Virtual Portfolios Update – 11/18/2012
by stjeanluc - November 18th, 2012 11:09 am
FAS Money
$25KPA
$25KPM
AAPL Money
Peter's Strangle Portfolio
Income Portfolio
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Virtual Portfolios Update – 11/9/2012
by stjeanluc - November 10th, 2012 3:10 pm
In order to centralize weekend comments regarding the virtual portfolios, we thought that it would make more sense to write a post outlining the current positions. The portfolios spreadsheet is currently up to date and can be viewed here.
Income Portfolio
FAS Money
25KPM
25KPA (High Margin Portfolio)
MoMo Portfolio (managed by lflan)
AAPL Money (High Margin Portfolio)
Strangle Portfolio (Managed by Peter – High Margin Portfolio)
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Weekend Virtual Portfolio Update 2/26/2012
by stjeanluc - February 26th, 2012 10:39 am
My last weekend update is dated from January 30 so after a long hiatus, here is an update of our virtual portfolio. Since the last update, we have closed the AA Money portfolio due to a lack of enthusiasm (and activity) and I have stopped tracking the FAS strangle as the low VIX makes it hard to get rewarded for the risk! But we have added a small $5KP virtual portfolio which does not use any margin.
FAS Money
We have had to recover from a big move up by FAS and a low VIX which keeps option prices low. But the portfolio has gaine about 10% since the last update.
Last update P&L – $5499.00
IWM Money
Not a lot of activity in this portfolio where the main focus is on the large IWM BCS. But the portfolio has grown over 20% since the last update.
Last update P&L – $1998.00
$5KP Portfolio
This is the virtual portfolio that replaced the AA Money portfolio. It does not use margin and we will keep holdings under $5K.
AAPL $50K Portfolio
What is there to say about this portfolio…. $132K of profit in a bit less than 3 months. Unbelievable and great job by lflan!
Last update P&L – $53,205.00
$25KP Portfolio
Comments about this portfolio can be found in Phil’s daily post. I have included only February trades as the list of trade is getting too long to fit in the article.
Last update P&L – (-$5447.00)
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Weekend Virtual Portfolio Update 1/22/2012
by stjeanluc - January 22nd, 2012 10:09 pm
Here is the virtual portfolio weekend update. Basically a recap of the positions and some notes about the trades. As usual, I’ll post the previous week’s P&L for comparison. Not the greatest of week in general!
AA Money
Only transaction last week as we bought back the AA Feb 9 puts on Tuesday for close to a 70% profit. The idea is to sell another set of put as soon as we get a chance.
Previous week P&L – $400.00
We lost some ground this week, but we’ll keep on selling premium!
FAS Money
We also lost some ground in this virtual portfolio, but we have sold plenty of premium for the coming week. A little correction would go a long way to help! On Wednesday we sold the FAS Feb 72 puts (already good for 50%), on Thursday we added the Jan4 78 calls and on Friday we had to roll the Jan 78 puts to the Jan 80 puts. We were hoping for these ones to expire worthless on Friday, but a late stick killed that hope.
Previous week P&L – $4372.00
IWM Money
Not the best of week either here… As with the other portfolios we were a tad bearish with more calls sold. On Wednesday we sold the TNA Feb 47 puts (already up 40%) and on Thursday we rolled the TNA Jan 46 calls to the Jan4 49 calls.
Previous week P&L – $2046.00
As with the FAS Money portfolio, plenty of premium sold to get us back on track.
FAS Strangle Experiment
One bad move on Friday almost wiped out the entire week’s profit. There might be 2 lessons learned from that:
1) Every Friday will be different – the week before, patience was rewarded, this week, a late stick punished it.
2) Better to take the profits when we can.
I also tried to time the entries better and it did help earlier this week but I still need to work on that.
Previous week P&L – $10,190.00
We start the week with over $1 of premium sold. All we need is a move to the downside to make up the loss.
25KP Virtual Portfolio
I’ll let Phil comment any of the trades. Here is a recap of the positions.
