August | 2016 | TheAcsMan

Aug152016

Dashboard – August 15 – 19, 2016

MONDAY: Record highs set last week all around, but the market remained flat. Is that the very definition of an inflection point or will it be a launching point? More retail earnings to come this week to give a nudge in either direction

TUESDAY: More earnings to come this week, but oil seems to be holding court again, as we await the release of FOMC minutes tomorrow and look for any insights into the minds of those who make the decisions that we are all speculating over.

WEDNESDAY: The market looks flat this morning, but FOMC minutes are to be released this afternoon and more earnings are ahead, as well, so anything may still be in store

THURSDAY: A nice post-FOMC Minutes release rebound yesterday after some disappointing retail earnings. This morning looks flat, but more earnings to come and more Federal reserve members to speak their minds.

FRIDAY:. The week, the monthly option cycle and for the most part, this earnings season comes to an end. Despite the slightly negative opening in store today, it looks like another in a series of flat weeks.

“SNEAK PEEK AT NEXT WEEK” APPEARS ON FRIDAYS

Aug132016

Weekend Update – August 14, 2016

TheAcsManWeekend Update

When the news came that Thursday’s close brought concurrent record closing highs in the three major stock indexes for the first time since 1999, it seemed pretty clear what the theme of the week’s article should be.

But as I thought about the idea of partying like it was 1999, what became clear to me was I had no idea of why anyone was in a partying kind of mood on Thursday as those records finally fell.

Ostensibly, the market was helped out by the 16% or so climbs experienced by the first of the major national retailers to report their most recent quarterly earnings.

Both Macy’s (M) and Kohls (KSS) surged higher, but there really wasn’t a shred of truly good news.

At least not the kind of news that would make anyone believe that a consumer led economy was beginning to finally wake up.

The market seemed to like the news that Macy’s was going to close 100 of its stores, while overlooking the 3.9% revenue decline in the comparable quarter of 2015.

In the case of Kohls the market completely ignored lowered full year guidance and focused on a better than expected quarter, also overlooking a 2% decline in comparable quarter revenue.

For those looking to some good retail news as validating the belief that the FOMC would have some basis to institute an interest rate increase in 2016, there should have been some disappointment.

Continue reading on Seeking Alpha

Aug122016

Week In Review – August 8 – 12, 2016

TheAcsManWeek in Review

Option to Profit

Week in Review

August 8 – 12, 2016

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
0 / 0	0	2	0 / 0	0 / 0	0	2

Weekly Up to Date Performance

August 8 – 12, 2016

When I thought that this week had the makings of a flat one, I didn’t realize just how flat it might be.

Despite all major indexes hitting a record high on the week, it wasn’t very exciting other than for some good retailer price action, even as the retail numbers themselves weren’t overly impressive.

Maybe not even impressive in the slightest.

This was another week of no new purchases and so there wasn’t too much to think or talk about.

That’s not exciting, either.

The S&P 500 was actually up 0.1% for the week after looking as if it would close perfectly flat until the final 20 minutes or so for the week.

Still it was a good week.

There were 2 ex-dividend positions and 2 rollovers, including a rare rollover of a short put position that was going to expire.

On top of that, even as the market was flat, existing positions again beat the S&P 500, this time by an additional 0.6%.

With no new closed positions on the week closed positions in 2016 are still 6.8% higher, while the comparable performance for the S&P 500 during the same holding periods has been 1.9% higher. That represents a 267% difference in return on closed positions. As with every week in 2016, I’d be much more impressed if there were far more of those closed positions to point toward. With such few closed positions for the year, the differential could just as easily have been in the other direction and of a similar magnitude, yet also signifying little.

I could get used to seeing 2017 being a repeat of 2016, at least year to date.

I definitely like seeing the increase in net asset value and would certainly like to see more in the way of trading activity, but there was enough this week to keep me from hitting the streets.

There was an opportunity to rollover the position in International Paper a week early in order to have a better chance of holding onto the very nice dividend.

Additionally, I found reason to want to rollover the short put position in Marathon Oil, despite it heading for an expiration.

The reason for that was the same as the reason for rolling over short call some positions that are likely to otherwise be assigned.

That’s because volatility makes the forward week premiums a bit richer than the expiring premium which ends up basically representing only intrinsic value.

