Option to Profit
Week in Review
July 11 – 15, 2016
| NEW POSITIONS/STO | NEW STO | ROLLOVERS | CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED | CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED | CLOSED | EX-DIVIDEND |
| 0 / 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 / 1 | 2 / 0 | 0 | 1 |
Weekly Up to Date Performance
July 11 – 15, 2016
Records, records and more records.
In the post-Brexit world this was just another good week.
Once again, there was only one position opened this week and it was also once again a familiar one.
That position ended the week 1.7% higher and was 0.2% higher than both the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500.
The S&P 500, itself, rose another impressive 1.5%. Existing positions bested that by an additional 0.9%, in what was really a good week.
With 3 new closed positions on the week closed positions in 2016 are now 6.8% higher, while the comparable performance for the S&P 500 during the same holding periods has been 1.9% higher. That represents a 267% difference in return on closed positions. Still, even with 3 newly closed positions, I’d be much more impressed if there were far more of those closed positions to point toward.
This was another good week in what is shaping up to be a good year, despite very little trading.
It’s always nice to see asset values rise, but I still prefer to have some activity accompany the gains.
Once again, this week had only 1 new position opened and only two rollovers, but at least it also gave an opportunity to sell some calls on an uncovered position, as well.
With no ex-dividend positions this week, I would have liked to have had more income generating opportunities, but all in all, I was pleased.
With 2 assignments this week and one expired short put, it will be one of those rare weeks ahead where I’ll have substantially more free cash than in a long time.
The real challenge is deciding what to do with free cash after the market has had such a sharp climb higher in such a short period of time.
Even as we had two breathers during the past week, it would have been nice to have seen some profit taking.
I’d be much more inclined to spend some money on Monday if there was some of that profit taking at hand.
With earnings season doing reasonably well as it began, the next 2 weeks will be busy ones and then we get an FOMC meeting to end the month.
Two things that I did this week reminded me of 2012 and 2011.
That was rolling over positions that were headed for assignment.
I did that a lot in those years as the forward volatility was high enough to warrant adding onto the premiums rather than trying to re-invent the wheel and finding new stocks to take their place.
With 3 closed positions this week, I felt that there was enough new cash coming in to allow the rollovers.
Hopefully, that will be something that I won’t regret.
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: MRO (puts)
Puts Closed in order to take profits: none
Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: MRO
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: IP
Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle: none
New STO: none< /s pan>
Put contracts expired: MRO
Put contracts rolled over: none
Long term call contracts sold: none
Calls Assigned: CSCO, CY
Calls Expired: M, WY
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 (7/22 $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.