I was planning to wait it out, but decided to get out of AAPL this afternoon with a ~$30 profit. I sold one naked put a couple of weeks ago. I was up $300 as of this morning on paper, but held and saw AAPL’s price fall throughout the day. I gave in when I saw an article about the issues iPhone is having.
A month or two ago I would have held on to work out the profits with a covered call, but after January’s losses I’m gun shy and decided I could use my money better elsewhere. I took in $489.25 and paid $460.74. While AAPL was at 117.43 I bought my naked put back. AAPL rose 50 cents a few minutes later and then came right back down and even went below 116 briefly. I’m not so bearish on AAPL that I’m selling calls on it or shorting it in any other manner, but didn’t see the need to risk staying in.
In IRA trading yesterday I bought more BA and sold ITM calls on it this morning after it was up 45 cents. I put a limit in to buy 200 shares at 82.00 back on 2/15 and it hit yesterday afternoon and fell only four more cents before rebounding. In another IRA trade I bought more DWA today and sold ITM puts on it.
For about 15 minutes today, I was actually tempted to sell the naked put you bought. Then I realized that I probably should save my buying power in case the market takes a bigger dive.
I had a similar waffling of confidence in SIRF (Bought back put options in SiRF Technologies (SIRF), swayed by emotions or smart trading?) and closed the remainder of my positions.
I think that’s smart trading. In this market I’m starting to lean more to the side of getting out while the getting is good and be ready to live to trade another day. Keeping more cash ready for the next big dip/dive will reward us more than squeezing a few extra dollars out of dubious positions.