STO March 9, 172.5 calls @ .60 cents replacing the 170 calls that expired on Friday. I have 97 more weeks to sell weekly calls.
Monthly Archives: March 2018
#fuzzy #shortcalls MCD On Feb….
#fuzzy #shortcalls MCD
On Feb. 22 I stated that MCD had stabilized following a drop after earnings and entered into a Sept. fuzzy. MCD went up a couple more days and promptly dropped about 15 more points (the 155 long put looks really good right now). Today, sold a March 9, 155 call for .27, MCD is up to 150.
WYNN
The chart is not looking good this morning so, I rolled the March 9, 177.5 calls down to the March 16, 175 calls for a credit of .37 cents on my 2020 Fuzzy.
$SPXL #PIETrade Taking a shot…
$SPXL #PIETrade Taking a shot at this one Sold the Mar 16th 43 Put at 1.40. Filled with SPXL at 43.45 There are only monthlies on this on so maybe it doesn’t qualify as a true PIETrade.
SPX puts sold
#SPXcampaign Sold to open $SPX Apr 6th 2475/2450 put spreads for 1.65.
Econ Calendar for week of 3/5/18
Be sure to periodically click “Home/REFRESH” to keep Bistro features updated.
February Jobs report is this Friday, 8:30am ET.
#pietrade candidates for this week…
#pietrade candidates for this week and have some on as well.
In no particular order, just best ROI I could find on stocks that are not over-extended or at least mid range of their ranges. Most of these expire Friday so only 4-5 DTE.
1. FAS 66 strike CC
2. ERX 25 strike CC
3. WDC 87 CC or put sale your choice. Personally the CC has a little better return.
4 BIB not a true PIE trade, it is 12 DTE but the 56-57 CC are juicy
5. AAL 52.5 CC or put sale. Skew is to the CC side a little.
Already have
6. GM 42.5 and will take assignment Friday for the dividend then sell CC against it.
7. MAR 138 CC
8. NSC 140 CC
If anyone else has any others please post. I will likely trade the WDC or BIB in IRA and the AAL and ERX in the smaller accounts.
SMILE FOR TODAY..
SMILE FOR TODAY..
Donald Trump is walking out of the White House and heading toward his limo, when a possible assassin steps forward and aims a gun.
A secret service agent, new on the job, shouts “Mickey Mouse!”
This startles the would be assassin and he is captured.
Later, the secret service agent’s supervisor takes him aside and asks, “What in the hell made you shout Mickey Mouse?”
Blushing, the agent replies, “I got nervous. I meant to shout “Donald, duck!”
$SVXY Warning
At Schwab this footnote shows up when referencing $SVXY. Are the rest of you seeing this
warning:
Deficient: Issuer Failed to Meet Exchange Continued Listing Requirements
Assigned on ERX CC at…
Assigned on ERX CC at 26 in 2 accounts. Forgot about these until the email showed up this morning.
Wish I could combine the 7 accounts but alas they all have different tax structures so need to be separate.
Looking at some of the leveraged ETFs you can reach a 100% return on capital just selling CC against them even ITM. Just make sure you have one that won’t go to zero like SVXY or XIV. Some of the inverse ones can do that as well. I was talking with the options income blueprint guys the other day and they stopped trading them because one of the inverse leveraged financials dropped from 2000 to 10 and has been there ever since after the recovery in 2009. Wish I could remember the ticker but I deleted the email by accident. It was similar to SKF but that was not the ticker.
Hope all the right coasters made it through the storm, we had a bunch of wind but no snow 😦
March 2 #Fuzzy Land: Self…
March 2 #Fuzzy Land: Self Assignment
Hi Bistro Friends! I did a #SelfAssignment on MSFT today, converting naked puts into an #AtomicFuzzy. I really like selling 3-4DTE naked puts on MSFT on dips. Been doing it for 18 months it seems, with assignment always assumed but never realized. Today finally was the first chance for assignment. So I chose to do self-assignment into an #atomicfuzzy.
Original trade: STO MSFT Mar 2 94 puts for .72 closed for 1.90, loss: $1118
Atomic Fuzzy: BTO MSFT Apr 92.5/92.5/90 x10 w/ 95/97.5 Call spread for -.80 x24
A move to 94 can get me back to even with a fraction of the risk vs. taking stock assignment. There’s a hockey-stick graph above that for gains.
