PUTS and CALLS

[gzone]

Today:
BTO $AAPL Sept21 230Call, cost $170.00commisssion and fee's $1.13= total cost $171.13.

Have a GTC order in;
STC $AAPL Sept21 230Call for $205.00, fee's are $0.16, for a net 204.84

Hope it sells at the open....be a nice $33.00 profit.

 

[gzone]

Today:
BTO $AAPL Sept21 230Call, cost $170.00commisssion and fee's $1.13= total cost $171.13.

Have a GTC order in;
STC $AAPL Sept21 230Call for $205.00, fee's are $0.16, for a net 204.84

Hope it sells at the open....be a nice $33.00 profit.

As stated sold $AAPL at the open....
STC $AAPL Sept21 230Call 222.00 no commission, just $0.14 fee...net $50.86

 

[SpartacusSchmartacus]

Jobs report sez we made it! Everyone that wants a job has a job. After what seems like about a decade of wage stagnation we have positive signs of bigger paychecks.
USA is not a country of savers (present site visitors excepted). This upcoming holiday season is going to be a big retail event! Don't take my word for this, look at charts for WMT, FIVE, CRM for a hint of what is to come. My FANG pics in order AMZN, AAPL, NFLX, GOOG, distant last FB.
FB has such a pile of haters that I'm not touching it. They still make incredible amounts of money but the thinking is FB might sit for half a year while the hate bleeds off. NFLX had haters too when they did their bonehead move a few years back - essentially treating their customers like they were stupid cattle.
I'm out of the SPX puts this morning - looks like the President is not going to wage a tariff war with China til after midterm elections. Will load up on the most retail leaning stocks, Bot AMZN Calls ($1730) 70 delta - 646 days out .
Acct down to 494K

 

[Fedup]

I agree to stay away from FB, it’s among the haters. My options has gone up, I’m happy that since early this morning to now, the option gain has doubled. Not at a giddy level yet and I need to stay calm and not cash out too early.

 

[NW-Bound]

Jobs report sez we made it! Everyone that wants a job has a job. After what seems like about a decade of wage stagnation we have positive signs of bigger paychecks...

It's always good that unemployment is down. We have never been unemployed in our life, but can imagine how demoralizing it would be for people out of work (and want to work).

However, the wage increase of nearly 3% year-over-year barely matches the inflation over the same period.

Hate to be a party pooper, but it is not as rosy as it seems.

 

[Fedup]

Anecdote here, but my kid gave one of her employees 5% wage increase. He asked for more, but that’s all she was able to give him. She did say, if he wants more money, he is welcome to look elsewhere. He wants to move out of his parent’s house and get an apartment on his own. I’ll see if he sticks around or not.

 

[Fedup]

I closed my trade, made about $13 per share. Stock went up $22 per share but since this is option, I didn’t make as much. The reason for closing, it seems like traders exist this stock and move on to other stocks. On an upday and this stock started out negative and up slightlywhen I sold it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I rather take my gain.

 

[SpartacusSchmartacus]

I closed my trade, made about $13 per share. Stock went up $22 per share but since this is option, I didn’t make as much. I'd rather take my gain.

Nothing ever wrong with making a profit. Lets go over some fine tuning.
By the nature of your profit it looks like you bot pretty much "at the money"
(remember Delta?)
45 delta means that stock goes up 45 cents for every dollar the stock does.
90 delta goes up 90 cents for each dollar. I do somewhere in between.
Low delta options are false economy ... don't do it unless you have inside knowledge of a stock making a BIG move.

Why sell now? Rome wasn't built in a day. Plan on having that option a very long time. - lots of time. The more time you buy the less Theta (time decay) applies to that option.
One thing I know about day-traders is they all go broke. You will hear about the killing they made on this or that but you never hear of the big loss.
It's like gambling, with each loss they have smaller and smaller amounts of cash to "bet" with. This leads to more reckless behaviour to try and win it back all at once ... eventually you'll find them circling the drain.

 

[Fedup]

Nothing ever wrong with making a profit. Lets go over some fine tuning.
By the nature of your profit it looks like you bot pretty much "at the money"
(remember Delta?)
45 delta means that stock goes up 45 cents for every dollar the stock does.
90 delta goes up 90 cents for each dollar. I do somewhere in between.
Low delta options are false economy ... don't do it unless you have inside knowledge of a stock making a BIG move.

Why sell now? Rome wasn't built in a day. Plan on having that option a very long time. - lots of time. The more time you buy the less Theta (time decay) applies to that option.
One thing I know about day-traders is they all go broke. You will hear about the killing they made on this or that but you never hear of the big loss.
It's like gambling, with each loss they have smaller and smaller amounts of cash to "bet" with. This leads to more reckless behaviour to try and win it back all at once ... eventually you'll find them circling the drain.

I tried to find out where’s the Delta in Fidelity but I couldn’t see it. I guess when I have time I will look in Ameritrade. I sold because it’s probably one of the stocks that are haters. I had a bit of confident it was going up because it did drop quite a bit before I initiated my trade. Thanks to you, I bought the option with 350 days. I was expecting a bounce and it did.

 

[NW-Bound]

On 9/5:

... Account is now 525K ...

On 9/12:

... Acct down to 494K...

That's a change of -5.9%.

Over that same period of 1 week, I was down -1.15%.

Compared to the market, S&P is flat, while the NASDAQ is down -0.5%.

For what it's worth...

 

[SpartacusSchmartacus]

On 9/5:

On 9/12:


That's a change of -5.9%.

Over that same period of 1 week, I was down -1.15%.

