Author Archives: TheAcsMan

Daily Market Update –  November 22, 2016 (9:30 AM)

With these trade shortened holiday weeks anything can happen, but for now it looks as if the Trump rally may continue after taking a week off.

Markets hit all time highs yesterday on all indexes and they look like they’re getting ready to do the same again today.

That still leaves me in a frame of mind to simply go along for the ride and then, wherever may be possible, sell some calls on existing uncovered positions.

I would simply like to close the books on 2016 although it won’t be a year in which i closed lots of trades.

Instead, it will, hopefully, finish as a year with just a nice increase in net asset value, but without realizing a lot of those gains.

I hope that 2017 has more trades closing and more new trades getting made.

Those all represent realized gains and they can’t evaporate overnight like the paper ones can do at any moment in time.

I’m still not against spending any cash to generate some income this week, but at this point, I’m not thrilled about buying into strength at a time when premiums are so low from their already depressed volatility and the trade shortened week.

Or, I could just do like yesterday and sit around doing nothing.

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Daily Market Update –  November 21, 2016 (Close)

This is an odd week.

That’s because I have more money to spend than in quite a while, thanks to 2 assignments and the expiration of some short puts.

It’s also a holiday shortened trading week with no positions set to expire and only one ex-dividend position.

Ordinarily, that would see me wanting to create some income opportunities for the week.

But my inclination at the moment is not to dip into cash reserves.

Part of that is because I don’t want to dip into those hard earned cash reserves, but the other half is that the premiums just aren’t very good.

Early this morning I already had my sights on the price of oil hoping that there might be an opportunity to re-open another new position in that old 2016 favorite, Marathon Oil.

But it didn’t look as if the move was going to be in the right direction, so that was off the map, too and stayed that way throughout the day.

Last week was a quiet one from a market movement perspective, even as I was happy with the amount of trading that I was able to do and the ability to create some income flow while also adding to cash reserves.

This week could very easily also be a quiet market week, especially from my trading perspective, but it could also be a volatile one due to the anticipated low trading volume.

At times like that I would rather not flip a coin if considering committing new cash, so I may just stay on the sidelines.

If so, I don’t mind any outcome.

A move higher takes me for a ride and a move lower may open up some buying opportunities for the cash.

That cash doesn’t burn the same hole in my pockets as it used to, anyway.

Today it was just a ride higher and with energy and commodities again out-performing, as they’ve done through all of 2016.

That’s why I have had a smile for most of the year, but it’s also why I didn’t have one for much of 2015.

We’ll see what awaits in 2017, but whatever it is, at some point markets are going to come to the realization that there wasn’t too much sense in following energy higher, nor in following it lower, until the real tenets of supply and demand kick in.

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Daily Market Update –  November 21, 2016 (7:30 AM)

This is an odd week.

That’s because I have more money to spend than in quite a while, thanks to 2 assignments and the expiration of some short puts.

It’s also a holiday shortened trading week with no positions set to expire and only one ex-dividend position.

Ordinarily, that would see me wanting to create some income opportunities for the week.

But my inclination at the moment is not to dip into cash reserves.

Part of that is because I don’t want to dip into those hard earned cash reserves, but the other half is that the premiums just aren’t very good.

Early this morning I already had my sights on the price of oil hoping that there might be an opportunity to re-open another new position in that old 2016 favorite, Marathon Oil.

But it doesn’t look as if the move is in the right direction, so that may be off the map, too.

Last week was a quiet one from a market movement perspective, even as I was happy with the amount of trading that I was able to do and the ability to create some income flow while also adding to cash reserves.

This week could very easily also be a quiet market week, especially from my trading perspective, but it could also be a volatile one due to the anticipated low trading volume.

At times like that I would rather not flip a coin if considering committing new cash, so I may just stay on the sidelines.

If so, I don’t mind any outcome.

A move higher takes me for a ride and a move lower may open up some buying opportunities for the cash.

That cash doesn’t burn the same hole in my pockets as it used to, anyway.

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