The S&P 500 has pushed to new highs and once again brushed off its recent minor slump. After April’s option expiration, I was left under-invested and needed to get some more skin in the game. My account balance has still been growing, thanks to TLT, but I knew I was missing out on more gains…
Month: April 2015
Options Expiration – April 2015
After a few days of thinning my holdings this week, I came into options expiration day with only one April option position remaining. My three TLT April $134 calls will expire worthless, about $2.60 out of the money. This trade gives me a realized gain of $312.99. I mentioned yesterday that I planned to sell…
Roll TLT Covered Puts to May
A couple of days ago, I mentioned my plan to stay patient and wait for my new trade on TLT. Yesterday, TLT started to improve for me and today I pulled the trigger. While TLT was trading at $129.88, I bought to close seven TLT April $128 puts and sold to open seven TLT May…
Closed XOM and SSO Puts
I closed out two sets of April options this morning with limit orders as the market moved higher. My XOM April $85/90 put spread was down more than $250 not long ago, but I let it run in case oil recovered by the end of this week. I sold the spread for $192.81 (net after commission)…
Rolled DIS and IWM Naked Puts
We spent most of last week in New York (Manhattan) for spring break. It felt good to get back at my desk and find some normalcy in my daily routine yesterday. I made it back to my account this morning and rolled a couple of options that were set to expire this coming Friday. I…
SPY – 1 Year, Daily Chart
The chart below shows the daily prices for the past year on SPY, an S&P 500 Index ETF, after the ETF closed the week at $206.44 on April 2, 2015. A horizontal trend line has emerged close to $204 that has acted as both support and resistance multiple times since mid-November. This horizontal line and the ascending trend line of…
End of the Month Summary – March 2015
March was an up and down month for my account, but I still had less volatility than the major indexes and finished up for the month while most indexes lost ground. I started to hedge late in the month and hope to see the benefits of the hedge later in the year. My TLT short…