Atomics have become a big focus for me. I partitioned funds last week for a “hedge fund” type approach to them. Timing may be off a bit…but serious testing is in progress. I haven’t said much about this, but I think there is a ton of edge in these trades….just working on proving it out now. Even though they have nice risk control, they still need a rising market for performance. So, just laying in wait now for that to happen. I was able to take a lot of profits on previous Atomics last week. The CLOSED fuzzy profit for the quarter is now $32,994. But, I’m under water on my newest fuzzies. I was able to use #FuzzyBear trades this week to gain a few k’s.
I had a bit of an epiphany this week regarding a previous post I did that showed we need 3-of-5 one standard deviation up moves before a rally can be trusted. I’ve been watching every single day for even a 1 standard deviation up move and we haven’t had it. I realized that the huge SD down moves tamp down any further SD’s until they age off the averaging. So there’s a coincidental relationship between what I thought was 3 1-SD up moves and the big SD down moves aging off. What I thought was a wait for 3 1SD up moves was probably actually a wait for the big SD to age off, which gives it time to retest lows while waiting. Anyway….if any of this makes sense to you, welcome to my brain. The big SD down moves age off my system in the next 2 trading days. Then there should be more realistic SD data to evaluate.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Sue
Options Expiration 3/2/18
— Expiring w/max profit —
$AZO 790 calls
$SPLK 84/112 #ShortStrangles
Expirations
#optionsexpiration
$SPX 2655/2680 BUPS
$SPX 2600/2625 BUPS
$DVN 35 call (Covered)
$DVN 32 call (Covered)
$AZO 790 call Part of earnings strangle Thank you @jeffcp66
Everyone have a restful weekend. Strong winds and rain in Long Island area.
Thanks to everyone for the great information and support.
Options Expiration for 3/2
$AMZN Mar 2 1220/1320/1550/1650 iron condors
$AMZN Mar 2 1250/1240 put spreads
$AZO Mar 2 655/790 strangle (#Earnings trade from @jeffcp66–I got lucky on the dismount)
$DUST Mar 2 35 calls
No assignments.
A nice move down in the VIX today brought in some premium but it’s still really elevated (futures over 4% in backwardation). Today’s up volume in SPY was about average (based on the 50dma) but not as high as yesterday’s down move. Could this be a higher low or just a bounce after 3 big down days, a reprieve on the way to lower prices? We’ll see next week.
Oscar predictions:
Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell
Best Actress: Frances McDormand
Best Actor: Gary Oldman
Best Director: Guillermo Del Toro (Shape of Water)
Best Picture: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
Probably not much of a stretch there, but go make some money in your Oscar pool 🙂
Have a great weekend everyone.
CME Fuzzy
My weekly hedge of March 2, 170 call will expire so I will sell the March 9 call on Monday which I hope will be the 175 call. That is it for this week Have a nice weekend to everyone. The call was against my 160,160,155 in 2020.
Correction? What correction? NFLX at all-time highs.
Just pushed above 300 for the first time.
Rolled 3/23 265/295 strangles out to 3/29 270/300 for .20 credit.
UNH
BTC April 20, 80 put @.10 on 1 contract. Sold @1.95
SPX trades
#SPXcampaign My morning sentiment was dead wrong. Just had to stop out on a call roll. Probably not putting any more rolls on as I truly do not know what Monday will bring.
Stopped: $SPX March 5th 2700/2725 call spreads for 5.70. Sold this morning for 3.10.
Also, sold to close LONG March 9th 2625/2600 put spreads for 2.90. Bought for 2.60 yesterday.
SPX Campaign
#spxcampaign
$SPX STO 3/28/2500/2525 BUPS at 2.05
$SPX STO 3/23 2800/2775 BECS at 2.80 Thank you @jeffcp66
AZO put closed
#Earnings BTC $AZO March 2nd 660 put for .50, to avoid possible assignment. Sold the strangles for 4.225 on Monday, closed the puts for 1.00 and .50, letting the calls expire.
AZO
#SyntheticStock – Instead of selling an unlimited risk big wide strangle or going pure synthetic I’m trying a little experiment since it’s such a high dollar stock. Thesis (LOL for what that’s worth!) is that the 200ma will hold and there’s not much of a chance of exceeding the all time high this year. (Citi has 790 target on it).
I’m buying a call spread out in Jan 2019 and then selling against it…selling call spreads against it for now since selling naked calls against it results in an additional margin hit since the platform sees it as blocking potential gains.
Bought to Open AZO JAN 18 2019 660.0/760.0 Bull Call Spread @ 40.60 (that’s my max loss)
40.60 with 46 weeks requires .88 a week to cover. Shouldn’t be a problem with this thing.
So:
Sold AZO MAR 9 2018 675.0/700.0 Bear Call spread @ 3.15
Even if the stock goes nowhere selling 3 bucks a week should be a nice winner…
AGN adding
Adding to my position in May
Sold $AGN May 18 115 put @ 1.30.
