Option to Profit
Week in Review
August 29 – September 2, 2016
| NEW POSITIONS/STO | NEW STO | ROLLOVERS | CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED | CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED | CLOSED | EX-DIVIDEND |
| 1 / 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 / 0 | 0 / 0 | 0 | 4 |
Weekly Up to Date Performance
August 29 – September 2, 2016
The market showed a little bit of strength this week, but it showed no character.
The strength that it showed was pretty superficial, though, and doesn’t necessarily translate into anything reliable in the coming week.
It was another week of some, although not much, personal happiness in terms of performance and cash generation.
It was another week with a new position opened, a rarity for 2016.
Like the week preceding, that purchase was an after earnings report release and like the previous week, the decline in the shares continued.
Hopefully, like the stock from the previous week, the next week will have a rebound and eliminate any regrets.
This week’s new purchase position was 4.0% lower. It trailed the unadjusted S&P 500 by 4.5% and the adjusted S&P 500 by 4.0%
On the week, the unadjusted S&P 500 was up 0.5%, while the adjusted S&P 500 was unchanged.
Existing stocks struggled to keep up with the unadjusted S&P 500, but still it was a good week.
That’s mostly because asset value continued to go higher and did so without oil and commodities
It was also, however, due to 4 ex-dividend positions.
Since there were no new closed positions for the week, the tally remains the same. Those positions closed in 2016 are still 6.8% higher, while the comparable performance for the S&P 500 during the same holding periods has been 1.8% higher. That represents a 279% difference in return on closed positions.
The market was mostly treading water this week as it awaited the release of the Employment Situation Report.
That was understandable, particularly as there was good reason to believe that the report could spell the difference between an interest rate hike now, and maybe another before year’s end, or just a single rate hike in Decemer.
It was really anyone’s guess how the market would react to extreme numbers at either end of the spectrum, but its true colors really came out as the slightly disappointing numbers were greeted vary well and then when there was reason to believe that the weak numbers still didn’t rule out a September rate increase, the warm welcome was withdrawn.
No character.
At least not the kind of character you would want to associate with for very long.
With 2 positions set to expire next week and 5 ex-dividend positions and absolutely no idea of what drives the market at this point other than the FOMC’s upcoming meeting in a few weeks, I have no great need to open any new positions next week.
I would be fine with either seeing assignments or keeping the 2 expiring positions in contention to generate more option premium income.
With a holiday shortened week and volatility so low, the premiums aren’t going to be very spectacular anyway, so it might just be a good week to be a casual observer and then just casually take any opportunity that comes along for any existing, but uncovered positions.
That sounds like a plan.
Happy Labor Day.
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: ANF
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: 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: ANF (8/31 $0.20), BAC (8/31 $0.05), HAL (9/2 $0.18), KSS (9/2 $0.52)
Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: BBY (9/9 $0.28), GM (9/7 $0.38), MOS (9/6 $0.275), WY (9/7 $0.31), COH (9/8 $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.
