Option to Profit
Week in Review
FEBRUARY 15 – 19, 2016
| NEW POSITIONS/STO | NEW STO | ROLLOVERS | CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED | CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED | CLOSED | EX-DIVIDEND |
| 0 / 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 / 0 | 1 / 0 | 0 | 1 |
Weekly Up to Date Performance
February 15 – 19, 2016
Alright, last week and the week before and the week before that, it was all about oil.
How about this week? Well, it was the same as last week. Oil, oil, oil and maybe a little bit of interest rates, interest rates, interest rates and negative interest rates, too.
Unbelievably, there was actually the first assignment of the year following one of those rare 2016 newly opened positions.
For all of the excitement this week and the two very strong days to start the week, there were no new purchases.
During the week the S&P 500 was 2.8% higher and that was good enough.
The single new assignment matched the performance of the S&P 500 during its holding period, so there was no particular advantage to having had made the trade, but it felt good to finally get one done.
This turned out to be a good week, but no so much for the performance relative to the S&P 500 but rather due to the ability to get some rollovers done and to actually live long enough to have seen an assignment.
Otherwise, it was a lonely week of just sitting and watching.
Much of that was done in the hopes that Thursday and Friday would end up being the same as Tuesday and Wednesday and maybe propel the market even higher.
But deep down I really wanted to see some stability come in after those two really large gains to start the week.
We’ve seen far too many really big moves in both directions and while that’s good for the volatility induced premiums that can be had, it creates a real sense of concern for the bottom falling out. The large moves higher are like an open invitation to take profits and what is really needed now is an open invitation to invest in the future and not relish in the past.
I think that ending the week on a flat note is probably a much more healthy thing than if we had gone higher and higher.
That would only make me think of how much another fall would hurt.
For next week, with a little bit of cash coming from that single assignment, I might be more inclined to want to add some new positions, but especially if the market opens with some weakness to start the week.
I probably wouldn’t be enthused with a strong decline, but wouldn’t mind a mild move lower or just a mild move higher.
I felt happy being able to get a couple of rollovers this week, even if having to go longer term on the expirations, though.
It was nice to finally generate some additional income, particularly as this week had only a single ex-dividend position and next week has none.
I don’t expect that next week will be a busy one from a personal trading perspective, but I could envision being willing again to dig into some personal funds and effectively lend money to myself to bolster the acsh position in an effort to create some income from what may be under-priced stocks.
For the most part, that had worked well in the latter half of 2015, but I really haven’t felt very assured about doing the same in 2016.
Maybe with a little stability and a little digestion of the recent gains I could find some reason to dip another toe or two to test the waters.
.
This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below
(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):
New Positions Opened: none
Puts Closed in order to take profits: none
Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none
Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle: none
Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none
Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle: HPE, UAL
Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle: none
New STO: none
Put contracts expired: none
Put contracts rolled over: none
Long term call contracts sold: none
Calls Assigned: eBay
Calls Expired: Ford
Puts Assigned: none
Stock positions Closed to take profits: none
Stock positions Closed to take losses: none
Calls Closed to Take Profits: none
Ex-dividend Positions: AZN (2/17 $0.30)
Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: none
For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts: AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO, CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)
* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.