Jan 26 #Fuzzy
I didn’t do a post last Friday….here’s a couple things that happened:
1. IP had a price spike and took out my GTC order for 40% profit on a Gorilla Fuzzy, it has earnings this week.
2. I got uncomfortable with the panic buying into the close so I closed my small DIA Fuzzies for $600 profit
3. A couple new Gorilla Fuzzies: TSEM Feb 34/34/32 for .70 APH Mar 90/90/85 for 2.80
4. New CAT hedged Fuzzy: Apr 165/165/160 for 7.00 Hedged w/ Feb 2 170 for 1.48
5. New CELG hedged Fuzzy for range-bound income: Apr 105/105/100 for 4.87, Feb 2 109 -.74
6. I removed the hedge on my SPY Fuzzy Bear in preparation for a drop (that seems to never come).
I still have Fuzzy Bears on QQQ and SPY, I have short delta trades on HD, PVH, ADBE, MNST (whoops my MNST short delta looks like toast)–just looking for stalling action on those.

Closed Fuzzy Profit for the quarter (including a few weeks in Dec): $49,333. Any longs I take now are smaller and tighter, get closed for profits quickly.

Jan 24 More #Fuzzy
1. New QQQ Fuzzy Bear Feb -168.5calls/+168.5puts/+169.5 calls for 2.47, hedged w/ Feb2 166 puts @.82
2. JNJ, been waiting to see buyers come in on this, there was some nibbling today Apr 140/140/135 @3.85 (has $2.00 intrinsic). Hedged w/ Feb2 145 calls @ .43
3. EA added a 2nd Earnings Run Up fuzzy on the drop today, Feb 2 114/114/112 @3.17, I have 5 of the 117-line fuzzies and 2 of the 114-line. These are unhedged, to be closed before report, profit target is always 40% for me using a GTC order.
4. Hedged AAPL earnings fuzzy on the poor performance this week. Jan 26 175 for 1.26.
Almost all of the Earnings Run Up fuzzies are based on historical 100% win rates (backtested), but AAPL doesn’t have that kind of historical win rate running up to earnings. I went a bit rogue on this one. Keeping the full $1260 on this hedge will go a long ways to fixing this trade. But this is a bit dicey, one news release and the hedge is blown.

Sue

Jan 24 #Fuzzy early report
Every night I go to bed with one thought in my mind: “please may I have one more day to go flat?” So I did NOT squander today, I went pretty flat (not totally). The Fuzzy Biotech Trifecta….gone (EXAS/GWPH/EXEL). All index fuzzies are gone. Here’s a list of closures: BABA, IBM, JPM, SPY, AXP, SWKS, IWM, EXAS.
My total for the quarter now on CLOSED fuzzies is $46,463.

I do have one NEW Fuzzy: CMCSA Apr 42.5/42.5/40 @ 1.16 with a Feb 9 43.5 hedge @.50

Open Fuzzies: MU, KBH, DIS, IP, AAPL, BAH, MYGN, AMTD, VZ, FLIR, EA, CMCSA

Jan 23 #Fuzzy Land
45 order fills for me today, whew! A lot of it was NFLX defense on a diagonal, managing deltas back and forth to orchestrate a nice landing (I hope!). It’s ok if you think I’m nuts. Last week I was contracting my holdings, reeling in profits for protection. But I got lured back in this week. So now I’d like to once again pare down a little as the week progresses. 80% of my trades now are some kind of Fuzzy. Unhedged Fuzzies for runners, straight up Hedged Fuzzies for consolidations (hedges are still getting steamrolled), Fuzzies for momo, Fuzzies for pullbacks, Fuzzies for pre-earnings run ups, Gorilla Fuzzies (unhedged) waiting for their moves.

1. New Hedged Fuzzy on AMTD Mar2 57.5/57.5/55.5 @1.14 with Feb 2 58 hedge for -.62 I used the Mar2 expiration to get 2.5-wide strikes.
2. BABA Earnings run-up Fuzzy was closed for 40% profit, then re-entered again when I saw a lot of bullish option activity. New fuzzy, which must be closed BEFORE the report is Feb2 192.5/192.5/190 @4.70, 40% target for profit. These pre-earnings fuzzies are unhedged. @MamaCash is due total credit for earnings run up trades, and figuring out that Fuzzies worked better than long calls is all due her.
3. MSFT Earnings run up fuzzy closed for 40%, this is the one I opened yesterday based on UOA, but since it hit 40% so quickly I took the profit.
4. Here’s a loser Fuzzy: HTHT was really running yesterday so I put on a momo fuzzy, Feb 160/160/155, only a 3-lot, but it quickly lost 70% today before I cut it loose. About a $1600 loss.
5. IBM new fuzzy Mar2 162.5/162.5/160 @3.21 with Feb2 167.5 hedge @.74, thanks to @Kathy1111 for finding the turn around today on IBM.
6. VZ new fuzzy Mar 52.5/52.5/50 for 1.54 with Feb2 54 hedge @.47, UOA on this, buyers came looking for the 52.5 calls this morning.
7. Closed all the 4-lot SPY unhedged fuzzies for a net $1225 profit. Was ready to just sit for a bit until I saw some big SPY buyers come into the market with a Feb 286+ target (look at that volume today, 265,000, they were actually buying 286/291 bull call spreads). So new Unhedged (for now) SPY Fuzzies Feb 282/282/279 @2.40 x 5 lots
8. IWM Fuzzies….hedges got run over today, so I closed just half of the hedge, which eliminates the ceiling for it to run, but leaves just a little hedge protection still on.
9. EA Earnings run up Fuzzy Feb2 117/117/115 @2.75, 40% target
10. FLIR–This is both Gorilla and Earnings Run up. Feb 50/50/48 @1.77. 40% target.

