A month ago when I sold a strangle on Schlumberger Ltd (SLB) and took a net credit of $646.98 I thought I’d be safe on both sides through June option expiration, but then the rally hit and all of the sudden I was a little worse off than break even on paper for my SLB strangle. I finally decided to…
Author: Alex Fotopoulos
May 2009 – Month End Summary
I had another good month in May and continue to claw my way back up from my lows last year. I ended May with a balance of $74,238.76 according to TD Ameritrade and $74,528.50 according to Quicken. I’m still not fully invested, but continue to maintain a good annualized return by not overextending myself. If all of…
S&P 500 Chart – May 29, 2009
This weekend I’m back to charting the S&P 500 Index ($SPX.X). It’s about to get really interesting with a couple of different technical indicators converging soon. Bear Case The SPX closed at 919.14 on Friday, about five points below its 200 day simple moving average. Also it hit resistance at the short trend line of lower highs that started back…
Closed MON Long June 80 Put
For the third day in a row I sold a Monsanto (MON) option. Today it was to close the only long put I had. While MON was trading at $78.62 my limit order hit and I sold to close one MON June 80 long put (MONRP) at $3.60 and received $349.25 after commissions. That gave…
Sold XLB June 25 Naked Puts
I’ve been watching Materials Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca:XLB) for a while – ever since my last naked puts finished out-of-the-money. I entered a limit order yesterday and it finally hit this afternoon. While XLB was trading at $26.25 I sold four June 25 naked puts (XLBRY) for $0.55 each and received $207.00 after commissions. …
Bad Timing on Monsanto
After selling a naked put on Monsanto (NYSE: MON) yesterday they lowered earnings estimates for the year to the bottom of the previous estimate. If they can hit that number I still feel MON is a good stock to work, but it did take the wind out of their sail some. It dropped almost 6% from…
Easing back into MON with a Naked Put
After my long (for me long is over 3-4 months) run with Monsanto (NYSE: MON) ended over 30 days ago I decided to give it another look. MON is up a few bucks from where it was when I got out, but I was able to take a loss on the underlying shares while finishing…
S&P MidCap 400 Index ($MID.X) Chart – May 22, 2009
I charted S&P MidCap 400 Index ($MID.X) after it closed on Friday, May 22, 2009 at 551.28. Almost two weeks ago the MID broke below the supporting trend line of higher lows that it has been following since its lows in early March. That timing came with the break below overbought for the Williams %R. …
Response to Series 65 Comment
A My Trader’s Journal reader, Zino, had a great comment on my post from earlier this week where I announced my plans to start studying for the Series 65 Exam. I started to reply below his comment and finally it got so long that I decided to move it to a post of its own. …