Option to Profit
Week in Review
September 5 – 9, 2016
| NEW POSITIONS/STO | NEW STO | ROLLOVERS | CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED | CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED | CLOSED | EX-DIVIDEND |
| 1 / 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 / 0 | 1 / 0 | 0 | 6 |
Weekly Up to Date Performance
September 5 – 9, 2016
Up until today, it was looking like any other week we’ve seen after the post-Brexit euphoria.
That is, basically nothing to report and very little actually happening.
Then came Friday and a little bit of a meltdown.
Last week, i said that the market showed no character.
This week, if it did have any character, it was the kind that would run for the doors or hide underneath the bed and do so for no reason, at all.
Still, for some odd reason, I found a reason to open a new position and did so during the final 3 hours of trading for the week.
That might be even more odd.
That new position was 0.6% higher, while the adjusted S&P 500 was 2.5% lower for the week and the unadjusted S&P 500 was 2.4% lower.
The new position out-performed the unadjusted S&P 500 by 2.9% and the unadjusted S&P 500 by 3.0%.
For me, it was actually a good week from a trading perspective.
There were 6 ex-dividend positions, one rollover, an assignment and a closed out position.
Unfortunately, there was also an expired position that will now be looking for an opportunity to generate some income.
What was shaping up to be a good week on the bottom line also fell apart on Friday, as the market tumbled.
Existing positions still managed to beat the market by an unusually large 1.8%, but were still 0.6% lower on the week.
With the closing of the old MolyCorp position, the performance of positions closed in
2016 got quite a hit. Additionally, the accounting for the closed EMC position is a little complex, as the spin off entity is accounted for separately and remains open.
With that said, positions closed in 2016 have gone from a 279% out-performance to a % under-performance.
Those positions are now 2.8% lower, while the comparable performance for the S&P 500 during the same holding periods has been 6.8% higher. That represents a -141.3%% difference in return on closed positions.
Well, this turned out to be an interesting week, thanks to a single day.
There really wasn’t very much to account for the broad sell-off on Friday, except maybe for exhaustion.
I’m sure we’ll hear about some technical signal and we’ll certainly hear the phrase “profit taking,” but there was still no tangible reason for the fear expressed today.
Still it was fairly orderly, as we’re still about 20 points higher on the S&P 500 from where we were when the market first sent into its Brexit decline.
All in all, I was happy for the way the week went, though.
While the market went lower, that’s reversible.
What can’t be taken away are the dividends and the premiums for the week and some cash generation from the assigned and closed positions.
The one new position opened this week with just 3 hours left in trading, was specifically to either capture the dividend or capture the premium.
maybe both.
If only the premium is captured due to early assignment, I thought that the ROI for a single day of holding was enough to warrant the trade, although in this case, I would rather get the dividend, as well and have the oppportunity to do something else with those shares next Friday.
We still have another 10 days or so to go until the next FOMC meeting, so I’m not certain that Friday’s sell-off will be the last between now and 2 PM on that Wednesday.
Even with some money in cash reserves, I may be hesitant to put any more on the line.
To some degree, it’s a little easier sitting on the sidelines next week because there are another 5 ex-dividend positions and and 5 expiring positions that at the moment show some promise for a combination of assignments and rollovers.
That may be enough to keep me occupied, although I thought the same this week and look what happened.
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: HPQ
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: BBY
Calls Rolled over, taking profi
ts
, 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: none
Put contracts expired: none
Put contracts rolled over: none
Long term call contracts sold: none
Calls Assigned: MRO
Calls Expired: ANF
Puts Assigned: none
Stock positions Closed to take profits: none
Stock positions Closed to take losses: EMC
Calls Closed to Take Profits: none
Ex-dividend Positions: BBY (9/9 $0.28), GM (9/7 $0.38), GME (9/7 $0.37), MOS (9/6 $0.275), WY (9/7 $0.31), COH (9/8 $0.33)
Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: HPQ (9/12 $0.12), M (9/13 $0.38), NEM (9/13 $0.025), BBBY (9/14 $0.125), JOY (9/15 $0.01)
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.