Hedges to manage for this week: AXP, DIS, EXAS (ITM after a nice move today), IWM, JPM, MU. There’s some really nice profits here that haven’t been obliterated for once, but there’s lots of time left in the week.

Jan 17 #Fuzzy
Well I flattened out a LOT today. I’m pretty bad at picking tops, but I’m ready to take a little break and see if the market is too. On each of my closed index fuzzies I retained a single long put, just to tuck away for safe keeping. I took losses on closing out the index fuzzies this morning before the rally really took off, and I took a loss and closed out EXEL. This is what I built up the fuzzy profit cushion to handle though. So the new net profit on CLOSED fuzzies is $42,595 (since 2nd week of December). A huge amount of risk has been cleared off my table for now.

Open Fuzzies: MU 1, MU 2, EXAS 1, EXAS 2, JPM, GWPH, and a new one on DIS.

I ventured into the world of Double Fuzzies today with SPY. So I have a SPY long fuzzy, hedged, and a SPY Fuzzy Bear, Hedged, in the same account. This is 8-fuzzy legs, maybe a tarantula? The bear is a 278/278/280 for 1.86 with a Jan 26 276 hedge @ .98.

Jan 16 #Fuzzy Land
This was a day about luck for me. I woke up with the thought that I really want to cut down tickers so I can have a stronger focus on fewer positions. The market opened strong, and I had a chance to close some fuzzies for nice profits. I closed CELG (my now oldest Fuzzy), MNST, ADSK, MCD, NVDA, BABA (BABA captured a quick $2150 profit before tanking, really lucky on that one), COST. My total net profit now on CLOSED fuzzies is $45,741 in about 5 weeks. That was the good news of the day.
I also opened the day pulling off hedges on all my SPY and QQQ Fuzzies. Of course, they were net debit to remove, and then the market had it’s little sell off. As the market was selling off I set up new non-hedged fuzzies in IWM and DIA and parked them with “blue sky” prices. I kind of lost track of them and the blue sky prices hit. So on IWM I have Feb 158/158/155 for 1.34 and in DIA Feb 259/259/256 for 2.00. So lots of index fuzzies right now with no hedges on. I also have a new non-hedged GLD fuzzy Feb 127/127/124 @ .72.

Fuzzy seniority now goes to MU as my oldest position.

CELG is a pretty good story about the power of fuzzies. That one was set with a $110 synthetic. Since setting it, the stock has fallen to a low of 101. I’ve kept it hedged constantly, sometimes with debit rolls, sometimes beautiful weekly profits. So despite CELG falling from $110 to the low 100’s I was able to net out $764 (on a 10-lot). And honestly, I didn’t do nearly as well as I could have. I’d give myself a C+ in managing it.

I have my very first Trader’s Almanac. Fun little book! It shows tomorrow (Wed) is the strongest day of the month, historically. If that ends up being the case, I’d like to peel back on some of the index fuzzies that I have.

Jan 12 #fuzzy
Fair question on the last post about risk. I’m always VERY concerned about risk. Being concerned about risk cost me a LOT of money this week. I’m planning to open a shelter for battered hedge sellers. I have a feeling a few folks here will be standing in line with me. I’ve had a wonderful start to the year. Except that I probably lost 20K in hedge rolls this week. But here’s what I’m doing to address risk: I’m closing fuzzies every few $ move up in underlying, taking the profits and resetting them. They are being reset smaller and tighter. Much as I would like to stay unhedged, I just can’t. So my Fuzzies are smaller in size, tighter in spread, and still hedged. So I’m not making as much as my brave hedgeless friends, but I know I can handle a crash. Fuzzy design started for me with $10-wide protection on the puts. Now they are all $3-$5.00. Also by closing and rolling them frequently, the long puts are retaining most of the their value.

