The market is crazy today and I’m trying to capitalize on the VIX ($VIX.X) being up to the mid-50s, higher than it’s been in more than 20 years (could be ever, but that’s as far back as my chart goes). While at $27.21, I sold four XLB October 25 covered puts (XLBVY) for $0.75 each and received…
Author: Alex Fotopoulos
Sold SPY Covered Puts
Y’all are going to think I’m crazy now. Now that I own two SPY December 110 puts and their value is made up of more than half intrinsic value, I decided to try to make a trade on SPY October puts out of the money in an attempt at a trade on SPY not falling much more before getting…
New Calls: JOYG
I’m long 100 shares of JOYG from an assigned naked put and also have two JOYG naked puts at the November 40 strike. If all stays even I’ll have 300 shares in a month. With that in mind and JOYG trading down at $34.05, I sold three JOYG October 40 naked calls (JQYJH) for $1.00 and received…
Bought Insurance Puts on SPY and XLB
I did this morning what I should have done months ago. I bought puts for downside protection. It’s not like many of you haven’t advised it during the past 18 months of my blog’s life. Finally, down big already, I wised up (a little). I started off this morning looking at individual stocks to buy…
S&P 500- 20 Year Chart – October 3, 2008
I went back a full 20 years to see where the S&P 500 (SPX) is on a longer term chart’s perspective. I only drew three trend lines in this week’s chart. I also drew (in blue) extensions to these lines to show where they might intersect. The long trend line that started in the early-90s…
Stock Charts – AA, CELG, CHK, CMI, DRYS, FCX, JOYG, MON, QCOM, TDW, USO
I charted all stocks I have an open position in. I’ve been getting spanked for more than a month now and have saved myself from losing as much as I could have by selling naked calls. I would’ve done better by buying some protective puts, but I didn’t. I’ve sold all my calls far out of…
MON Tanks and I Get Naked
I’m already short one Monsanto (MON) naked put at the October 100 strike (MONVC). I received $419.25 for selling it on August 19th. MON was downgraded today by Merrill Lynch and dropped around $20 to start the day. Since it was trading near the strike yesterday, this knocked a quick chunk out of my account. …
End of Month Summary – September 2008
If I was to name this month it would be dubbed “Revert to the Mean” month. I’ve been ahead of the major indices for annual returns for a while and then I get hit with the worst total dollar loss in a single month that I’ve ever taken, although I ended with a realized gain…
Current Portfolio – September 30, 2008
I’ve been all over the board this month. Here’s a snapshot of my current portfolio as of 2:45 pm today. I have a mixture of covered calls, naked calls, naked puts and long stocks. I have a little less than $4,000 in time value left to melt away before October options’ expiration. I recovered about half of…