Idiot governors, such as my state’s Governor Kemp (Georgia), might make my trades today poorly timed. By opening up the state from our lockdown while cases are still trending higher, we can expect a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases again. That’s the general consensus, but the hope is that my fellow Georgia citizens are smarter…
Options Expiration – April 2020
I’m in a bit of a holding pattern until Monday so I can see how much my margin requirements change after my April options are assigned. I have one QQQ April $225 naked put that I’m down around $600 on as of mid-morning today. I’ll take that assignment and I’m trying to decide if I’ll…
IWM – 5 Year Chart
The chart below shows the weekly prices for IWM, an ETF that tracks the Russell 2000 small-cap index, after closing the week at $104.62 on April 3, 2020. Most charts have an easily recognizable pattern when I look at them. Due to the recent carnage in the markets, I had to zoom out to a…
Month End Summary – March 2020
March was brutal for those who were not in cash or not short the stock market. I lost some money on paper, but was still far underinvested and even started to put new money to work during March. My two April options look like they’ll be assigned at expiration, if not beforehand. I’m actually surprised…
Sold MSFT Naked Put
Microsoft ($MSFT) was on my watch list when stocks were falling dramatically every day. I thought they were being overly punished and being sold by some traders simply to free up cash and cover margin calls created by the deeper declines in other stocks. However, I didn’t want to jump in too soon and risk…
Sold an IWM Naked Put
I felt like I was in the catbird seat watching stocks fall over the past few weeks. I only had one naked put on QQQ and five naked calls on TLT. Both are in the money and likely to be assigned, but even if these options are assigned, I still have a lot of dry…
Month End Summary – February 2020
I picked a great time to be under-invested this time. The trick will be getting fully invested before the fall has reversed itself. My QQQ April $225 naked put doesn’t worry me long-term, even though it finished February almost $20 in the money. It’s less than a quarter of my account value, which leaves a…
Options Expiration – February 2020
The only option I had for today’s expiration was one QQQ February $223 naked put. It’s going to finish out of the money and give me a realized gain of $387.40. Knowing that it was safely out of the money on the final day, I sold a new QQQ naked put while prices were down….
Month End Summary – January 2020
January was a blah month by the end. It began with what appeared to be a missed opportunity for me, but I remained cautious and waited for a better entry point. The result was that my account barely moved and is in between the losses of the Dow and S&P 500, which is not much….