After buying back my Monsanto (MON) naked put on Friday, I spent some time trying to pick my strike for a new naked put. I decided to keep my risk lower although it reduced my potential profit decently. While MON was trading at $110.20 within the first minute of trading today my limit order hit and I sold one MON October 100 naked put (MONVC) and received $419.25 after commissions.
That strike is $15 less than my August option’s strike. I almost sold at the $110 strike, but saw that with the chance to get over $400 at the $100 strike while staying more than 10% out of the money made more sense. I have no need to get greedy, just a need to profit. I mispriced my limit order at $4.30 and saw MONVC trade as high as $4.70 this morning before heading the other direction. Had I not been focused on work before the markets opened today, I’d have raised my limit order with the futures looking so ugly. I didn’t and therefore didn’t get the highest trade of the day. That’s the price of having a job and a salary I guess. Obviously being at work I made more than the $30 difference by working, so I still keep those complaints to a minimum while I continue to take a salary. What it does show is that I think I’ll be able to increase my returns (sometimes/slightly) when I can focus more time on investing one day down the road.