Before I get to today’s trades, let me know how many of you watched the iPhone 8 and iPhone X announcements today and if you think the sales will be as strong as expected. I’m still short an AAPL October $160 put and plan to let it run for a few more weeks, if not all the way to expiration. I’ll probably be enough of a sucker to buy the iPhone X too. (Who can resist poop animojis?) I’ve had my iPhone 6 since January 2015 and would like a better camera for the vacation I’m planning with my son to Greece next summer. I don’t need it. Nobody does. But I’d like to have it and my son would be content with getting an upgrade to my current iPhone 6. My iPhone 6 still works great and I think I could keep my next phone for closer to four years instead of just shy of three years. The iPhone X won’t be available to order for another month and a half, so I have time to make up my mind. If the market is good over the next six weeks or at least if I trade well, I’ll be more inclined to spend the money on something I don’t actually need.
The limit order I placed yesterday to close my MDY September naked put hit this morning. While MDY was trading at $318.16, I bought to close one MDY September $320 naked put for $3.00 and paid $300.24 including $0.24 in commission. Less than an hour later, my new limit order to sell a December put hit. While MDY was trading at $318.35, I sold to open one MDY December $320 naked put for $9.30 and received $929.74 after paying $0.26 in commission.
I left over a dollar of time value in my September put, which wasn’t my best move, but at least I got out of this put with a realized gain of $549.50. There’s no telling if MDY will go up more this week. If it does, then I definitely made a mistake in closing this one early. If it drops, maybe it was good to roll it before expiration.
My house didn’t lose power yesterday as Irma passed over Atlanta. Some neighborhoods near me did and a large part of the nearby town had no power today as I went out to lunch and saw all restaurants closed. I’m lucky this time and feel for those who are still without power and won’t have it for days to come. Now I get to go out in my yard and clean up leaves, sticks, and limbs that fell into my yard from the winds.
You can find my YouTube trade video here.