Week in Review – October 31 – November 4, 2016

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review


October 31 – NOVEMBER 4, 2016

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED EX-DIVIDEND
0  /   0  2 0 0   /   0 0   /   0 0 1

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

October 31 – November 4, 2016

This week it was easy to know what was going on, which made it very different from the past few weeks.

This week there was nothing good going on, even as earnings weren’t so bad.

There was just no reason to be enthused about anything at all.

Still, I was happy this week, but only because it could have been much, much worse.

I was pleased not to have put any new money at risk, because I couldn’t find any reason at all to spend money.

The S & P 500 finished the week 1.9% lower, as it extended its daily losing streak to nine days.

By comparison, I suppose that existing positions being only 0.6% lower is a victory.

It was nice to also sell some calls on some uncovered positions and to have had at least one ex-dividend position on the week, but all in all, there wasn’t very much activity.

There were, again, no new closed positions on the week and 2016 is looking like it will have fewer than 30 closed positions on the year.

There was so much going on this week, but none of it helped markets.

There were no really bad days, since the market did have some recovery from the steepest of its losses, but there was barely any effort to go anywhere but lower.

With earnings not really being awful and the FOMC offering no surprises, the week ending Employment Situation Report did nothing to buoy markets.

Neither did it do anything to depress them.

What seemed to be depressing the market was every time it appeared as if Clinton’s lock on victory was less secure.

That may portend for a really, really
bi
g move on Wednesday.

With everything being so very unpredictable this election season, that’s not a runaway train that I want to get in front of, no matter what the election outcome.

I would be more than happy to watch it go higher without putting any more money at risk.

Anything to put existing positions in better position would be just fine with me at this point.

With the large loss of this week, we are now about 5% below our all time high from just 2 months ago.

That puts us within easy striking distance of a correction, but it also is a good springboard for a rebound.

I’m not really a betting kind of person, but my guess is that we’re in for a rebound, but with the clouds hanging over people’s heads these days with one investigation after another, there may yet be shoes to drop.

The sidelines never looked better.

With an expiring position next week, I would actually like to roll it over, rather than see those short puts expire.

At least that way I would have something to do for the week.

Otherwise, it’s more of the same watching and waiting game.

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: AGQ, MRO

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

< strong>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     INTC (11/3 $0.26)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: IP (11/10 $0.46)

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.