I’d be a happy man if this year could continue acting the way it has started the year so far. My account is up and the market is essentially flat. If we don’t see a good correction, we need an extended sideways consolidation period at least. Some 5-7% mini-corrections sprinkled in will help keep volatility…
Options Expiration – February 2014
Once again, I had a thin day for closing positions on option expiration day. The only option I had remaining coming into today was one SPY February $185 naked put. It was in-the-money by $0.90 after yesterday’s close and started today by gaining ground up to $184.89 before rolling over and closing at $183.92. I…
Sold UWM July $70 Naked Puts
Starting early yesterday morning, my whole day fell into disarray. My uncle (who has dementia) had a small stroke and his assisted living home needed me to take him to the hospital. My parents usually take care of him, but they were on their final day of a short vacation. I spent the entire day…
Swapped MDY for FEZ
These trades were not an even swap and were not intended to be. I’ve written a couple of times recently about my plans to close my two FEZ February $40 puts. I had a chance to close them for $0.25 each and then FEZ fell below $40 at the beginning of the month. This price…
Newspaper Article About Me
I thought some of you would enjoy seeing this article in the Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail. It’s from a very short interview the author did with me a few weeks ago (and includes a picture of me). He has a regular column that runs weekly and highlights different traders around North America. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/investment-adviser-focuses-on-naked-puts/article16758601/…
End of Month Summary – January 2014
One of the best lessons a trader can learn is to be consistent with a plan, most of the time. No plan works in every market environment, but abandoning a plan and not returning to it when conditions improve can be a mistake. In 2007, I destroyed the market’s return and luckily I paired my…
Moving Overseas
As I mentioned last week, I’m underinvested. The first step I took this week to remedy that was to move more funds to the international ETF I’ve been using lately, FEZ. FEZ attempts to track the Euro STOXX 50 Index, which happens to be heavily weighted in the Financial Services sector (26.72%, according to Yahoo!…
Options Expiration – January 2014
I closed all of my January options before today. That made today’s option expiration a non-event for me, so I figured I could take the opportunity to post a portfolio update. I’m still underinvested and need/want to add some more exposure, but haven’t decided what else to add after my two well-timed trades this week….
Sold New DIS Naked Puts
After writing my earlier post for my Ford naked puts, I left my desk for an appointment. By the time I got home to check how the day ended, I saw that the markets’ slide picked up some pace and along with it, Disney (DIS) fell deeper. As I’ve mentioned in a couple of earlier…