It has been more than a year since I made a trade on Apple (AAPL) and that changed today. I was excited when AAPL shares split 7-for-1 early last month because I knew I’d be able to get back in with options without putting up $40-50,000. I didn’t jump on the options last month because…
Author: Alex Fotopoulos
Sold September XLF Naked Puts
Not quite a month ago, I closed my XLF June $23 naked puts while XLF was trading at $22.83. It was the right trade to make because XLF retreated to $22.47 as recently as late last week. However, the Financial Sector ETF rebounded yesterday and had a follow through day today as JP Morgan and…
S&P 500 Index Chart – 2 1/2 Year, Weekly View
The chart below shows the weekly prices for the past two and a half years on the S&P 500 index ($SPX) after the index closed the week at 1,985.44 on July 3, 2014. By the end of the first week in July, the SPX had moved back near the top of its trading channel marked by…
End of the Month Summary – June 2014
June was another good month for my account as I added to my year-to-date gains and got back above an average of 1.0% per month. I’ve fallen off my trading over the past couple of weeks due to my mother-in-law’s passing preceded by a couple of weeks in the hospital for her. I added a…
Cut Some MDY Risk
The limit order for my lower MDY naked put that I entered on option expiration Friday hit today. While MDY was trading at $259.76, I bought to close one MDY September $260 naked put for $7.00 and paid $700.24 including $0.24 in commission. This was a straightforward reduction of risk trade. As I mentioned in…
Options Expiration – June 2014
I only had one option set to expire today and I decided to buy it back before the shares were assigned. While XLF was trading at $22.83, I bought to close three XLF June $23 naked puts for $0.18 and paid $55.26 including $1.26 in commission. Three months ago I sold these puts in-the-money for $1.00…
Rolled Part of UWM Position
Coming into today, I had options on four different UWM July strikes, three of them short and one long as a hedge. I was long two UWM July $75 puts and still am. I was short two UWM July $70, $71 and $77 puts. I kept the $71 and $77 naked puts, but rolled the…
Closed One, Opened Two Naked Puts
I knew it was time to move my June MDY exposure out to a farther month and as I mentioned in my month end summary a few days ago, I planned to move the strike higher too. By the time I got around to placing the order today, the $250 strikes offered a pitiful return….
End of the Month Summary – May 2014
May surprised me and I ended up with a better gain by month’s end than I expected. At mid-month, I thought we were on pace to see a good correction finally. Luckily, I didn’t panic and instead of dumping options while some of my positions moved in-the-money, I bought hedges on SPY and UWM and…