I've been remiss 1/27/2012 Friday wrap

If one has a blog, one needs to post so I'll work on updating more frequently. Did a ton of spreads this week, mostly calendars as vol has come in and stocks such as PFE and F rolled through earnings. The big move up over the last two weeks have 50% of my Iron Condors expiring in Feb underwater. The joy of staying small in defined risk options trading is you can gut it out and stick with the position. Have begun entering into the March trades and will enter in full force next week. Based on Gillies call on TVIX I legged into a fairly sizeable position on Thursday as he has usually been on top of this trade. We'll see. Gartmans call on gold today gave me the impetus to enter a Bullish Put spread selling the F167/164 put spread with GLD clsoing at 168.98 today. I had this trade in the Queue so pulled the trigger at todays price. Will be looking to do the same in SLV next week as I think the metals have room to run. Did some scalping on SPY this week with good results until today where I forced a trade and took a small loss. My Bad!

Monday Jan 09, 2012

Exiting January spreads in full force now as profit price targets hit. Theta has worked it's magic. Spent the weekend working up a better, more efficient spreadsheet to work up and track my basket of spreads by month, all of which accomplished while watching NFL playoffs.

Up at 3:30 a.m. Wide awake so no point in doing anything but getting up to see what is happening in the foreign markets. /ES was down about 6 when I went to bed and is now flat so worked up some additional options spreads and reviewed the orders I currently have in (5). Will spen the 1st hour exiting my Jans and then looking for some stocks to do some calendars on that can be rolled a time of two. Will also be looking at some spread buys for small debits.

With S&P at 1280 would like to see a breakout to the 1300-1310 level and then maybe a pullback to 1235-1240 for another buying opp. It seems like it is about time for Europe to raise it's ugly head and show it's ass. Also concerned with the 4th Quarter earnings given that retail sales numbers are not looking so good. Alcoa reports tonight after the close so with that thought, may not enter any more positions except for the trades I currently have in as we may see some pullback tomorrow.

Looked through the 2012 Traders Almanac and may play the Wednesday up stat just for grins by buying a small block of SPY calls Tuesday night. It's one of those stats where you are forced to play it every chance you have for it to work so we will see. Also continueing to scalp the 80% VA rule as it presents.

Well, that's all for now.

Later gators!

Margin Call

Spent New Year's Eve watching Market Call. Iron's was powerful, Spacey was Spacey and Demi is still a hottie! My takeaways, Wall Street is populated by sharks who will eat their young...you have no friends...trust no one...greed is the strongest emotion on the planet followed by self preservation. When it come down to me or we...me will always win. Nothing new here, just confirmation of the old paradigms. A good watch...I enjoyed it very much. Now...to see what the New Years will bring. Going to spend the next couple of days working up my trading plan for the 1st 3 months of the year. Stay tuned for film at 11:00.

SPY

Looking at the SPY chart for the full year. My best "guess" for January action is we break above 127.26 in SPY and track up to the 135.00 or so where we flag to build a base for the next move. I've got a strong bullish bias at this point as i think traders will be itching to put money to work. Watch the action in TLT, /ZN, /ZB, FXE as leading tells for SPY and of course the Vix for fear creeping back into the markets. It ain't rocket science, watch the tape action and it will tell you what you need to know.

Gold

Doing a lot of defined risk option trading using GLD, EWZ, QQQ, TLT, IWM & SPY. Don't normally exit these early as that is the whole point of defined risk, the ability to hold the position up to expry week to make theta decay work for you. That said, shortly after I put on my Iron Condor in the GLD for January, I could begin to see the handwriting on the wall for the GLD trade so bought this one back at about 1/2 max loss. At 150.34 today would have been seriously underwater with max loss since the put side of the condor was $156/154puts. Don't see it recovering by January expry as path of least resistance seems to be down. Guess we will see, won't be the 1st nor the last time I'm wrong. Currently holding a real mixed bag of both bullish and bearish verticals, some Iron Condors and several calendar spreads plus a large cash position. Only two equities, TOT and XCO.

Today was basically a SOH day. I did put on a bullish put spread in MOS selling the J50 and buying the J47.5 for a $1.09 credit. A bet that MOS will stay above $50 through the January expry. I already have a J47.5/45p eating up theta and like this trade, maybe a little too much.

Looked at some other stuff hoping to find some nice spreads to take advantage of Theta decay but nothing I liked. Almost did an overwrite on my TOT position like I did in December but with oil hot think I will let it run up through another strike. I likey this stock alot and don't mind holding it unhedged.

Last day of trading tomorrow, will continue to look for some good spreads to put on to take advantage of the 3 days of time decay we'll get with no trading until Tuesday, January 3rd.

Happy trading!

12/28/11

Oldest son came over today for lunch and to hang out. He leaves for Dallas next weekend to begin his company training as an otr truck driver. Has passed his CDL, hired by a big firm and good to go. It's good to be employed in todays world. Good visit so didn't trade, just SOH and watched the market drop off the strength in the Euro. Had a bad feeling yesterday that it was time for a pullback so had executed a Jan12 127/124 put spread at the market close. Now I'm thinking I should have bought in larger size. Volume is so light it is difficult to assess what todays selloff means and if it will be a continuation move to the downside. Will follow the /ES's into the overnight and see if a tell is to be had. Jeff Bierman has been beating the drum that this market is overbought & due for a selloff. Says it is the Generals, not the soldiers. Looking for a move down through a 1237 fib # to 1190 or so. We'll see. It fits with my 120-126 range on SPY. This is the 3rd test of the 200 day mva and failure of same. Don K still thinks we move higher after the 1st of the year when traders return to the market. Works for me. Later traders.

Whales!

This is why it is not always smart to follow the whales. David Tepper sold his entire PFE position of 14 million shares in the period ending September 30th. PFE has climbed 20% since the sale. He reduced his stake in MOS from 2.4 million shares to 737,000. Latest MOS rumor as of 12/23 was a buyout coming at the $90.00 level. Current price is $52.45. I'm holding a J47.5/j45 bullish put spread.