The last time I charted the S&P 500 (SPX.X) I drew a trend line of lower highs. That line broke to the upside and the SPX got above 900 for just over a week. Then the Williams %R indicator broke below the overbought area and the SPX unwound. For those not still lost in New Year’s celebrations this…
Author: Alex Fotopoulos
Option Rollout on DRYS
I’ve always stepped in and out of each leg of options one trade at a time. Today I used what TD Ameritrade calls a “complex option” trade, a net credit spread rollout, on DRYS and saved one leg of commissions. Thanks to the comment yesterday by Mule65 regarding my FCX option rollout I learned. I liked…
Rolled FCX Covered Calls
I mentioned a few posts ago that I planned to dump Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold (FCX) when the options expired tomorrow, but then it kept falling and my thought process changed. For a short stint today FCX dropped below my strike and I started thinking that maybe I should hope it stays below $22.50…
Sold AAPL Covered Calls
When I opened my Apple (AAPL) position 10 days ago with January 90 naked puts I remarked it was because Steve Jobs was supposed to be moving to the healthier side. After the market closed yesterday the reverse happened. Apple announced that Jobs was taking a leave of absence because it is more complicated than…
Sold XLB Naked Puts
Last year I had too much exposure to basic materials and it cost me when the sector collapsed. I’ve thinned that down some over the past month with good moves like dumping AA at $10 with covered calls. (AA is trading at $9.15 as I write this.) I sold covered calls on FCX too soon and…
Sold New MON Naked Put to Create an Options Strangle
Monsanto (MON) beat earnings last week and rocketed up nearly 20% in one day last week. It slowly started to creep back down as the short covering slowed and the profit taking for the longs picked up. I entered a limit order on Friday the 9th in the morning when MON was trading just over $83 to sell a…
Russell 2000 ($RUT.X) Chart – January 9, 2009
It’s been a long time since I charted the Russell 2000 Index ($RUT.X) and I think I picked a good time for to check out the benchmark for the small-cap stocks this weekend. I circled the last day of the past (nearly) three month chart. It might be we were lucky the bell rang when it did on Friday because…
2009 Goals
I like to set goals to have a better idea of how I should work my account over the year. I started working on this post after my year end summary, but apparently didn’t set a goal to complete it too quickly. I plan to use more caution this year. Using more caution means planning…
Sold USO (Oil ETF) Naked Puts
I sold naked puts on USO last year and then assigned the shares at expiration. I then sold covered calls a few times before finally getting out completely when I sold my 300 shares on November 25th for $42.68. USO continued to fall for a few weeks and then turned north again. I’ve been eyeing it and waited…