Week In Review – February 29 – March 4, 2016

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

FEBRUARY 29 – MARCH 4, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED EX-DIVIDEND
0  /  0 1 0 0   /   0 0   /   0 0 7

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

February 29 – March 4,  2016


No matter how each week ends, it’s still pretty clear that all that matters was, is and maybe always will be, oil.

Seems like I’ve said that more than just a few times.

This past week again saw multiple examples, including multiple examples of intra-day reversals in oil and then the obligatory intra-day reversals in the stock market.

Sometimes, though, if only for brief periods of time, it looked as if some disassociations were beginning to happen, but the theme continued.

This week again, those reversals were good, as oil ended the week nearly 10% higher.

< strong>But yet again, there were no new positions opened for the week, as it is far too closely associated with oil and those moves in oil have not been based in anything that anyone can identify as being meaningful.

Still, this was a very good week.

The S&P was 2.6% higher, but the OTP Portfolio outpaced that by 2.4%, owing to the real strength in oil and commodities.

Continuing to watch portfolio value claw back does still feel good, especially when that performance exceeds the market, as it did again this week and for all of 2016.

Also feeling good was the ability to sell calls on another position and seeing some more become candidates as there’s lots of catch up going on.

The key is whether that catch up will continue.

While oil continued to be center stage, Friday’s Employment Situation Report may have given some solace to those afraid of an interest rate increase.

Despite the very strong numbers, the impact of part-time employment on the numbers and the falling average wage made the nearly 250,000 additional jobs not as impressive as it seemed at first blush.

With no reason to sell-off on Friday’s news the S&P 500 was able to end the week with another gain and now only 6.5% below its all time high.

What a difference the past 3 weeks have made, but it’s hard to imagine where the market would be had oil not surprised everyone with such a large net move higher.

As was the case just about a month ago when oil moved about 20% higher in a single week, it isn’t easy to maintain the gaps higher, so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to see profit taking come in on the oil side of the equation and subsequently pull stocks lower, too.

Unless of course the oil market continues to ignore fundamentals or the stock market decides to divorce itself from energy prices dominated by increasing delivery of supply.

In addition to having watched portfolio value increase nicely again this week, there was also the matter of having had 7 ex-dividend positions.

With no positions expiring this week and none for next week, I would still like to consider spending some of my limited cash, but having another 6 ex-dividend positions next week gives me some source for income without having to put anything additional at risk.

What next week does have is nothing.

There is really very little economic news in advance of the following week’s FOMC Statement release.

While next week might have been the perfect time to announce an interest rate increase, as there is a Chairman’s press conference, the general belief is that a rate hike is off the table until the June 2016 meeting.

Since so many people believe that to be the case, there has to be some trepidation if the FOMC decides that they’ve seen enough and want to be ahead of the curve and not reactive.

That would also explain the first interest rate increase, which in hindsight may still not look as having been data driven, but with each passing day that feeling may be waning.

While I would like to do something more meaningful than just watching and making an occasional trade, I might still consider trading that for some continued portfolio asset increases next week as we get closer to the FOMC meeting

 

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:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cyclenone

New STO: CSCO

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  none

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&nb
sp;
  ANF (3/2 $0.20), BAC (3/2 $0.05), COH (3/2 $0.34), HAL (2/29 $0.18), HFC (3/2 $0.33), MOS (3/1 $0.28), WY (3/4 $0.31)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week:   HPE (3/7 $0.06), HPQ (3/7 $0.06), KSS (3/7 $0.50), NEM (3/8 $0.03), GM (3/9 $0.38), M (3/11 $0.36)

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.