Even with Marathon Oil being ex-dividend on Monday, the ROI for the additional week was another 1.3% and keeps the position alive and accumulating premiums.

At this point, that’s good enough for me.

If I can’t make it up in the volume of trades, maybe I can make it up in the lack of variety in the positions.

Marathon Oil has been just about the only play over the past 2 months or so.

But that works, too.

In fact, it almost totally takes the thought process out of the process, which makes it even better.

With 2 ex-dividend positions this week and another 2 next week and now 2 potential rollovers, there should be some cash coming in, but I would still love to be able to open some new positions.

Maybe even a single new position would be enough, given the paucity of trades lately.

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: none

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

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle: IP (9/2016)

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

New STO: none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: MRO (8/19)

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: AZN (8/10 $0.44), IP (8/11 $0.44)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: MRO (8/15 $0.05), HFC (8/19 $0.33)

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.

Aug122016

Daily Market Update – August 12, 2016

TheAcsManDaily Market Update

Daily Market Update – August 12, 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: MRO puts

Expirations: none

The following were ex-dividend this week: AZN (8/8 $0.44), IP (8/11 $0.44)

The following are ex-dividend next week: MRO (8/15 $0.05), HFC (8/19 $0.33)

Trades, if any, will be attempted to be made prior to 3:30 PM EDT

Aug112016

Daily Market Update – August 11, 2016 (Close)

TheAcsManDaily Market Update

Daily Market Update – August 11, 2016 (Close)

This morning’s futures, although only mildly higher, were already showing more of a move than the cumulative absolute value moves in the 3 previous days of this week.

When it was all over, all 3 of the major indexes closed at record highs.

When the morning started there was a chance that the move higher could grow if only retailer earnings that were set to begin in the morning could give some sense of hope that all was well on the consumer side of things.

With 2 big ones before the market’s open being interpreted as having been good news, despite word of 100 store closures at Macy’s and decreased guidance at Kohls, the market never looked back and was even buoyed by a bounce in oil later in the session.

As far as the news of the day goes, those retailers continue next week and oil is a potential issue day in and day out.

After we received reports from 3 key national retailers today, we also get the official retail Sales Report tomorrow morning.

The reasonably strong earnings reports today, even though not fueled by really positive guidance, could still be more meaningful to investors than tomorrow’s official numbers.

Even if earnings aren’t wonderful, if those upcoming retailers start to paint a brighter future for the quarters ahead, that guidance will likely be far more important than anything the government may have to report tomorrow, that will only be backward looking.

Strong guidance would give investors the belief that the FOMC is going to have more of a reason to raise interest rates sooner, rather than needing to wait until December, as is increasingly the consensus.

While yesterday was another in a series of flat days, wouldn’t you know it, the one position that did rally was the one going ex-dividend today?

I did get the opportunity to roll over that position for another month. The goal in that transaction was to get at least a premium as large as the dividend, in the event that the position would still be assigned early.

That was achieved and a bit more, as well, as the additional ROI for the rollover was about 1.3% versus an almost 1% quarterly dividend.

I actually would mind neither the prospect of an early assignment, which didn’t appear to be the case in the morning and was reported by no one as having been the case, or keeping the position alive and just adding to its cumulative ROI, even as the underlying security hasn’t gone very far.

In this case, if the position does get assigned next month, the 10 month holding will yield an ROI of almost 19%, half of which is from dividends and premiums, while the comparable S&P 500 move was 3.6%, exclusive of dividends.

That’s the way it’s supposed to work, but those opportunities have been rare as the goal had been for shorter term holding periods. However, as markets have increasingly moved the strategy toward longer term holdings, the dual sources of income, dividends and premiums, have become increasingly welcome news.

With the one expiring position for the week that happens to be a short put, I do want to take assignment of shares as the position is ex-dividend on Monday.

Hopefully, if that does happen, there will be a quick and easy opportunity to sell some calls and then exit that new position or even continue rolling those calls over, as had been the case with some other recent new positions, whether short calls or puts.

Today, I actually came close to rolling the puts over as even factoring in the lost dividend, the net premium was pretty good
. if that position continues to hover around the strike price, I may try it again tomorrow.