Monthly Archives: October 2016

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

October 10 – 14, 2016

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

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

October 10 – 14, 2016

This was another one of those weeks in which I had no idea what the week was all about, but I still think that something is brewing.

Again, it’s also a week in which I have no idea whether to be pleased or displeased about this week.

I was pleased to have made an opening position trade and to have been able to roll some positions over, but I was displeased with the performance of existing positions in an otherwise weak time period.

The single new position outperformed the adjusted S&P 500 by 2.2% and the unadjusted S&P 500 by 1.8%.

That position was 0.8% higher for the week, while the unadjusted S&P 500 lost 1.0% and the adjusted S&P 500 was 1.4% lower.

What was good was also the opportunity to rollover the week’s sole expiring position and to also rollover a couple of longstanding positions that have been retracing their price and instead of being in line for assignment next week are now continuing to be income producers for another few months, at least.

That’s OK by me.

There were no new assignments of shares to add to the closed positions in 2016 and, therefore, no new cash to add to the reserves, that i would still like to see grow.

With mostly good news to end the week, the market managed to give up most of the big gain that it had made on the day and ended up the week with a 1% loss.

The bad news on the week, at least as far as investors go is that the odds of an interest rate increase by December is now thought to be about 70%.

Investors don’t seem to like that kind of certainty, nor do they like the kind of opinion that was expressed in the release of the last month’s FOMC meeting.

So, despite good bank earnings, there wasn’t too much to cheer about and the market spent most of the week just following oil back and forth.

With another purchase this week of a speculative position, I was just glad to be able to roll it over and hope to be able to do so again next week.

I was also happy to be able to rollover one of those positions set to expire next week and has been the case for the past year, there was another opportunity to extend the expiration date, this time into 2017.

I had been looking forward to next week’s month ending expiration, but the sudden turn in pricing now makes some of those assignments and rollovers look much less likely.

I’m hopeful that earnings next week may buoy the market which is in need of some kind of a catalyst.

I still have some cash as the week is about to begin and with only one ex-dividend position coming up and perhaps the chance of no rollovers or assignments, I would like to find some way to generate some income.

That of course is balanced with wanting to preserve cash, but I’ve had a hard time resisting some of the recent opportunities.

Most of the time I’ve been happy to have not been able to resist, but there’s still the occasional trade that should have been resisted.

Fortunately, in the past year I’ve become more patient with some of those positions and can wait to make an income generating trade, rather than jumping at a less than appealing trade.

Next week will be a busy one ith earnings and we may also get a more and more clear idea of what December may bring.

If that’s the case, there may be reason to hang on tightly, unless markets come to their senses and realize that it may be time to celebrate.

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

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:  GDX (1/20/2017)

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

New STO: none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: MRO

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:  FAST (10/21 $0.30)

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.