The net on my CLOSED fuzzies is now $38,615. So that’s a nice crash cushion.
Current amount of hedges on open positions net collected and sold: 18,770.00

Just some highlights:
1. Closed TGT due to runaway hedges for net $870, but 300% on the core
2. Closed and reset all the Q’s with tighter puts for a net of $4235
3. Closed AAPL for a net of $3300.00 due to older design with $10.00 spread risk
4. New MU Fuzzy on the recent dip, nice weekly premium Mar2 43/43/41 @1.77 w/ 44.5 call hedge
5. New JPM Jun 110/110/105 @ 5.18 with 112 hedge (might be too tight)
6. COST flipped the cards and put on a bull fuzzy here with shored up technicals Mar 190/190/185 @ 5.20 with a 195 hedge due to squeeze and “RAF buy” indicator
7. SPY is all reset with 277/277/274 with hedges

Hey….Remember “SPX Guy?”(ok, maybe not a guy) On January 2? The guy that did the 5000 Risk reversal in SPX? I’ve been tracking that trade just for fun. How would you like $30,975,000 in 9 days.

I’m very happy to have this 3-day weekend! Hoping rest and recharge for all of you, too!

One #Fuzzy Concern
One little thing that concerns me about hedged fuzzies that I wanted to throw out is the real possibility that we’ll start seeing a resurgence of special dividends with the new tax plan. Maybe not this quarter, but this year could be a big year like 2015-16 was for these things. Talk about a hedge killer! Companies on their conference calls are saying they have too much money on their balance sheets—so that means employee bonuses, share buybacks, debit recovery, raised dividends, acquisitions, and special dividends. The last one will catch us by surprise on hedges, ouch!

Jan 11 #Fuzzy Land

I don’t quite know how to start this. My life in Fuzzyland has become more of a teenage horror flick. Don’t get me wrong. It’s awesome! It’s morphed into something I never expected. I never expected this trade to have the incredible versatility that it does (especially when unhedged for short term swing trading with limited risk). You’ll have to tell me how much Fuzzy detail you want, because there are SO many fuzzy trades going on now, that it will overwhelm posts. Do you want it all? Maybe just highlights? Maybe just indexes? or UOA? I closed down a lot of fuzzies today for a net profit on closures of $30,210.00 A lot of these were fuzzies with the old $10.00 spread risk design. My newer designs have tighter spreads for less risk. So I’m happy to take the profits and look for opportunities to reset.

1. SPY finally flat on all Spy for $5393.00 YTD (8 trading days) on fuzzies.
2. CVX closed for net $1875.00. The core trade alone was up 330%
3. FAS 1, 2 closed for net $1540.
4. IWM 1,2 opened just yesterday closed for $1280 due to hedges seriously blown out. The cores were up 180% in 1 day.
5. CMCSA, which I unhedged yesterday on UOA I closed today for $2140 profit. The core was up 202%
6. The Fuzzy Biotech Experiment (EXAS, EXEL, GWPH) with just 1 week left to monthly expiration I decided to throw some hedges on. What the heck, what can happen in a week. I’ll tell you what, right after the close EXAS announces a debt offering the stock drops $4.00–so that’s a well-timed hedge.
7. New Fuzzy on DAL Mar 55/55/52.5 for 2.64 already had to manage a hedge once on it
8. New Fuzzy on KR on UOA Mar 2 28/28/26 for .50 unhedged
9. New Fuzzy on KBH Apr 39/39/36 unhedged 1.32
10. CELG hedge rolled to next week 106, will close next week for earnings, this is my oldest fuzzy.
11. JPM I’ve been eagerly awaiting tomorrow to load JPM back into the Fuzzy lineup.

Jan 10 #Fuzzy part 2
It’s not Friday yet? Another crazy day. Already reported a few trades this morning, that seems like days ago. It’s warm enough in Denver to light an afternoon fire on the patio, problem is we’ve had almost zero snow–so I don’t want an errant spark to burn down the adjacent field.

1. SPY update: $4753 YTD, Still have 40 Fuzzies all hedged
2. All the (45, not 40) Q Fuzzies got hedged with Jan 19 162.5 calls @ .85-.86 cr
3. TGT new Fuzzy Feb 70/70/67.5 @2.26 Jan 19 71.5 call @.98
4. IWM 20 new Fuzzy 154/154/151 @2.88 Jan 19 155.5 call -.66 (OI is big on the 155 line for next week)
5. IWM 20 new Fuzzy 155/155/152 @ 2.35 Jan 19 155.5 call -.73
6. CMCSA BIG BIG BIG UOA on this 15 min before the close (that’s when those sneaky hedgies do it) so I very quickly unhedged this to fly free BTC jan 12 40.5c .58

The biotech Fuzzy experiment behaving well today, driving fresh new highs across the board.