Option to Profit
Week in Review
APRIL 11 – 15, 2016
| NEW POSITIONS/STO | NEW STO | ROLLOVERS | CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED | CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED | CLOSED | EX-DIVIDEND |
| 0 / 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 / 0 | 0 / 0 | 0 | 0 |
Weekly Up to Date Performance
April 11 – 15, 2016
This was just another in a series of weeks that have characterized 2016. Which is exactly what I said last week, maybe even the week before, as well.< /strong>
Once again, there was absolutely nothing of fundamental value to inspire markets in either direction.
Instead, it continues to be all about oil and rumors about oil.
This week the news was that at the end of the week we would see Saudi Arabia and Russia agree to oil production decreases.
We went through that rumor a couple of months ago and when it didn’t materialize, markets gave back all of their gains.
In the meantime, there was one new positioned opened for the week and it seriously under-performed the unadjusted S&P 500 by 7.3% and the adjusted S&P 500 by 5.6%
It was 5.7% lower, while the unadjusted S&P 500 finished the week % higher and the adjusted S&P 500 ended the week % lower.
At least existing positions offered some comfort as they beat the performance of the S&P 500 for the week finishing 0.9% better than the overall market and for a change wasn’t a hollow victory, as those positions did manage to move 2.5% higher on the week.
There were also two assignments, adding to the paltry few for 2016.
Those positions are 7.8% higher, while the comparable performance for the S&P 500 during the same holding periods has been 2.7% higher. That represents a 189.2% difference in return on closed positions. Unfortunately, though, there are very few closed positions on the year.
This was just another week of the same old stuff, except that for the most part stocks went higher.
It was all about oil, even as earnings started to trickle out.
With banks beginning to report and at least not stinking the place up, there is some hope that the ensuing weeks could yet bring something positive to bear.
With some of the latest economic data that has been coming through, there isn’t too much reason to believe that the consumer has come to life and that we’ll see evidence of that in the past quarter’s earnings, but after a few years of waiting for exactly that to happen, sooner or later it will have to be the case.
That’s just like having been waiting for the past 2 years for oil to start recovering in price.
That “sooner or later” stuff gets old pretty fast, but it’s hard to walk away from that belief.
With one assignment this week, there’s a little more cash to fuel some purchases, but 2016 has just been so slow, that I’m not terribly convinced that I’ll let go of any cash next week.
With no positions up for rollover and only a single ex-dividend position next week, I’d love to have some additional opportunity to generate some cash, but I’ll be waiting along with others to see what happens with the weekend meeting of the big oil producers.
While stocks and oil weren’t in total lock step this week, a big move in oil in either direction could change that very quickly, although I think that the handwriting is finally on the wall for that association to be coming to its rational end.
But here, too, the sooner or later approach has been much more heavily weighted on the “later” part of the equation.
I’m ready for something in the here and now.
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: STX (puts)
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 cycle: none
New STO: HPQ
Put contracts expired: none
Put contracts rolled over: STX
Long term call contracts sold: none
Calls Assigned: MAT, MRO
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: none
Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: FAST (4/22 $0.30)
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.