom, Utilities and Transports all underperforming the rest of the S&P. As I keep saying – if no one is shipping anything, how the hell can we be having a proper recovery?
The Beige book is an anecdotal view of the economy gathered roughly through the middle of October and we’ve seen no improvement in Jobs since the Sept 9th report, Cash for Clunkers ground to a halt and, just this morning, we got a horrific 13.7% decrease in the number of mortgage applications from the previous week. That number includes "seasonal adjustments," without adjustments, morgage apps plunged 22.4% despite record low rates as government assistance begins to peter out. The Refinance Index, also adjusted for the holiday, decreased 16.8 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 7.6 percent from one week earlier. …
Which Way Wednesday – Fed Edition
by Phil - September 23rd, 2009 8:22 am
We’re just waiting on the Fed today, as are the rest of the markets.
Yesterday’s volume was the lowest since Sept 11th but not as low as Monday, which was our lowest volume since the end of June, just before we had a 5% correction. June 26th and 29th were our last two consecutive ultra-low volume days but June 30th was much bigger (a down 100 day), July 1st was up again on low volume and then July 2nd was another big down day and we bottomed out on July 10th. That was the time that the media was telling us we were forming a "classic" head and shoulders pattern and were doomed to revisit the March lows. It was also the last time we enthusiastically bought stocks.
At the time of that weekly review (7/11), we had CAL at $10 (now $16.82), CBS at $5.97 (now $12.58), COST at $43.45 (now $58.58), CVX – who we just shorted – at $58.20 (now $72.60), DIS at $22.41 (now $28.38), EXM at $6.05 (now $7.32), RT at $7.12 (now $8.85), SNDK at $14.47 (now $22.91), SPY at $87.96 (now $107.27), SPWRA at $22.35 (now $32.63), SUN at $22.09 (now $27.75), V at $59.86 (now $74.41), VLO at $15.57 (now $20.50), WFR at $16.61 (now 19.09), X at $30.77 (now $50.45), XLF at $11.10 (now $15.35), XOM at $65.12 (now $69.85) and ZION at $11 (now $19). Of course our members had much better entries as we had been targeting our entries on all of those but anyone reading our weekend review on July 11th could have played along at home from those prices (we even spiked down at Monday’s open) and when I say we are now bearish – it is that we are bearishly protecting these ridiculous profits – the kind of profits you usually don’t get after 3 years, not 3 months!
Overall, the broader market is up 20% over that time so it can be argued that a monkey with a dart board could have made good picks at that time but, if you read that week’s notes – you’ll notice that this monkey was screaming for people to buy and was going against what pretty much EVERY other analyst was saying and I was confident enough to lay out my picks, my strategy and my fundamental arguments for everyone to see. It would have really sucked…
600-Point Weekly Wrap-Up: Selling High
by Phil - July 19th, 2009 12:01 pm
Holy cow, what a week!
It is hard to believe that last weekend I wrote: "You can hardly find anyone who doesn’t think we’re going back to the March lows. I stand by my statement to Members in yesterday morning’s Alert where I said: "It’s ridiculous for the Dow to go back to 7,500 and ridiculous for the S&P to go back to 800. While it’s easy to make squiggly lines on a chart show 10% drops ahead (which seems like a normal 50% retrace of the gains overall) I just think it’s dead wrong from a valuation perspective so I’m not inclined to play it, especially when those valuations are about to slap you in the face over the next few weeks. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe earnings will suck and Q2 will be a miss and guidance will be lower but right now I say – Show me the misses."
Here we are, just 7 days later and I found myself writing an article about the ridiculous media cheerleading that went on last week. How did the MSM go from 100% bearish to 100% bullish at the stoke of Monday? Well, according to Cramer, it was Whitney, Whitney, Whitney and the logic seems to be that, since she called the problems in the financials early on, she MUST be right by calling an end to the problems now. Of course what Whitney actually said was the banks should have a good quarter as the government pushes for massive mortgage refinancing (all those 1% fees really add up!) and she also said she sees unemployment shooting up another 35% to 13% or higher but hey – at least she said something positive about the banks and that’s all the media needed to hear to tear up the previous week’s entire playbook and switch sides so completely, you have to review the tape just to be sure we didn’t imagine the whole doomed, "head and shoulders" outlook of the week before.
What did I have to say about all this nonsense last weekend? I was emphatic, and I’m usually not, and I said for those who would listen: "So here we are, back at the bottom of the trading range I predicted back in March and even as far back as November, when I said that, based on the fundamentals the crash should…
Bulls and Bears Vie for Virgin
by Option Review - July 10th, 2009 4:15 pm
Today’s tickers: VMED, FSLR, BDK, SNDK
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
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
(