Monthly Archives: April 2016

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

APRIL 25 – 29, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
0  /  0	1	1	0   /   0	0   /   0	0	3

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

April 25 – 29, 2016

Last week was one of the best weeks that I can remember in a long, long time.

This week was alright, but it’s all very relative.

For the market it was a bad week, but, once again, on a personal note, it wasn’t too bad.

It wasn’t good enough, though, to want to spend any money on new positions.

When it was all done, it was probably a good week to not spend much, if any money, as the S&P 500 was 1.2% lower on the week.

Existing positions, however, continued to find strength in energy, commodities and 1.3% higher than the S&P 500. But with that said, those positions were only 0.1% higher on the week.

Again, though, no positions were assigned, but at least there was the opportunity to get a rollover, sell calls on an uncovered position and have 3 ex-dividend positions.

The only negatives were that there were no assignments and one short position got assigned.

With no assignments, closed positions continue to be 7.8% higher, while the comparable performance for the S&P 500 during the same holding periods has been 2.7% higher. That represents a 189.2% difference in return on closed positions. Unfortunately, though, there are very few closed positions on the year.

There wasn’t too much of a theme this week, other than caution heading into the FOMC meeting and then the GDP release the following day.

Even with those 2 bits of news, the real impetus for the week, outside of some earnings, which were mostly disappointments, came Carl Icahn’s pronouncements.

Clearly, his opinion holds more weight than that of Warren Buffett.

It’s hard, however, to find 2 so very, very different investors.

This week, it was the less likable of the two who moved things.

Next week? Who knows?

More earnings and maybe more reason to believe that the economy really is taking its sweet time about doing anything to warrant an interest rate increase, although so many now believe that June will be the time for the FOMC’s announcement.

That gives plenty of time for some data to start suggesting that things are looking better, but earnings don’t really seem to be painting a really optimistic picture.

With no assignments this week and no positions set to expire next week, I’d really like to do something with what little cash I have in reserve.

With a couple of ex-dividend positions for the week there is at least something, but I would love to continue adding cover to more uncovered positions.

That has been a really, really slow process.

Another really, really slow process has been seeing some minimal recovery in energy and commodity names and those have been the saving grace, just as they had previously been the Achilles heel.

With retail earnings beginning to crop up the week after the next week, we may get some more direct idea of what the consumer is up to.

In a consumer led economy, that tends to be important, but that’s still more than a week away.

That’s just another reason to not be terribly antsy about spending cash next week, but I really wouldn’t mind some further declines, especially if commodities can balance those declines to some reasonable degree.

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  none

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  M

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO: STX

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: MAT, MRO

Calls Expired:  none

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits
: none

Ex-dividend Positions:   F (2/27 $0.15), MS (2/27 $0.15), KMI (2/28 $0.125)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week:  BP (5/4 $0.595), INTC (5/4 $0.26)

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO,  CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Daily Market Update – April 29, 2016 (7:30 AM) The Week in Review will be posted by 10 PM and the Weekend Update will be posted by Noon on Sunday. The following trade outcomes are possible today: Assignments:   none Rollovers:  M Expirations:   none The following were ex-dividend this week:  F (4/27 $0.15), Ms (4/27 $0.15), KMI (4/28 $0.125) The following are ex-dividend next week:   INTC (5/4 $0.26), BP (5/4 $0.595) Trades, if any, will be attempted to be made prior top 3:30 PM EDT

 

Daily Market Update – April 28, 2016 (Close) Yesterday, the market reacted positively to the FOMC Statement release. Going from a mildly negative position to a mildly positive position pretty much reflected what was in that FOMC Statement. Essentially, there was nothing, which itself wasn’t a surprise. That was some suggestion of confidence in the path of the economy, which then ignited talk of a June 2016 interest rate increase. This morning’s GDP may have given some clues as to how much the consumer is actually participating, but based on this morning’s futures, the market isn’t in a buying mood and apparently, neither were consumers. Oil, for a change, didn’t appear to be a precipitating factor this morning and really wasn’t throughout the day. Oil was absolutely flat to begin the morning, as the DJIA futures were down triple digits, with lots of earnings to come this morning. Ultimately, none of that mattered. All that really mattered was that Carl Icahn expressed his pessimism and revealed that he had sold his entire Apple position. With the week nearing its end, I was just hoping to be able to see my lone expiring position either get assigned or rolled over. Now, after the market sell off, that hope of assignment is more faint. However, I continue not minding seeing some of those positions get rolled over, even if their in the money, rather than assigned. Even as volatility falls, the rollover premiums are often good enough for select positions to make that a more lucrative, and perhaps less risky venture, than trying to find a new place to park money. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind parking some money in cash, even as the market hasn’t been swooning. For now, it’s been mostly oil and commodities that have really lead the way for 2016, just as they led the other way for 2015. With that going on, I don’t mind being on the long side for a change and am happy to continue watching those positions move higher, even as they really don’t spell anything good for the broader market nor for the economy. Today ended up just being another day of out-performance thanks to some miserable performing positions that weren’t dumped. I’ll take that as long as it can keep on going

 

Daily Market Update – April 28, 2016 (7:30 AM) Yesterday, the market reacted positively to the FOMC Statement release. Going from a mildly negative position to a mildly positive position pretty much reflected what was in that FOMC Statement. Essentially, there was nothing, which itself wasn’t a surprise. That was some suggestion of confidence in the path of the economy, which then ignited talk of a June 2016 interest rate increase. This morning’s GDP may give some clues as to how much the consumer is actually participating, but based on this morning’s futures, the market isn’t in a buying mood. Oil, for a change, doesn’t appear to be a precipitating factor. It’s absolutely flat to begin the morning, as the DJIA futures are down triple digits, with lots of earnings to come this morning. With the week nearing its end, I now just hope to be able to see my lone expiring position either get assigned or rolled over. I continue not minding seeing some of those positions get rolled over, even if their in the money, rather than assigned. Even as volatility falls, the rollover premiums are often good enough for select positions to make that a more lucrative, and perhaps less risky venture, than trying to find a new place to park money. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind parking some money in cash, even as the market hasn’t been swooning. For now, it’s been mostly oil and commodities that have really lead the way for 2016, just as they led the other way for 2015. With that going on, I don’t mind being on the long side for a change and am happy to continue watching those positions move higher, even as they really don’t spell anything good for the broader market nor for the economy.