May looked like it was going to be a great month for me as equities of all shapes and sizes rose nicely. However, I hit a snag with my growing oil position as prices dropped again late in the month. I expect the oil dip to be short lived. It might go a lower than…
Dow Jones Chart – Has the Correction Started?
I charted the daily prices for the past six months on the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJIA, $INDU, $DJI, the Dow) after the index closed for the week at 15,115.57 on Friday, May 31, 2013. Traders have been begging for a simple 5% correction for months, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average has continued to push higher…
SPX Chart – May 24, 2013
I charted the daily prices for the past six months on the S&P 500 index ($SPX) after the index closed at 1,649.60 on Friday, May 24, 2013. The S&P 500 broke above previous resistance a couple of weeks ago. That breakout didn’t last very long. The large cap index has fallen below that trend line again….
Added UCO Ratio Put Spread
Going into today, I was long 1,200 shares of UCO with six covered calls in-the-money at the July $28 strike and six covered calls out-of-the-money at the July $33 strike. UCO has been moving higher since its mid-April low. The ascent has been anything but steady and might have topped out again. Two days ago,…
Closed Out Some Risk
I sold a vertical call spread on TLT (20-year Treasury ETF) for a $0.28 net premium less than a month ago and closed it today, a month before it was set to expire. While TLT was trading at $116.54, I bought to close 10 TLT June $127 calls for $0.07 and sold to close 10…
Dow Jones Chart – May 17, 2013
I charted the daily prices for the past six months on the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJIA, $INDU, $DJI, the Dow) after the index closed for the week at 15,354.40 on Friday, May 17, 2013. Some of the reliable indicators are less predictive once a stock or index stretches past old highs. Previous resistance has been broken…
Options Expiration – May 2013 + Current Portfolio
I have no options contracts expiring today. I didn’t start the month with a bunch on my plate for May. Over the past few weeks, I closed or rolled out the positions I did have for May. Since I don’t have any positions that changed today that I need to cover, I’m taking the opportunity…
Profit Taking: SSO and QQQ
I feel better about my IWM naked put trade from yesterday. I was scared the rise in the Japanese yen would kick off more algorithmic selling today as it did yesterday when the yen hit parity (1 to 1) with the US dollar. Instead, IWM is higher and I’m up more than $100 on my…
Sold IWM July Naked Puts
I wasn’t planning for this trade to hit today when I entered it. My plan was to get an order in place to hit on any weakness over the next week. That weakness took about an hour to surface instead of a few days. I was in the process of changing a client’s position to…