Sold $NUGT Jul 1 70 puts @ 2.00. Offsets many short call positions so no margin requirement.

Has gotten hammered in the rebound in nat gas, now at 125. I still have some in the money call positions that have been rolled several times (now in August) at 120, 115 and 110. Considering the carrying cost and the time left, if I can close any of them at an overall profit I’ll be doing that. Have some bids in but it’s a crapshoot with the wide spreads.

I was assigned early on these so I’m buying them in and sold calls to replace the assigned contracts. I sold the options first, before buying the stock back (when NUGT was 109), and then got a bit of a lucky break as NUGT started to weaken. I waited as the stock went down and got out at 106.78. But I’ll take whatever good news I can get when rolling ITM losses like this.

Assigned on June 45 and 48 calls.
Bought the stock to cover at 106.78.

To recapture from assignment of 45 call: 61.78 (106.78-45.00)
Sold $NUGT Aug 19 45 call @ 65.00
Credit: 3.22

To recapture from assignment of 48 calls: 58.75 (106.78-48.00)
Sold $NUGT Sep 16 48 calls @ 63.70
Credit: 4.95

Sold $NUGT Sep 16 185 call @ 8.60. Adding to position at the highest strike in Sep.

Bought to close $NUGT Jun 17 59 puts @ .50. Sold for 5.38 as a rollout on 5/25. Offsetting the loss from the roll of 3.31, leaves an overall profit of 1.57.

Here we go again.
Sold $NUGT Jun 10 115 call @ 1.25
Sold $NUGT Jul 1 155 call @ 1.50
Sold $NUGT Jan 20 185 call @ 15.50

Sold $NUGT Jun 24 130 calls @ 1.20

I’m loaded up in June with OTM short calls as well as several ITM that were rolled so I’m taking these off at good profit levels to lower exposure in June (and free up more buying power).
Bought to close $NUGT Jun 17 94 call @ 3.80. Sold for 10.00 on 2/25.
Bought to close $NUGT Jun 17 105 call @ 2.10. Sold for 7.30 on 4/8.

Looked like NUGT was thinking of making a run at this one earlier, but that would have probably been too much to ask for, and it would have caused all sorts of problems on the put side, so I guess I’ll take what I can get out of it. Rolled this week’s ITM 52 call out to July and up a few points for a 2.60 credit.

Bought to close $NUGT May 27 52 call @ 23.67 (sold for 32.75 as a rollout of a rollout on 4/13)
Sold to open $NUGT Jul 15 55 call @ 26.27

Rolled down and out for 1.30 credit
Bought to close NUGT May 27 70 puts @ 4.08 (sold for .77 on 5/16)
Sold to open NUGT Jun 17 59 puts @ 5.38

Strike price was breached and with downward momentum I thought I’d roll to a strangle instead of a straight put roll.

Bought to close $NUGT Jun 3 78 puts @ 7.74
Sold to open $NUGT Jun 17 57 puts @ 2.76
Sold to open $NUGT Jun 17 92 calls @ 6.99
Credit taken in: 2.01

Bought to close $NUGT May 20 75 puts @ .40. Sold for 1.50 on 5/12. Taking profits and getting these out of the way in the event we get another big move down. I’m also short the 70 and 60 puts for tomorrow.

Taking these off at a profit for Friday’s expiration. Reducing exposure as much as I can now as NUGT plunges.

Bought to close $NUGT May 20 95 calls @ 1.80. Sold for 3.70, 2.60 and 4.00 from 3/27-4/7.

Bought to close $NUGT 5/27 110 call (rolled out from 5/13 95 call on 5/13).
Paid to close: 2.27
Sold for 7.59 (rollout)
Overall profit from full position: 2.38

I know I’m probably getting a little too cute here but I still have a 95 call for today’s expiration that I was planning to roll. But I’m watching NUGT and the gold futures to see if there’s a shot this thing gets under my break even (around 97) before the end of the day. It’s been falling like a rock. I guess I’m not too concerned since this rolls so easily and I can probably get a nice credit for a 1 week roll with an additional 10-15 points on the strike. Watching…

Sold $NUGT May 20 75 puts @ 1.50

Sold $NUGT May 27 (weekly) 175 calls @ 1.50. Highest strike for that week.