The SQQQ Jan calls expired worthless on Friday.
Apple 50k Virtual Portfolio
I’ll let lflan add his…
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Weekend Virtual Portfolio Update 1/16/2012
by stjeanluc - January 16th, 2012 4:10 pm
Here is the latest weekend update of our virtual portfolios. As before, I will list some of the trades we made, recap last week’s P&L and post the listing of the current positions:
AA Money
No trade to report this week. We are just waiting for decay to do its work on the February puts and calls sold last week. The position improved slightly over the week.
Last week’s P&L – $340
FAS Money
Only 3 trades to report this week. We sold 2 weekly FAS 74 calls on Tuesday and rolled them to the Jan 78 calls on Friday. We did show a profit on these calls, but honestly missed a better opportunity early afternoon when they were even more profitable! Also, the weekly 65 puts sold the week before expired worthless. But overall, a very good week for the portfolio – up 6.7%
Last week P&L – 4098.00
IWM Money
Also a quiet week in this portfolio – only one trade. We bought back the TNA Jan 43 put on Tuesday for a 70% profit. We are still holding some TNA Jan 46 calls and these are hurting us now (we lost some ground this week on the P&L)- but still a week to go.
Last week P&L – 2089.00
FAS Strangle Experiment
We only sold 4 set of options last week and covered them all by Friday but still had a decent week. We got lucky on Friday as the correction saved the 76 calls we had sold earlier that week. I regret not taking advantage of the up move on Friday to sell some put, but overall a decent week – up over 10% for the week. The low VIX is really making a difference in the amount of premium we sell. In addition, the short weeks have also hampered our premium sales!
Last week’s P&L – $9240.00
AAPL 50k
I’ll lflan add his comments if he chooses to. But another good week!
Last week’s P&L – $24075.00
25KP Virtual Portfolio
Phil will probably add his comments in a different post. Below is only the list of trades and current situation.
Good luck next week!
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Weekend Virtual Portfolio Recap – 1/2/2012
by stjeanluc - January 2nd, 2012 4:04 pm
This is the first weekend virtual portfolio recap of 2012! We had mixed results since the last recap. Market gyrations and a low VIX make it difficult to sell premium. Short term trades with a market neutral setup should do better in general! Here are the various virtual portfolios. Since this is the first recap in an article format, I have added some more information about the original positions. I have listed the P&L from the previous recap before the new listing to outline the results for this week.
AA Money
This is only portfolio based on the original FAS Money setup – Long strangle to protect us against large moves and short options to pay for the strangle and generate revenues. AA was chosen originally because FAS had proven very volatile and forced us to trade a lot except in the last month when we finally switched to selling monthly options. The AA Money portfolio was started on 10/21/2011 with a Jan 2013 7.5/12 strangle and we started by selling weekly options. However, selling weekly options against AA proved to be costly as options don’t have much premium. We switched to monthly options to limit transactions and capture more premium. Due to the AA price erosion, we have had to revise the strangle and settle with a Jan 13 7.5/10 strangle. This move cost us some money. We have not had any transactions since early December. The current position is bearish with only put sold.
Recap of 12/27/2011 – YTD P&L – $20.00
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The position has deteriorated this week due to the weakness in the underlying stock. But we’ll keep on selling premium for the next 12 months.
FAS Money
While this retained the FAS Money name, the setup is somewhat different from the original FAS Money portfolio. No strangle here. We bought an XLF Bull Call Spread betting that XLF will be over $13 by January 13 and we sell weekly and monthly FAS options to pay for the BCS. This portfolio has proven profitable due to the large premium in the FAS options. The XLF BCS is slightly profitable, but 99% of the profits have come from the short FAS options. This portfolio had a decent week despite a sideways move by XLF. But by selling puts and calls in a more neutral setup, we profit from the lack of movement of the underlying security. The…
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$100K Hedged Virtual Portfolio Update
by phil - May 6th, 2009 4:48 am
Well, there was no reason to adjust the virtual portfolio this weekend but now I'm a little concerned (as I went short-term bearish yesterday morning) and it's a good time to review our positions.
