These are the days that can really help out a portfolio in the longer run. Just like in previous days where we got a big drop in a single day, fear takes off as stocks tank. The VIX is up over 21 at the end of the trading day meaning those limit orders on naked…
Author: Alex Fotopoulos
NYX – A Lesson in the Benefits of Selling Options
I’ll be selling my NYX shares with options expiration upon us this weekend. I am exiting the position with a profit as I planned when I wrote my most recent covered calls on NYX, although the stock itself is down from when I first started trading on NYX with a naked put last December, over 10 months ago. …
Selling Naked Put Options on Diana Shipping Inc. (DSX)
Jim Cramer’s Mad Money show headlined dry shipping companies last night. I took a deeper look at four of them that he mentioned: PRGN, OCNF, GNK and DSX. The first two don’t trade options so I stopped there. The latter two are optionable and both offer fairly “rich” premiums. Of course these are the ones he…
5 Reasons Naked Put Selling Beats Covered Call Selling
For anyone interested in covered call selling, consider understanding naked put selling as a better option. The risk/reward graph of both methods will show writing naked put options is the same as writing covered call options. (selling = writing, for those not familiar with the term.) They both pay you up front to limit your upside…
Ditched the Dish
I exited my naked puts on DISH that I sold three weeks ago. I only had two days and 2 hours to go before the put options expired, but the WSJ had an article yesterday that seems to be gaining belief. They say no buyout is coming soon. DISH has been sliding all day and…
Do you Keep a Stock Trader’s Journal?
I put a poll on the right side of the sidebar to ask if you keep any type of trader’s journal for your stock and options trades. Any type of investing or trading journal qualifies for this poll. Even a blog about investing counts in this survey. One of the points of a trader’s journal…
Motorola (MOT) Naked Put Options Trade
Jim Cramer mentioned Motorola last night on Mad Money as a good stock pick right now. Generally his picks will spike for a couple of days and then drop back a little below the closing price from the day before he pumped the stock. I checked it out last night and thought the chart looked…
Stock Investor Patience Creates Greater Returns
I’ve found that one of the reasons I’ve become so much more consistent with my gains in the stock market over the past few years is the patience I’ve developed as an investor. I used to try to trade once per week, kind of a dollar cost averaging type move. I figured I would catch…
My Trader’s Journal Updates
I made three updates to My Trader’s Journal over the past couple of days. 1. I’ve started keeping a MTJ “Stock Market Sentiment” rating at the very top of my home page. This will generally be based on the charting of indexes I do every weekend, but can change mid-week too if a large macroeconomic factor hits…