I entered a limit order yesterday afternoon to close my AAPL naked put and planned to write another contract after the order hit. I opted not to enter the order as a combination because I wanted to see if AAPL would bounce around some and change my decision on which strike to sell next.
While AAPL was trading at $208.02, I bought to close one AAPLÂ September $185 naked put for $0.55 and paid $55.66 including $0.66 in commission. After receiving $448.90 when I sold this put last month, I ended with a realized gain of $393.24. I think that’s pretty good considering I closed it with more than six weeks to go before the contract expires.
The order hit when I was away from my desk and when I finally got back to working on my account this afternoon, Interactive Brokers didn’t show any options available for AAPL. I checked my account with TD Ameritrade and see options still trading, so it’s not a glitch beyond IB maybe.
Whatever the cause, my order hit to close my September contract, but I can’t write a new contract yet. Maybe I’ll have a stroke of luck and AAPL will drop tomorrow when options work on the IB platform again and I’ll be able to sell at a lower strike or higher premium. I was also thinking about finding another stock or ETF to trade on, but at this point I plan to wait until tomorrow to decide what to do next.