VXX is down almost 3 points from the peak of 36.01
Selling calls in the morning, and Puts in the afternoon
Sold VXX 07/17/2020 31.50 Puts @ 0.39 adding to my position.
The puts don’t scare me as much as the calls.

I still have Long Puts with nothing written against them for this week, but fully paid for with previous writes.

Long Put +3 Jun 18 2021 9.00

Long Put +2 Jan 21 2022 8.00
Long Put +2 Jan 21 2022 7.00
Long Put +2 Jan 21 2022 6.00
Long Put +2 Jan 21 2022 5.00

Long Put +2 Jun 17 2022 8.00

Sometime after the close I got off a risky diagonal on an open order (pressing my luck on this one).
Bought 1 VXX Sep 18 2020 65.0 Call / Sold 1 VXX 07/17/2020 35.0 Call @ 0.25 Credit.
I have no idea how this turns out but the market goes up 4 days out of 5 recently so the short should expire Friday.
If not, it’s an easy rollup.

This also counterbalances my SPY bearish positions

Sold 1 VXX 07/17/2020 38.0 Call / Bought 1 VXX 09/18/2020 80.0 Call @ 0.12 Credit.
If the market doesn’t implode this week I should have another free September long call.

It’s up over 8%

How much would it be UP if the market was actually down instead of notching all time highs on the QQQ and big rallies in the other indexes (DJIA up 300+).

TSLA is up over 13% this morning… up almost 80% since the start of July!
Almost made it to 1800 today.
$2000 here we come

Will Meade @realwillmeade Jul 11
Yesterday at 10:15AM
A trader-hedge fund purchased 13,600 $VIX 8/19 $90 calls for 35 cents
The VIX is currently 27
wow

Sold VIAC 07/17/2020 25.0 Calls @ 0.20 with the stock at 23.30

Sold SLB 07/17/2020 19.50 Covered Calls @ 0.09 with the stock at 17.70

Second-quarter earnings season starts this week with the quarterly kick-off ritual of reports from the major investment and money center banks.

With the arrival of each bank earnings season comes opportunity with either the Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (NYSE:FAS) and/or the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (NYSE:FAZ).
The bullish FAS tries to deliver triple the daily returns of the Russell 1000® Financial Services Index while the bearish FAZ, which is higher by 9.16% over the past month, attempts to deliver triple the daily inverse performance of that benchmark.

Banks faced an array of headwinds in the first half of 2020, including declining interest rates, rising loan loss reserves and the mandate from the Federal Reserve that buybacks be scuttled and dividend hikes be put on hold.
“Goldman analyst Richard Ramsden is more bearish, projecting earnings off 69% compared with last year. On the plus side, with the exception of Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), which he believes will report a quarterly loss, banks are apt to avoid dividend cuts,” reports Barron’s. “Still, banks will be hurt by higher reserves, which he expects to hit $32 billion, 27% over last quarter.”
Reading through the tea leaves of that assessment, it would appear that the bearish FAZ has a chance to shine this earnings season. Potentially bolstering the case for FAZ is that bank stocks, though still inexpensive relative to the broader market, aren’t quite the value plays they were 12 months ago. “Even with the recent increase in stock prices, the median North American financial sector stock still trades at an 11% discount to its fair value estimate but below a 30% discount a quarter ago,” according to Morningstar. “With our assessment that many financial sector stocks are less undervalued than they were a quarter ago, investors should be much more discerning of which stocks they choose and cognizant of the risks they’re taking.”

Something else to consider when it comes to the FAS/FAZ decision is that the Russell 1000 Financial Services Index isn’t a bank-specific benchmark. It includes insurance providers and asset managers, among others and some of those companies aren’t all that inexpensive, either.
“Outside of banks, we see fewer bargains in the financial sector. The investment-management firms we considered undervalued at the end of the first quarter are mostly fairly valued after the run in the stock market,” notes Morningstar. “The median North American insurer we cover also trades at around an only 8% discount to its fair value estimate, which is a relatively small margin of safety, given the insurance industry’s exposure to interest rates, asset prices, and tail risk of large insurance claims from the pandemic.”

Partially restoring my diagonal puts that expired on Friday on the open
Sold 1 VXX 07/17/2020 30.50 Put @ 0.49
Sold VXX 07/17/2020 30.0 Puts @ 0.32
VXX opened at 31.81

Sold WFC 07/17/2020 29.0 Diagonal Calls @ 0.24.
I also have a covered call position at the same strike.
Also
Sold WFC 07/17/2020 24.0 Puts / Bought 08/21/2020 20.0 Puts @ 0.20 Net Credit
Stock at 25.32 w/ Ann. Div. Yield $2.0400 / 8.01% and the 52-week low at 22.00

Sold ADS 07/17/2020 47.0 Covered Calls @ 0.40
Also
Sold 1 ADS 07/17/2020 45.0 Call / Bought 1 ADS 09/21/2020 70.0 Call @ 0.25 Net Credit.
Stock at 41.39

