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!