I’m now short the following put ladder:
Mar 145 (may need to be rolled)
May 130
May 120
May 115
Aug 105
SLB, UPS
#SyntheticStock – STO SLB Mar09’18 67.5 calls for 0.28
#Fuzzy – STO UPS Mar09’18 109 calls for 0.32
WHR July
Adding to put ladder. Sold $WHR Jul 20 120 put @ 1.60.
Put ladder is now:
Apr 120
Jun 130
Jul 120
Sep 115
Better Early Than Never / SPX Campaign
Saving $2
$SPX BTC 3/2 2725/2700 BECS at 23 STO at 3.00
#spxcampaign
$SPX STO 4/6 2500/2550 BUPS at 5.20 Thank you @fibwizard for the idea. I am more timid than you.
#spxcampaign $SPX STO 3/2 2635/2660…
#spxcampaign
$SPX STO 3/2 2635/2660 BUPS at 5.70 then $SPX BTC 3/2 2635/2660 BUPS at 3.30
#ironcondor
$AAPL STO 4/20 150/160/195/185 at 2.75
#longcalls
$WYNN BTO 1/18/2019 165/175 BUCS at 4.25
SPX
STO Apr 02 2500/2600 BUPS, credit of 12.70
#pietrades and #optionsexpiration Not much…
#pietrades and #optionsexpiration
Not much today, taking assignment of LNG puts at 55.5 strike. Cost basis 55.02. Start selling calls on Monday.
Rolled NSC 141 covered call today to next week 140 for 1.40 credit. Cost basis now 138.57.
Already rolled GM to next week, will take assignment, collect dividend then sell calls. Cost basis 39.3
MAR 138 does not expire until next week because I hit the wrong button on Monday when I sold it.
Once I clear some of these out will restart #spycraft actually using spy and will adjust by adding in the middle calls/puts if needed. First adjustment would be a roll like @jeffcp66 but if it keeps moving then try the new style.
Will set up 45 DTE and each 3-7 days add new cycle. Once 3-4 weeks rolling manage it like a continuous ladder of credit spreads.
XBI
#Fuzzy – STO XBI Mar09’18 93 calls for 0.5. My core position is in June’18.
SLB
#SyntheticStock – Only getting partial fills for closing this week’s at a penny but since it’s not in an IRA I’m selling next week while waiting.
Bought to Close SLB MAR 2 2018 67.0 Calls @ .01 (sold for .38) (filled on 2 out of 10)
Sold SLB MAR 9 2018 66.5 Calls @ .50
Covered Calls
#CoveredCalls #coveredcallcampaign
Stopped: $BABA March 16th 177.5 put for 5.85. Sold for 1.35 on 2/21.
#Rolling: Sold BABA April 20th 170 put for 5.60.
Sold BABA Apr 6th 197.5 call for 1.70
Closed on GTC order: $FB Mar 9th 187.5 call for .14. Sold for 1.45 on 2/14.
SPX trades
#SPXcampaign With Futures down and a weak open, I rotated some positions out of puts. I may only be talking my book, but I still sense we have lower to go. The chart I posted yesterday shows most of these double-header downside warnings take us down to the previous low (2532) or lower. Yesterday’s low was still 5% above that low.
Sold $SPX March 23rd 2790/2765 put spreads for 22.00. This is the ITM position I originally sold in early Feb. Closed the March 9 roll yesterday and now rolling 2-weeks further.
Stopped Apr 6th 2550/2525 put spreads for 4.30. Sold for 2.00 as a roll on Wednesday.
#ReverseRoll Sold March 5th 2700/2725 call spreads for 3.10, 1.44x position size.
Stopped March 23rd 2525/2500 put spreads for 3.15. Sold for 1.70 on Feb 20th. Cued up some March 29th lower put spreads for a roll. Will fill if we go lower.
Sold March 2nd 2660/2685 call spreads for 8.25. Nail-biter of a day trade.
Volatility…how’s it going?
Not sure about you guys (gals) but overall I’m fairly happy where most of my positions stand even though account is red today. Fairly big batch of weeklies rolling off the next two weeks. Definitely not getting rewarded for those today. I think the losses today can be attributed more to volatility expansion instead of adverse movement in the stock in a lot of cases.
OLED
#Earnings – I think the easiest (and safest) way to turn this strangle into a winner is roll it into synthetic.
Closed Mar 16th 143/140 Inverted Strangle
Opened Jan 2019 120/120/115 Synthetic in same size.
