I charted the daily prices for the past six months on the S&P 500 index ($SPX) after the index closed at 1,614.42 on Friday, May 3, 2013. The SPX has been on the tipping point recently, but didn’t go off the edge. The large cap index rode along its 50-day moving average (dma) for a few…
Author: Alex Fotopoulos
Added Naked Puts on Leveraged ETFs
This morning’s positive jobs data caught most investors off guard. Not only did it beat forecasts by 10,000, the previous month’s number was revised 50,000 higher. Much of my concern for the market’s direction came from my view that if the jobs data is weakening, the economy will follow. Based on today’s employment data and…
Removing Risk – SSO, QCOM
A lot of traders like to add to positions as markets move higher. I’m usually in that camp too, but the S&P 500 has had a hard time getting up to the 1,600 level on prior attempts and after bouncing around it this week. I figured I should remove some risk and either be ready…
End of Month Summary – April 2013
April was somewhat of a “blah” month for my account since I finished very close to my March closing balance. I did well with most of my positions, but my oil holdings and QCOM cost me all of my gains on paper. Oil limited my realized gains too since I played my UCO ratio spread…
DJIA Chart – Almost Time to Sell in May?
I charted the weekly prices for the year-to-date on the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJIA, $INDU, $DJI, the Dow) after the index closed for the week at 14,712.55 on Friday, April 26, 2013. Chart technicians have to be careful not to draw trend lines that fit the story they want. Being objective isn’t always as easy as…
Sold TLT June Call Spread
Selling vertical call spreads on TLT is one of my favorite trades. I did it three times last year and only had one assignment. That one assignment ended up turning into a $2,400+ profit. The spreads that expired worthless were just good profits on their own that required no adjustments. I didn’t jump back into…
Sold T July Naked Puts
AT&T (T) got hammered yesterday after their disappointing earnings call. I thought the beating was a little bit of overkill and looked to the puts column for a path to profit. I expect the downside from the new lower levels to be somewhat limited based on the dividend yield. The forward dividend yield is 4.6%….
S&P 500 Chart – Bears’ Turn?
I charted the daily prices for the past six months on the S&P 500 index ($SPX) after the index closed at 1,555.25 on Friday, April 5, 2013, almost exactly where it was when I charted it two weeks ago. The charts are easy to read sometimes and leave little doubt as to what is to come…
Options Expiration – April 2013
I came into today with only a couple of positions remaining. I closed my other April options over the past few weeks, mostly with poor timing. My AAPL bear put spread was a fantastic trade, except I closed it for a loss before the fantastic part worked itself out. I missed out on a nice…