Monthly Archives: May 2016

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

May 9 – 13, 2016

 

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

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

May 9 – 13, 2016

Unbelievable.

Finally a week with some trades.

The market had no clue of what it wanted this week, but at least it survived some horrible retailer earnings performance.

There was one new position opened for the week and despite it being in the money, I elected to roll it over.

That position was 6.6% higher than the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 on the week.

It was 6.1% higher, while both the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 were 0.5% lower.

Existing positions, having taken advantage the past couple of months of the strength in oil and commodities, continued to give gains back from the previous 4 weeks.

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 was again absolutely no theme to the week.

They either made no move at all, or really big moves.

Stocks did and didn’t really follow oil, but they did really follow retail earnings.

At least for a day.

And lately, a one day streak may be just about all anyone can hope for.

This was an interesting week.

I think it has been about 3 years or so, since the last time rolling over a well in the money position.

I used to do that much more regularly when volatility was much higher.

In those cases, the forward week premiums were so much better than the costs of closing the positions and it made lots of sense to keep the position open.

Hopefully, I’ll still believe that next week, but with some deep liquidity, continued adverse price moves in oil could still leave that position as one that I’d like to hold onto, just to get more and more premium.

Even if that position gets assigned early later today, because it is ex-dividend on Monday, the return would be a good one.

If only I had many, many more shares.

With no ex-dividend positions this week, it was at least nice to generate some income from that single new purchase, its rollover and then jumping the gun on a rollover of a position expiring next week.

Next week will be the end of the May 2016 option cycle and for the first time in a while, there are a number of positions expiring.

Hopefully, some of those will at least be in range for rollovers or maybe even assignment.

I don’t expect to be in a buying mode on Monday, but am open to the idea.

The risk is that there more retail earnings may weigh heavily again on the market.

If so, there may be reason to once again look at forward month option expiration dates for the rollovers, as was done with Best Buy, today and has been the case for much of the past 6 months.

Unfortunately, much of the market lately has been a waiting game and the waiting has gotten longer and longer.

For certain, the market hasn’t been in a forgiving mood for a long time and it has had a much longer memory than it used to have whenever it has been disappointed.

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:  MRO

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: MRO

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: BBY (9/15)

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

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

New STO: none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

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:   none

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week:  MRO (5/16 $0.05)

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.