Rough math after rolling strangle loss into synthetic basis is max loss of 44.60 with 46 weeks to run so .97 per week with pretty good premium in the weeklies. I may add one more synthetic to lower the weekly requirement.
And:
Sold OLED MAR 9 2018 128.0 Calls @ 1.30
SPX short
#SPXcampaign #Market I will post trades soon, but I switched more put spreads to calls and I believe we will be going further down today.
BA put spread
Sold $BA Apr 20 300/290 put spread @ 1.30. Offsets an Apr 20 390/400 call spread.
XOM
#SyntheticStock – Core is all the way out to 2020 and only needing a dime a week. Possibly my favorite position right now…
Bought to Close XOM MAR 2 2018 77.0 Calls @ .03 (sold for .55)
Sold XOM MAR 9 2018 76.0 Calls @ .54
CRUS
#SyntheticStock – Putting this in the synthetic category even though this was just the buying of 45 strike calls out to next January. First sale against these needing .15 per week.
Sold CRUS MAR 16 2018 44.5 Calls @ .65
The New SVXY: A Comparison
The New SVXY: How Will The Revised ETF Perform Compared To ZIV And To The Old SVXY?
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4152553-new-svxy-will-revised-etf-perform-compared-ziv-old-svxy?auth_param=bf3bv:1d9ikf5:969d59d3332385040c89b89bf109e8a1&uprof=37#alt1
AZO
#Earnings – Getting out with a small profit while I can…
Bought to Close AZO MAR 2 2018 660.0/665.0 Strangle @ 7.70 (sold for 9.10)
Good morning
Another ugly day unless you are short.
Closed Early / Short Calls
#spxcampaign
Closed Early on GTC Orders
$SPX BTC 3/9 2800/2775 BECS @ 2.00 STO at 6.00
$SPX BTC 3/16 2875/2850 BECS @ .30 STO at 1.80 Thank You @jeffcp66
$NVDA BTC 3/16 270/260 BECS at .80 STO at 2.30
$NKTR BTC 3/2 75 put at .30 Sold for 4.70. Earnings AH today. Earnings were good but only cost me .30. Thanks to @fuzzballl and @jdietz1954 for the idea.
#shortcalls
$MTN STO 3/16 210 call at 3.60
$SQ Rolled BTC 3/2 46 call STO 3/16 48 call Two dollars up and additional .40 credit
Credit spread adjustments, will be…
Credit spread adjustments, will be good for #spycraft trades and #spxcampaign among others.
Reading the new book “trading options for edge”. Fairly technical but about half way through now but hit on an adjustment for spreads that is so simple, why didn’t I think of that? Maybe even easier and more profitable than rolling or can at least scratch a trade.
For this to work you have to set up a credit spread that has at least 1 strike between them. For instance you could not do it with a 267.5/267 spy spread but you could do it with a 267.5/266.5. Also need to keep some cash ready for the adjustment.
So if your short strike is in danger of being breached, just buy a few options between the strikes. So say you had the 268/263 spy put spread and about to breach the 268 strike. Say you had 10 contacts, you could buy 3 or 4 of 265 puts and it would basically neutralize your gamma and delta risk. The other benefit is if it keeps moving once you are past your long strike would start showing a profit again because you are net long options and basically have a back ratio spread, just with tweaked strikes. Would work great on a day like today.
Worst case scenario is it stalls out after breaching your short strike but at least you have reduced the max loss a lot and if there is still enough time in the trade you may be able to scratch it for even.
As I said, duh, why didn’t I think of that. I have 8 different ways to adjust a losing credit spreads but this is probably the easiest and most effective. Much easier than diagonal, calendar, butterfly, BWB, back ratio or any of the other adjustments because you do not extend duration. It will all close out at the same time.
I will try it in a week or 2 once I clear out this round of trades. May intentionally set one up to blow up and see what happens.
I also was looking through past #spycraft type trades and the ones that were put on 21 or more DTE had better results than the shorter term ones. More time for a big move to reverse.
Going forward, these trades with be 21 or more DTE and if they need adjustment this will be the primary adjustment.
SLB
#SyntheticStock – BTC SLB Mar02’18 67.5 calls for 0.03, sold for 0.24. Gonna wait and see what tomorrow brings to sell calls for next week.
SPX
STC 2 April 06 2600 Long side puts at the low earlier, for 44.50, bought as a BUPS on Feb 27, at 14.40..
gain 158%
SPX trades 2
#SPXcampaign
Sold $SPX March 15th 2750/2775 for 3.50, as a #ReverseRoll from March 23rd puts stopped earlier.