Company Period Amount Yield Ex-Dividend Date Record Date Payable Date
PKI PerkinElmer quarterly $0.07 0.31% 7/16/2020 7/17/2020 8/7/2020
ZTS Zoetis quarterly $0.20 0.61% 7/16/2020 7/17/2020 9/1/2020
IEX IDEX quarterly $0.50 1.29% 7/15/2020 7/16/2020 7/31/2020
ACN Accenture quarterly $0.80 1.59% 7/15/2020 7/16/2020 8/14/2020
ABT Abbott Laboratories quarterly $0.36 1.61% 7/14/2020 7/15/2020 8/17/2020
ORCL Oracle quarterly $0.24 1.90% 7/14/2020 7/15/2020 7/28/2020
CL Colgate-Palmolive quarterly $0.44 2.41% 7/17/2020 7/20/2020 8/14/2020
CPB Campbell Soup quarterly $0.35 2.87% 7/14/2020 7/15/2020 8/3/2020
CAT Caterpillar quarterly $1.03 3.08% 7/17/2020 7/20/2020 8/20/2020
EOG EOG Resources quarterly $0.38 3.10% 7/16/2020 7/17/2020 7/31/2020
COP ConocoPhillips quarterly $0.42 4.11% 7/17/2020 7/20/2020 9/1/2020
PNC PNC Financial Services Group quarterly $1.15 4.37% 7/16/2020 7/17/2020 8/5/2020
ABBV AbbVie quarterly $1.18 4.90% 7/14/2020 7/15/2020 8/14/2020
BEN Franklin Resources quarterly $0.27 5.15% 7/14/2020 7/15/2020 7/27/2020
SJR.B Shaw Communications monthly $0.10 5.26% 7/14/2020 7/30/2020 7/30/2020

This Week’s Earnings Announcements
Monday, July 13:
PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP),

Tuesday, July 14:
Citigroup Inc (C), Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL), Fastenal (FAST), First Republic Bank (FRC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Wells Fargo & Co (WFC),

Wednesday, July 15:
ASML Holding NV (ASML), Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BK), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS), IBM (IBM), Infosys Ltd (INFY), Omnicom Group Inc. (OMC), PNC Financial Services Group Inc (PNC), Progressive Corp (PGR), U.S. Bancorp (USB), UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH), Wipro Limited (WIT),

Thursday, July 16:
Abbott Laboratories (ABT), Bank of America Corp (BAC), Danaher Co. (DHR), Domino’s Pizza, Inc. (DPZ), Dover Corp (DOV), Honeywell International Inc. (HON), J B Hunt Transport Services Inc (JBHT), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Morgan Stanley (MS), Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), PPG Industries, Inc. (PPG), SunTrust Banks, Inc. (STI), Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (TSM), Truist Financial Corporation (TFC),

Friday, July 17:
BlackRock, Inc. (BLK), Citizens Financial Group Inc (CFG), HDFC Bank Limited (HDB), Kansas City Southern (KSU), NVR, Inc. (NVR), State Street Corp (STT), Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (ERIC),

Bought to close KSS 07/10/2020 21.0 Diagonal Calls / Sold KSS 07/17/2020 22.50 Diagonal Calls @ 0.32 Credit plus an extra 1.50 on the strike price.

KSS is @ 21.12 five minutes before the close

Filled on orders to sell VXX 07/17/2020 31.5 Puts @ 0.88 and VXX 07/17/2020 31.0 Puts @ 0.66.

That was my signal to give up waiting and roll my last SPY Call for today.
Bought to close 1 SPY 07/10/2020 304.0 Call / Sold 1 SPY 07/20/2020 305.0 Call @ 0.14 Credit plus another point higher on the strike.
SPY @ 317.34 when I rolled.

Bought to close KSS 07/10/2020 20.50 Covered Calls / Sold KSS 07/17/2020 21.0 Covered Calls / 0.53 Credit plus an extra 0.50 on the strike price.

KSS is @ 20.88

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/07/you-are-now-leaving-fantasyland-losses.html

“As the inverted pyramid collapses, the effects will be non-linear: a 10% decline may trigger dominoes that end up generating an 90% decline in “value” and “wealth” because the collapse of collateral to a non-fantasy valuation will implode all the phantom valuations piled on steadily more fragile and fantastic layers of phantom “capital.”
The fantasy of the Neofeudal Aristocracy is that the losses can be painlessly transferred to the debt-serfs and taxpaying peasantry. Mommy and Daddy (Treasury and Fed) will load future generations of debt-serfs and taxpaying peasantry with the losses and the political-financial Nobility will have their fortunes preserved. Gee, thanks, Mommy and Daddy! You’re swell!
The Neofeudal Aristocracy overlooks one terribly inconvenient fact: the debt-serfs and peasantry own next to nothing. The non-linear collapse of phantom capital will have asymmetric consequences: all the “assets” most likely to go to zero are owned not by the peasantry but by the Neofeudal Aristocracy.”

Bought to close 07/10/2020 31.50 Puts @ 0.01.

Rolled the 07/02/2020 33.0 Puts down to these at a 0.26 Credit last Friday.
They were written against VXX 2021 and 2022 long puts.

I also have 29, 30, and 30.50 short Puts and 38 and 40 short Calls expiring today.

Bought to close 1 AAL 07/10/2020 13.50 Covered Call / Sold 1 AAL 07/17/2020 Covered Call @ 0.17 Credit with the stock at 11.35

Bought to close WBA 07/10/2020 42.50 Covered Call / Sold WBA 07/17/2020 41.0 Covered Call @ 0.32 Credit
With the stock around 39.0 after the earnings drop I’m expecting this one won’t be threatened next week.

However, my average stock cost is below 40, so whatever 🙂

Sold 1 VXX Jul 17 2020 41.00 Call @ 0.57.
Waiting for this week’s calls @ 38 and 40 to expire before writing more.

Bought 100 WBA / Sold 1 WBA 07/17/2020 40.50 Covered Call @ 38.47 Net Debit
Earning were disappointing but revenues were up Y/Y and they raised the dividend by a penny per quarter