MON and JOYG Option Updates

I was on a good role with picking the direction of Monsanto (MON) for the past few months, but seem to have lost my touch lately a little.  With that in mind I decided to end my long run with MON for now, take my loss on the stock and move to another position.  While MON was trading at $81.84 I sold to close my one MON April 85 put (MONPQ) for $3.10 and received $299.25 after commissions. 

I waited a minute to see if MON would continue off its low of the day and then when I saw it going in the other direction I sold my 100 shares for $81.6305 and received $8,152.85 after commissions.  I bought the above put when MON was trading under $80 and I thought it might continue to fall.  I didn’t sell my shares then because I thought MON still stood a chance to rally.  It has been a volatile stock and I didn’t want to miss a move in either direction.  Instead MON slowed its movement up and down and while I gained with the underlying shares I lost on the long put and lost out on time value.  Luckily I also sold an April MON 80 naked put and an April MON 85 covered call, and those expired worthless this afternoon.  With all of my MON trades over the past few months I ended up with a profit from the series of trades.  I’m getting out while that’s still true, especially since I think MON has more of a chance to decline than rise in the near term.

Joy Global Inc (JOYG) looked destined to close below my covered calls’ strike of $25.00, so in the last half hour of the day, while JOYG was trading at $24.63 I sold new JOYG May 25 covered calls (JJOEJ) at $1.75 and received $512.74 after commissions.  This trade combined with the NDAQ naked put trade from this morning gives me $1,145.22 of option value on top of my May XLB puts to expire over the next month.  My NDAQ naked puts are in the money a little still, but these JOYG calls are out of the money leaving me more potential gain from the underlying shares climbing to $25.00 or above too.