Monday gave us a lot if cushion but that doesn't mean we have to squander it. Our last review was on the 25th and we had made adjustments on the 21st in member chat, triggering the plays we had decided to wait for the previous weekend. Notice we haven't really had a down day since so there has been no reason to adjust what has essentially been a bullish set. Yesterday, in comments, I called for covering our UNG play but that's the only move we've had to make in 2 weeks. Sadly, vacation time is over so let's look over our positions and see where action will be required:
Our original positions were:
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500 UYG at $3.48, selling 5 May $3 calls for .72 and 5 May $3 puts for .28, net $2.48/2.74
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UYG now $3.91, May put and call combo now $1.05 = net $2.86 ($190 profit on $1,240 = 15.3%)
- We are fine being called away on this position
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UYG now $3.91, May put and call combo now $1.05 = net $2.86 ($190 profit on $1,240 = 15.3%)
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Selling 2 FAS $7.50 puts for .45 naked
- FAS closed at $9.40 so 100% profit of $90
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500 C at $3.04, selling May $3 puts and calls for $1.11, net $1.93/2.47
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C now $3.31, We took out the callers for .30 on 4/21 and the May $3 puts are .20 = net $3.11 ($590 profit on $965 = 61.1%)
- We should close this position, it is above our profit expectations
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C now $3.31, We took out the callers for .30 on 4/21 and the May $3 puts are .20 = net $3.11 ($590 profit on $965 = 61.1%)
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Selling 2 IYF May $36 puts for $2 naked
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IYF closed at $41.80, May $36 puts $.35 ($330 profit on $400 =82%)
- Because of the stress tests, I would rather close these out
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IYF closed at $41.80, May $36 puts $.35 ($330 profit on $400 =82%)
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4/21 Sold 2 IYF May $34 puts for $2.10 naked
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IYF closed at $41.80, May $34 puts $.20 ($380 profit on $420 =90%)
- Because of the stress tests, I would rather close these out
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IYF closed at $41.80, May $34 puts $.20 ($380 profit on $420 =90%)
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Selling 2 JPM May $29 puts for $1.95 naked
…
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PSW Investment Club – July Update
by phil - July 20th, 2008 9:02 am
June was not a good month.
We were under covered on the way down, got more conservative at the bottom and got blown out this week as our callers went deep in the money.
All of that is manageable but the worst trade of the month came on Friday as Google went down much further than expected and wiped our out callers as well as most of our long position. I decided to play GOOG for the bounce, figuring we’d work into a bear call spread if it kept going down, most of these moves were detailed in Friday’s chat but essentially I built up a spread where I sold the $470s against higher calls and played for the bounce. By 12:19 I had sold 100 $470 calls for about $160,000 and Google was at about $483, the $480s, $490s and $500s were losing money too so the move was, as GOOG bottomed out, to roll the caller to the $460 with a tight stop (in case we went further down) but with tight stops so we could take advantage of the rebound.
That left us with a spread of 300 sold $460s against a similar amount of $480s and $490s and $500s. Google did indeed bounce just after I did the roll and I went to buy them back but OXPS wouldn’t let me! The reason was the computer didn’t count the fact that we were releasing $20 in margin each time we bought back a caller so it wouldn’t put the trade in. That left us in a very dangerous spread with GOOG coming back as the $460s were going to out gain out higher calls by a wide margin. I called support at OXPS but while I was waiting for them GOOG was going up fast on us and it was getting prohibitive to take out the caller so I decided to cover by rolling the $480s down to the $470s.