Closed March 2nd 2710/2735 call spreads for 2.80. Sold for 9.20 this morning.
Closed March 16th 2820/2845 call spreads for .65. Sold in a #CondorRoll for 7.85 on Tuesday.
Could be a bounce here, folks.
Good thing I chickened out…
Good thing I chickened out on the /es put side of the strangle. Came home and /ES had swung 40 points from high to low. WTF?!
Not to discuss politics but seems like our government wants to start a trade war, that’s all I could find for the big swing. That will not be good for the market but may be good for trading!
I had some #pietrades lined up for tomorrow but they are all ITM on the puts now or OTM on the calls so will just be rolling NSC, LNG, MAR, GM for more premium or in the case of GM and LNG taking assignment and start selling calls Monday.
SVXY headed the WRONG direction, that is not helpful at the moment but at least the adjustment seems to be tempering the drop.
UVXY call
#VXXGame Sold $UVXY May 18th 25 call for 3.75
SPX trades
#SPXcampaign Spent the morning converting the account to be short on $SPX. Took most action before the spike higher, so not ideal entries and exits, but good enough now that were down almost 2%.
In chronological order:
Bought to Open LONG March 9th 2625/2600 put spreads for 2.60.
Sold to Open March 29th 2840/2865 call spreads for 1.60.
Closed March 9th 2800/2775 put spreads for 23.00. Sold ITM for 19.70 last Friday. #ITMroll coming
Sold March 2nd 2710/2735 call spreads for 9.20. #ReverseRoll
Closed March 9th 2725/2700 put spreads for 11.05. Sold for 4.05 on Monday. (rolled to spread above)
Sold March 23rd 2775/2800 call spreads for 5.25
Closed March 29th 2610/2585 put spreads for 3.15. Sold for 1.50 on Monday.
Closed March 16th 2695/2670 put spreads for 7.96. Sold in a #CondorRoll for 7.85 on Tuesday.
Sold March 28th 2525/2500 put spreads for 2.20, 1.5x pos size, #Rolling from Mar 29th puts closed above
Stopped: March 23rd 2530/2505 put spreads for 2.90. Sold for 1.60 on Friday. No roll yet.
Here we go again with…
Here we go again with the selling. Who can offer the lowest price?
How low do we go…. 🙂
VXX long put spreads against SVXY
Thanks to @hcgdavis for cluing me in on Mark Sebastian’s trade idea on long VXX puts and put spreads. I bought $VXX Mar 16 48/46 put spreads for 1.24 debit. Looking to close for the full 2.00 on a volatility pullback and applying the profit to SVXY stock.
SPLK earnings
#Earnings Sold to Open $SPLK Mar 2nd 84/112 strangles for 1.20. Biggest UP move: 17.9%, Biggest DOWN move: -10.1%, Average move: 5.9%. My strikes are +19.8% and -10.2% OTM.
TQQQ Bearish Fuzzy
BTC March 9, 155 puts and rolled out to March 16, 150 puts for a credit of .14 cents. I should have waited before I rolled earlier.
WYNN Fuzzy
Rolled March 2 175 calls up to March 9, 177.5 calls for a credit of .45 cents.
UVXY against SVXY
Selling more call spreads in UVXY to apply as basis reduction to long shares of SVXY. These in September.
Sold $UVXY Sep 21 25/35 call spreads @ 1.30.
Double-header data
#VIXIndicator Below is some data on the previous times this has happened. There was actually once a triple-header, which I missed yesterday. The columns to look at are:
Column D: the number of days between the cancelation and a new Downside Warning. The one we just experienced was only 3 days.
Column N (and Q): this is how much lower we went below the first Warning’s lows. As you can see, all but two occurrences we went lower than the first warning.
Let me know if you have questions!
TQQQ Bearish fuzzy
I rolled March 2, 155 put out to March 9, 155 put for a credit of 2.05, I think the option traders are bearish for next week.
#SPX Campaign Closed both the…
#SPX Campaign Closed both the Mar 16th 2505/2615 BuPS @ 2.50 and the Mar 23rd 2610/2630 BuPS @ 3.25. These were sitting just above my stops yesterday.
Kids
We just became Great Grandparents a few min ago!!
#volatility #shortcalls UVXY called away…
UVXY called away my March 16 $10 calls, now short shares. Looking for ways to limit margin (calls) should price rise sharply.
Good Morning
Good Morning
#spycraft Cue the chicken, BTC…
Cue the chicken, BTC the 2480 puts at 13.75 this morning for $760 loss. I will be away for a few hours this morning and don’t have time to adjust or trade against it.
Will revisit later
Options Bistro 