Week in Review – May 30 – June 3, 2016

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

May 30 – JUNE 3, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED EX-DIVIDEND
0  /  0 0 1 1   /   0 0   /   0 0 4

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

May 30 – June 3, 2016


This may have been the week that the market grew up, but then realized that the adults in the room had no clue of what was going on.

That’s because they embraced the idea of higher interest rates coming as soon as in 3 weeks after having taken the bait laid out by FOMC members with all of their hawkish talk.

Instead, Friday’s Employment Situation Report didn’t exactly paint a picture of a vibrant and expanding economy.

Anyway, I was too unsure about much of anything this week and made no new opening position trades.

As opposed to last week’s specacular market performance, this week was fairly mediocre, saved only by a series of comebacks that avoided erasing all of the previous week’s gains.

The S&P 500 ended the week finishing completely unchanged both an unadjusted and adjusted basis.

But still, there was a little good news as there was one rollover, one assignment and 4 ex-dividend positions.

On top of that, existing positions ended the week 1.8% higher than the S&P 500.

With one new assignments on the week those positions closed in 2016 were 8.3% higher, while the comparable performance for the S&P 500 during the same holding periods has been 1.7% higher. That represents a 383.6% difference in return on closed positions. That would be much more impressive if there were many more closed positions in 2016, but that just hasn’t been the case.

The market ended up the week going absolutely nowhere.

That was much better than the direction it had been headed during 3 of the week’s 4 trading days.

In those three days there were some pretty large losses, but if not completely erased on any of those days, they were greatly reduced.

The most surprising of the 3 days was the closing day of the week.

The market really didn’t like the disappointing Employment Situation Report, but it acquitted itself nicely as it prepared for a weekend of wondering just what is really going on.

I have no clue, nor any real idea of whether the FOMC is playing mind games with everyone, but am pleased with the week.

In addition to having more money, on paper, anyway, than the previous week, there was enough to keep me satisfied with both income flow and generation of some cash available for re-investing next week.

Now, with only a single position set to expire next week and a little bit of extra cash to spend, I also know that there are 6 ex-dividend positions to satisfy some of that thirst for cash.

With the likelihood of an interest rate increase coming in June pretty small and with earnings out of the way
, for the most part, there’s not too much to drive stocks, other than perhaps oil or some unexpectedly good or bad news from China.

I wouldn’t mind spending some money next week, but don’t really feel compelled with all of those ex-dividend positions.

I wouldn’t mind just being able to rollover the one expiring position next week and then simply see what the end of the June 2016 cycle will have to offer.

Of course, that is unless the FOMC really surprises everyone in the days before that expiration.

.

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: Holly Frontier

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: none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned:  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  MOS (5/31 $0.275), ANF (6/1 $0.20), BAC (6/1 $0.05), COH (6/1 $0.34)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week:  BBY (6/10 $0.28), HPQ (6/6 $0.12),KSS (6/6 $0.50), NEM (6/7 $0.025), GM (6/8 $0.38), WY (6/8 $0.31)

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.