By the time I had explained the whole thing for the second time to a supervisor on the phone (who said "Oh sure, you should have been able to make that trade"), it was after 2 and our premiums were crushed so all I could do was roll the trade into an Aug $470/Aug $480 BULL call spread where our caller now holds the $300,000 in premium. Our realized loss on this trade was $225K, had…
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Thursday Virtual Portfolio Moves
by phil - December 29th, 2007 5:33 pm
November 29th, 2007 at 9:41 am | Permalink edit copy
SU – I’m going to DD at $2.50 for a $2.95 basis and get 1/2 back out there and then be patient. XXX
November 29th, 2007 at 9:42 am | Permalink edit copy
Still plenty of buyers out there, this is nothing I want to short into right now but BIDU is looking like a fantastic short up here if GOOG breaks down.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:46 am | Permalink edit copy
SPWR, FSLR going vertical! Also going to be good shorts when oil calms down but for now they are rallying the sector.
SHLD broke below $100, I’ll be buying more when it settles down but this is now a long-term play.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:51 am | Permalink edit copy
Weak stocks that worry me: DELL, YRCW, NYX, LEH, AXP (very nasty turn), TGT, BSC, MER, NKE, HD (how can it keep going down?)…
I like shorting MA off AXP’s move MA $190 puts at $6.25, stop at $5.50, going for $9+ XXX
November 29th, 2007 at 10:05 am | Permalink edit copy
AAPL – any opportunity to do a double roll of your call and your caller up $5 for $1 out of pocket is worth taking. For example, I have the $175 calls, now $10.22 and I sold the $165 calls, now $17.57 and I’m going to roll my caller to the $175s for $7.35 out of my pocket and I will roll myself to the $185s at $4.78 collecting $5.44. This costs me $2 but moves my max collection all the way up to $175 (of course this also means I don’t expect Apple to hold $180). XXX all virtual portfolios!
New home sales much better than expected but not a real number but it should goose the markets until people look at the internals. Supply is still up and sale prices are down but expect a very nice buider rally off the headline and let’s keep an eye on the financials to see if anyone is buying this.
November 29th, 2007 at 10:18 am | Permalink edit copy
Oh sorry, I forgot to mention take the money and run on the GOOG $710s in the $25KP, we still have the $730s but I don’t want to leave them both up.
XXX
November 29th, 2007 at 10:40 am | Permalink edit copy…
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Monday Virtual Portfolio Moves
by phil - December 17th, 2007 11:25 pm
December 17th, 2007 at 9:35 am | Permalink edit copy
Gloomy – I don’t think there will be a bounce until after the new year at best so yes, rolling down (if cheap) and selling Jan callers (who will lose 1/2 their premium by Jan 2, is a good plan.
LDK – if you are in that butterfly it’s best to take out the caller now and sell yours on mo at the top, the put side will take care of itself. XXX
December 17th, 2007 at 9:39 am | Permalink edit copy
AAPL is just amazing!
Financials geting killed but not C – possible bottom for them. Tech actually doing pretty well on the whole with the usual suspects finding buyers. If Apple and Goog fail then it’s time to short the Nas.
Oil just broke below $90!!
December 17th, 2007 at 9:49 am | Permalink edit copy
LDK – that was a quick turn! Too quick for me to move so I’m stuck at the moment and trying to roll myself ($70s) to the Jan $75s, then I will roll the caller up to the $70s to get some premium and then roll him to Jan ??? at the week’s end. XXX
December 17th, 2007 at 10:07 am | Permalink edit copy
TSO going nuts! Citi is nuts but we’re fine with out Jan $50s and I wouldn’t roll the caller and I won’t pay him .25!
CAT with a gap down.
DNDN giving it all back, we’ll watch them.
HOT at 52-week low, not a good economy sign.
SU heading the wrong way, banking on those rebels over the actual NYMEX action. TBoon owns SU so you can guess who’s paying MENDs bills…
NEM – you should aways roll down if you can get it cheap (and you still believe in your position) it never hurts you if you can do a 35% roll, which would be about $1 on $2.50 and dollar $1.70 on $5 and $3.50 on $10. I wouldn’t be too quick to sell another caller down here as I think this is a great bottom. In fact, lets take a shot on the Mar $47.50s at $4.10 as a holiday crisis insurance play. XXX
December 17th, 2007 at 10:18 am | Permalink edit copy
MA got slapped by the EU on their fees, this is the story we’ve been following all summer and…
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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 site
