I’ve been a steady fan of Disney (DIS) for a while and would have done better over the past year by buying shares rather than selling naked puts. However, I know that the stock will stumble along its way higher again, as it did when I was assigned a put in October 2014. So, I decided…
Author: Alex Fotopoulos
Options Expiration – January 2015
I had more option contracts make it all of the way to today’s expiration than I’ve had in a very long time. Coming into the day, I had one DIS January $90 naked put ($285.51 profit), two UWM January $73 naked puts ($1,160.09 profit), two UWM January $75 naked puts ($1,598.24 profit), one BABA January $110 naked put…
S&P 500 Chart – 3-Year View – January 9, 2015
The chart below shows the monthly prices for the past three years on the S&P 500 Index ($SPX) after the index closed the week at 2,044.81 on January 9, 2015. At the beginning of December, the S&P 500 ended a multi-week move higher that included very narrow intraday price swings. Since those days of 10-point swings,…
End of the Year Summary – 2014
2014 was yet another great year to be an investor. In a year that never saw a full 10% correction (but came very close once), investors didn’t have to try hard to have a good return for the year. At 43 years old (maybe half of the way through my working career), I no longer…
Current Positions – January 30, 2014
Much like the way I ran my portfolio for most of 2014, I’m finishing the year without owning any stocks or ETFs. I’m short eight different puts and have a vertical spread using two different calls. I came into the year without wanting to own many stocks so I could avoid the paperwork hassle of…
Options Expiration – December 2014
What a difference a week can make! Coming into this week, I had one option remaining to expire in December. My lone MDY $265 put was deep in the money as MDY closed last Friday at$255.71. I would’ve had a loss on the option contact if I had bought it back at the time. I…
Sold February TLT Call Spread
I’ve been waiting for TLT to pass the $127 mark and today it reached $127.72. I wanted the 20-year Treasury ETF to be well into the upper half of the $120s before I made this trade. I started trading vertical call spreads on TLT more than 2 1/2 years ago and have learned to be…
Sold FB February Naked Put
In July, just before Facebook (FB) took another large step higher, I decided to cut my risk with the social media company and moved back to Apple (AAPL). My AAPL trade worked for me, but I could’ve stuck with FB and made money also. FB fell off my radar for a little while as I…
End of the Month Summary – November 2014
November felt like it went by in a blink of an eye. At least I made money as the month flew by. Once again, I finished the month at a new monthly closing high and had decent realized gains. I limited the churn in my account by avoiding the weekly options on TLT and had…