Like most investors with a broadly bullish allocation, my account got spanked in December to put an exclamation point on a terrible year of investment choices for me. Actually, I only made three real mistakes and they cost me big. The culprits for me in 2018 were GS, FB, and AAPL. I took the losses…
Options Expiration – December 2018
I only had two options expire in December. Like most equity calls sold out of the money within the past couple of months, my IWM December $162 covered call finished far out of the money and I will have a realized gain on the trade of $153.33, the full premium I received on October 19….
Month End Summary – November 2018
November was one of the worst trading months for my account that I can remember, outside of the bubble bust last decade. My biggest losses came from GS and AAPL after they dropped off a cliff. I took a realized loss on FB too, but most of that loss came before November. I just took…
Fall Clean-Up
Sometimes you have to accept that you were wrong. I accepted that a while ago on GS and FB, but not to the point of doing something about it until yesterday. A few days ago, I mentioned I was debating my next steps with FB and GS and I finally swallowed my pride and took…
Options Expiration – November 2018
I made a shift a while ago from simply tracking the indexes through ETFs with options to trying to pick stocks with ETFs. I had some success with stock picking some years, but this year has not been one of those years. Part of that failure is due to picking these stocks at the wrong…
Month End Summary – October 2018
October was anything but fun to be a bull in this market. Luckily, we had a great rally in the final two days and most of my biggest holdings got a nice bounce, especially yesterday when FB, AAPL, and GS all moved sharply higher. While I took a beating on the full month, it would’ve…
Sold Another AAPL Naked Put
Nearly two weeks ago when I made my naked put trade on AAPL for the December $210 naked put, I thought I changed my order that I originally entered, but I didn’t. Apparently, I left the first order in and it hit two days later on December 19. While AAPL was trading at$218.87, I sold…
Options Expiration – October 2018
My outlook is generally bullish year in and year out and that’s why I’m an investor. I know that stocks tend to go up most years, but the down years are brutal and that’s why I invest with options. This year I’ve missed a lot of upside from being too cautious and I missed some…
Sold December AAPL Naked Put
My AAPL October $205 naked put is set to expire worthless in a couple days and mid-day today I figured I should go ahead and enter a limit order to sell a new contract. My October put option has a bid/ask of $0.08/0.09 and I don’t think it’ll be assigned, so I’m letting it run…