As if the wake from the Fed rate cut wasn’t enough to cause major market gyrations, today is expiration day for September options. The trading activity is always interesting on the last day of options. The “big boys” can push a stock up or down to make it close at-the-money if needed to balance out their…
Author: Alex Fotopoulos
“Blog Rush” for Investing Blogs
I just added a new widget to my right sidebar which shows links to other investing blogs’ posts. The idea is for each time my page has a visitor, I get a syndication credit that will give me “advertising” on another financial blog. For each person who clicks on my widget (or here) I also…
Learning Options the Hard Way – A Reader’s Tale
I received the following email this morning from a reader who asked to remain anonymous, but thought his story would be a good lesson for many others who are trying to learn how to become better traders. ———————————————— First, I had 14K in PUTS I bought and lost 11K the day of the surge. My account…
Nokia (NOK) Review
Barron’s cover story for the September 17, 2007 issue was on the bright future of Nokia (NOK). I try not to trade on their cover stories in the first few days after they are written because they often get a short term bounce that washes away in a few days. This week added another twist with the 1/2 point cut by…
Exited CMCSA Naked Puts
Not even two hours after I said I would not trade any this week Comcast (CMCSA) did an about face and turned negative. I was short four naked puts that I had previously sold at .75 and received $287 after commissions. With CMCSA moving back below the strike I decided to get out while the…
What Now?
What a day to miss out on being at my computer yesterday. My interview went well. I’m not sure if I’ll get an offer, but think I did the best I could. If they don’t give me an offer then I’ll just have to believe there will be a better opportunity for me elsewhere that matches my skills…
Where’s the Chart?
I didn’t get around to a chart analysis this weekend. I have a second interview on Tuesday for a job I really want and can’t seem to think of anything else. As luck would have it, my interview is in the afternoon, around the time the Fed will be cranking out the near-term future for us….
Economists – What do they know?
I found this quote in, of all places, theonion.com’s RSS Feed and thought it fit this blog for today. “An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the living.” – Nicholas Chamfort I read an article on Yahoo! about a new book…
Ceradyn Inc (CRDN) Naked Put
After writing about CRDN as one of Smart Money’s stock picks last week I sold one naked put on it this morning. While CRDN was trading at 69.39 my limit hit to sell one October 65 naked put (AUEVM) and received $169.25 after commissions. I had a limit in for two October 60 puts for the…