Month: March 2017

In the final 30 minutes of trading today, as the monthly option cycle was coming to its end, I made one last trade for the day.

I had already surprised myself by not paying attention to the strategy I was planning to execute this morning with Marathon Oil.

I further complicated matters by actually opening 2 new positions today, something I don’t do very often to end the week, unless one of those shares is going ex-dividend to start the coming week.

I also ate into my cash reserves.

Confusing.

Add to that the final trade.

Continue reading “Why Did You Do That?”

Visits: 16

Just a few hours ago I made a pretty good case for breaking one of my rules.

That rule was to treat individual lots of shares in a given stock as individual positions.

Doing that means selling calls on each position based upon its own strike price and profit goals.

I had my eyes on adding more shares of Marathon Oil today if it tested the $15.50 level.

With a $16.50 strike expiring this afternoon on shares that had a $15.60 break even, the idea was that if I did add more shares of Marathon Oil I would just combine the 2 lots, which happened to be of equal size and then look to sell $16 strikes on Monday. Continue reading “Why Do Today What You Can Put Off Until Next Week?”

Visits: 12

Does anyone remember this song from Mary MacGregor?

It raised a few eyebrows when it came out almost 41 years ago.

Putting fantasies aside for a moment, I’m torn between two loves at the very same moment, sitting here wondering what comes next.

That wonderment isn’t unusual. There isn;yt a day, and I don’t think there hasn’t been a day that I can recall when that wonder wasn’t in abundance.

Now that rates have risen for the second time in 3 months and as it seems that there is some ambivalence about continuing that post-election rally, I’m torn between the financing goals that appeal to me the most. Continue reading “Torn Between Two Lovers”

Visits: 10

About 5 years ago, maybe a little less, but at this point I don’t feel a sense of obligation to go through my data, I was way over invested in retail.

As someone who really does believe in diversity, I wasn’t too happy about carrying that much retail liability, especially as those shares weren’t faring too well.

Like just about everything else, there are periodic ups and downs.

Individual stocks behave that way, as do sectors.

Markets, too.

Continue reading “Retail Me Yes”

Visits: 17

If you like uncertainty, you may really love what’s ahead.

Of course, no one ever knows what is ahead, but I’m certain that it won’t be as certain as the market’s climb since Election Day.

Coming on the heels of Wednesday’s 300 point gain, today’s triple digit loss was muted, unless you were in metals and perhaps energy.

Those two certainly helped me out a lot in 2016 and had been pretty good to me in 2017, as well.

I put quite a bit of money into retailers in the past two weeks following the post-earnings swoons in L Brands, Target and Best Buy.

Abercrombie and Fitch, on the other hand, was just a lucky call, as it didn’t nosedive after poor numbers.

There was one other trade in the week that I didn’t report, because it was made in the final minute of trading on Tuesday and it didn’t involve the immediate sale of call contracts.

That was for Las Vegas Sands, which subsequently soared on Wednesday at which time I did sell some weekly calls, only to watch those shares give up much of their gain today.

But that’s the theme of what I really want to talk about.

If you don;t quiver too much, there have been some really good opportunities in some down beaten stocks.

You may have followed my recent trades in and out of Cliffs Natural Resources, for example. Continue reading “If You Like Uncertainty……”

Visits: 14