Compared to the market, S&P is flat, while the NASDAQ is down -0.5%.

For what it's worth...

What exactly are you saying ... that option trading is not for the faint of heart? Strong stomach needed for sure.
This is what has been alluded to since thread was put up.
acct today at 11:51 AM $513,995.60

 

[NW-Bound]

What exactly are you saying ... that option trading is not for the faint of heart?

What goes up a lot can go down a lot. Of course you and I know this.

Just wanted to reinforce it for the readers who might forget this.

PS. It does not even have to be options. One of my holdings in the semiconductor segment took a 10% hair cut right at market open a few days ago, just due to an industry report that spotted some weakness in this business.

 

[FIRE'd@51]

I tried to find out where’s the Delta in Fidelity but I couldn’t see it.

If you're using Fidelity's Active Trader Pro, you can add columns containing the Greeks (delta, theta, IV, etc) to your Option Chain and Watch Lists by clicking on the Settings tab on the green bar at the top.

 

[SpartacusSchmartacus]

If you're using Fidelity's Active Trader Pro, you can add columns containing the Greeks (delta, theta, IV, etc)

IV has been mentioned so let's go there, Implied Volatility is the "excitement or expectation" around a stock's movement. It puffs up the option price artificially cuz there is always a sucker willing to buy it. IV is measured ATM cuz thats where suckers buy their options. Buy deep ITM to lessen this effect.
If you are doing Spread trades then IV doesn't matter cuz you buy one/sell one.
High IV is good if you are selling naked or covered puts/calls.


FIRE'd - I was a big fan of William F Buckley - we need more guys like him.
Read alot of his stuff ... favorite off topic book was "Airbourne" .. about his sailing adventure.

 

[Fedup]

If you're using Fidelity's Active Trader Pro, you can add columns containing the Greeks (delta, theta, IV, etc) to your Option Chain and Watch Lists by clicking on the Settings tab on the green bar at the top.

Thanks for your post.
I have to call the Fidelity guy to ask him for help. So far I’ve just started trading using Fidelity since Sep 4, I haven’t quite find out how to do on a lot of things.

Edit to add, this morning, I initiated a trade on a stock in the Dow, this will be a long term hold, my options go out to 2020. Deep in the money. Will see how this pan out, so far I’m ahead of this morning.

 

[SpartacusSchmartacus]

Hang in there

Wanted to throw in that the September stock market is statistically the worst month followed by October. This year is different tho (they always say that). I'm long the market and armed with long duration contracts, expecting a bumpy ride to get there but don't want to be left behind. Not sure when holiday sales numbers will start being talked about? But when they do talk about up-beat consumer sentiment polls, excitement will begin to brew.

 

[NW-Bound]

Got $10K worth of premium on covered call options out, with most expiring next week. There are a few that are in-the-money, and the rest expire worthless.

Being more active with covered call writing this year, I have collected YTD total premium equivalent to 2.5% of the total stash size. It is higher than my living expenses YTD.

It sounds nice, but it is really the total return that matters, and mine is not that great. In other words, without the covered call premiums my total return would be lousy.

 

[cyber888]

Have NVDA .. bought $217 .. now at $276 ... I sold covered calls at $290. I also sell Puts below strike price. CAT .. sold covered calls at $155.

 

[Fedup]

My options are up, not at giddy level yet. I hope traders don’t shake out this trade from me.

 

[SpartacusSchmartacus]

hang in there - II

Wanted to throw in that the September stock market is statistically the worst month followed by October. This year is different tho (they always say that). I'm long the market and armed with long duration contracts, expecting a bumpy ride to get there but don't want to be left behind. Not sure when holiday sales numbers will start being talked about? But when they do talk about up-beat consumer sentiment polls, excitement will begin to brew.

move along folks - There is absolutely nuthin bearish to see here.
In spite of traditionally weak September/October and a trade war, we have nothing but horns on this chart to date. There will be down days but we don't know how long or how deep. Hang in there with conviction - don't be a day trader.

 

[Fedup]

Still hold firm on the call option from one of the Dow stocks. This morning, I initiated another option on one stock, the purpose of this trade is to let the premium expires worthless. In general, I don’t have too many trades going on at the same time, I can’t keep track of too many things easily. So far so good.

 

[NW-Bound]

As reported in another thread, I had 35 contracts expiring last Friday 9/21. A majority was out-of-the-money covered calls, with only a few out-of-the-money put options. Had only 2 calls getting assigned, and the stock already dropped today. Nice! Heh heh heh...

The market is down today. Will wait a bit before writing the next batch of options for October. The total premium I get this year will be a 6-figure number. That's enough for me to live on.

 

[Fedup]

I initiated a trade on a car company. Let’s see how things will turn out.

Edit to add, I have closed this trade with a $2 profit per share. I’ve heard on CNBC that there are deals that were turn down. So I rather take my profit. Short and sweet.

 

[Fedup]

Still hold firm on the call option from one of the Dow stocks. This morning, I initiated another option on one stock, the purpose of this trade is to let the premium expires worthless. In general, I don’t have too many trades going on at the same time, I can’t keep track of too many things easily. So far so good.

I closed on this option, I made .03cent per share. I closed it because I realized it was a wrong strategy, when you are wrong, cut your loss and move on.

 

[Fedup]

I closed on this option, I made .03cent per share. I closed it because I realized it was a wrong strategy, when you are wrong, cut your loss and move on.

When I closed this option, I initiated another trade, that trade did amazingly well until today. So I closed that trade for a profit. Why did I sell? I have too much of it already. The short term trade allows me to profit while holding the long term trade.

So now I’m back to just holding one trade for long term.