Category: Account Summary

October has been a good options expiration for me.  Six out of seven positions are closing for a profit.

NFLX – Bear $130/140 Call Spread – This one worked even better than planned.  I could’ve been more aggressive, but am happy to have been able to ride this one to the end without stressing much about the potential of a snap back high enough to cost me any profit.  I don’t think I’ll make this same trade again unless NFLX gets …

September was just an ugly month for me.  There’s no way to sugar coat it.  I expected a flattening or possibly even a rise from the lows of the end of August, but we didn’t see the carry through that started at the end of August, instead we saw further selling and since my account was sitting at a tipping point my losses were bigger than the market’s losses on a percentage basis.  Throw in an ill timed short trade …

September is a fairly light month for me on the options expiration front.  I only have three options expiring – two puts and one covered call.

SSO – September $45 Naked Put – I sold this put in late January when SSO was trading at $49.78.  This morning while it was trading at $43.94 I bought back my one SSO September $45 naked put for $1.15 and paid $115.34 with commissions.  Since I used an option instead of just going long …

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 lost close to 4.5% and 5.5% respectfully in July.  My losses were more than that, but it appears some of it is tied up in time value as volatility spiked which leaves me good room to recover, even if the markets stay flat.  The shift pushed me below the year to date returns for most of the major indexes.  The chase for performance through December 31st is going to be interesting with only four months …

Not that it’s a surprise to anyone, but this is not a good options expiration Friday for my account.  All of my naked puts finished in the money and all of my covered calls finished out of the money.

These are the 11 options I was short going into the day.

CSX – 1 August $25 put - Expiring in the money CSX rallied nicely for a few days from its lows, but then fell off a cliff again this week.  I like …

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 both lost close to 2% in July.  That makes my 1.4% loss not feel quite as bad.  If nothing else, it allowed me to pull ahead of the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 year to date returns a little more.  I finally got around to increasing my exposure some, but didn’t go overboard yet and have a lot of cushion left.  My accounts can handle further declines on most of the underlying ETFs and …

June finished its seventh year in a row as a losing month for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  This helped me gain back some footing on the major indices for most of the month and even pushed me ahead of them briefly, but the final four days of the month saw such a big rally that my lead vanished on the Dow and Midcap 400.  I had a lot of my option positions expire in June which helped me stay …

June wasn’t the prettiest options expiration I’ve had.  My covered calls expired out of the money leaving me farther below my purchase price for the shares and my puts expired in the money.  That’s basically the opposite of how I like it to roll out at expiration, so I’m adjusting my stance.  I’m somewhat more neutral now and have positioned my new holdings and options to show that view.  Without having as strong a view on the near term direction …

Last month I started out my summary pointing out that we were going to have a down month soon.  I didn’t realize it was going to start on the first day of the month and carry through for four uninterrupted weeks (so far), but it has and could keep going.  The weakening fundamentals are in a battle with the average valuation of S&P 500 stocks that are not looking too rich yet.  The downside still seems somewhat limited, but it’s …