I have a lot of exposure this week in short calls so I’m taking one position off that was a rollout and has recovered the original loss and then some creating a profit in the position. Trimming the positions where I can.
Bought to close $NUGT May 13 105 calls @ 1.75. Sold for 4.80 on 5/5 as a rollout from May 6 95 calls.

Rolled tomorrow’s 95 calls out to next week and up 10 points in case we get a runup tomorrow after the jobs report. 1.16 credit.

Bought to close $NUGT May 6 95 calls @ 3.64 average (sold for 1.40 on 4/5)
Sold to open $NUGT May 13 105 calls @ 4.80 average

Just got filled at the close.
Sold $NUGT May 6 71 puts @ .40.

With the move down I was able to take a rolled position off for an overall profit.
Bought to close $NUGT May 13 116 call @ 2.90. Sold for 10.99 on 4/29, as a rollout which lost 6.65. Closing this now booked an overall profit of 8.09-6.65 = 1.54.

Sold $NUGT May 27 60 puts @ 1.75

Selling more puts to offset short call positions, these in June.
Sold $NUGT Jun 17 45 puts @ 1.25.

Selling some puts on the down move to offset short calls.
Sold $NUGT May 20 70 puts @ 1.70.

And I use the term “strategy” loosely. But based on the premise of why I entered these short call trades in the first place, I want to continue selling puts against the positions, but I’m trying to be patient and selling them on down days (for example, for next week’s expiration you can’t really get much premium on puts unless you sell at the 90 strike and above and that feels too close based on how volatile this ETF can be).

I’m taking this one week at a time. For this week, I’ve rolled 95 and 105 calls out to 5/13 at much higher strikes (which are now already in the money, go figure) and I’m watching my 120 calls into the close. Because these roll so easily this has been a strategy that’s worked, but I’m looking at some really deep in the money calls that may have to be rolled in the May and June expirations (calls with strikes in the 40s); I’ll just deal with that when those expirations arrive or when it looks like I’m in danger of assignment. On a big move down (I know it doesn’t feel like that will happen anytime soon but it will and always does), I’ll sell some puts and hopefully get out of some calls gracefully that will have been brought back into the money. In the meantime, if you want to operate this way you better be comfortable with seeing a lot of red in these positions until things turn around. Margin requirements are also increasing with these so that’s a consideration as well.

I’m also not forgetting that NUGT suffers from a lot of mathematical (tracking) headwinds when there is a lot of up and down volatility. Once there’s some more 2 way action on this, we’ll start to see it come back in line (providing gold calms down a bit of course). Of course if gold takes a dive we can sweep the chips off the table, but even if gold prices stabilize and become rangebound, we’ll start to see this ETF fall back from its highs.

Just remember that, as @Iceman is known to say, no trend lasts forever. We’ve all traded $BOIL calls, $KOLD calls, $DUST calls, etc, to see huge spikes and ultimately normalization. That’s what I’m playing for here.

I can’t believe I had to roll this one.
Rolled $NUGT 4/29 105 call up and out to 5/13 116 call for 3.09 credit.
I also have a 120 call expiring today that I couldn’t imagine…oh never mind…NUGT is a beast.
So thankful this rolls easily.

Selling some puts to hedge all this short call exposure.
Sold $NUGT May 20 65 puts @ 1.55

Rolled this week’s 90 call up and out to May 13 100 call for 2.00 credit.

With little to no time value left, I didn’t want to risk being assigned short something that was HTB. So I rolled one of my in-the-money May positions.

Bought to close $KOLD May 110 call @ 54.66. Sold for 67.96 (as a rollout from Feb) on 2/3/16.
Sold to open $KOLD Aug 110 call @ 60.16
Credit for the roll: 5.50

Continuing to chip away at the basis on this (and will do for my other May positions–115 call, 118 call) provided KOLD doesn’t implode by May expiration.