I picked a good day to roll my options, but could’ve timed it better. That’s the story of this series of TLT trades I’ve been working since last year. Then again, as long as TLT is dropping, I can’t be too upset. My September TLT options had gotten cheap enough to exit and figured I…
Author: Alex Fotopoulos
Rolled Sept TLT Covered Puts
I have two legs of TLT September covered puts and decided I needed to roll some of them today. I meant to do this earlier, but have been focused on my work in client accounts more than my personal trading. While TLT was trading at $140.00, I bought to close five TLT September $132 puts…
Options Expiration – August 2016
I had no options expire today, but did roll one of my legs of TLT covered puts. I also considered selling covered calls on my long (MDY, IWM, and DIS) positions finally, but couldn’t pull the trigger. The upside potential is just too small for what I want right now. I think my brain is a little skewed…
End of the Month Summary – July 2016
I had another bad month in July. TLT was the main cause of my paper losses with $3,789.73 of lost value during July. DIS lost another $116.00 for me, but my IWM and MDY long positions returned more than $2,400 to help soften the blow. My TLT puts covered my TLT short interest and dividends,…
Options Expiration – July 2016
As has been the case a few other times this year, I had no options expire today. I don’t even have any scheduled to expire next month. So, I’ll take the time to give another positions update. This is what’s in my account as of this afternoon. IWM: 200 shares long MDY: 200 shares long…
TLT Chart – July 8, 2016
The chart below shows the monthly prices for the past 10 years on TLT, an ETF that tracks the US 20-year Treasury Index, after closing the week at $143.60, on July 8, 2016. Technical indicators are not infallible, but are popular because they provide accurate guidance in most instances, especially when multiple indicators issue the same signals,…
Small TLT Option Trade
I still had 300 shares of TLT that I was short without any options surrounding them after selling new TLT covered puts earlier this week. When TLT spiked again today, I was close to another margin call and was thinking about taking a realized loss on some of the shares. Before I made that trade,…
Trades Prompted By Margin Call
I hate those days when I wake up to see a stock or ETF I’m short has jumped $2+ premarket. Today was another one of those days for TLT. I knew the risk of another margin call was close and had my plan of action in place. Since I had 300 shares of IWM I…
End of the Month Summary – June 2016
At the halfway point of 2016, my account looks terrible. Until I started writing this post, I didn’t realize that I did not make a single trade in June. That didn’t stop me from losing a boatload of money on paper. TLT hit an all-time high and I’m still not hedged. I only have three other…