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Week In Review – May 18 – 22, 2015

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

May 18 – 22,  2015

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
1 / 0 0 7 0  /  0 0  / 0 1

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

May 18 – 22, 2015

This was a very forgettable week.

The single new position for the week beat the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 by 1.9%.

That position gained 2.1% for the week. The unadjusted and adjusted S&P 500 ended the week having gone just 0.2% higher.

That high ROI was made possible by being able to pocket a full month’s worth of premium and a portion of the dividend while then closing out the position after just 4 days.

Existing positions broke their streak of out-performance this week as energy and materials, which had been primarily responsible for the previous out-performance faltered and were `1% lower for the week.

Lots closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.2% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.5% higher. That 3.7% difference represents a 256.6% performance differential.  That’s too large to be sustained, but I’ve been saying that for a while, including much of 2014.

This was as about a quiet of a week in the market as you could expect. Virtually nothing happened to get anyone’s attention and there were virtually no intra-day moves, either.

The pre-opening futures all pointed toward quiet days and that’s exactly how it all worked out.

Neither the release of FOMC minutes nor Janet Yellen’s Friday afternoon speech did anything to move or excite markets. Next week doesn’t look much different, except that next Friday’s GDP release will be more critically looked at and maybe not act as much to shake markets if it holds a surprise.

Somehow, though, with a little bit of luck, there was an opportunity to get some rollovers done and to be able to close out the single new position opened for the week.

Doing that restored the cash pile to where it had begun the week and the rollovers at least helped to generate some cash for the week.

Equally lucky is that it was another week not adding to that list of uncovered positions, but by the same token, there were no opportunities to sell calls on uncovered positions this week.

That would have made it an especially nice and complete week, particularly as dividends were back in the mix thois week

Otherwise, there was absolutely nothing memorable about the week or really setting the tone for the coming week, which is a holiday shortened one.

While it was a very boring and staid week we are left in an unusual position, having only a single option set to expire next week. It’s not totally unexpected, as I mentioned that it might be a possibility sometime last week, but it almost became a reality, except for one position..

That’s almost like starting with a fresh slate.

The only position currently set to expire next week is the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF, which I think has the distinction of being the single most rolled over position of the past 3 years. One of the 3 currently open lots It has now been rolled over 19 times in 6 months. During that time its price is up just 1%, but the premiums make it a 20% advance.

It’s too bad that they can’t all be like that.

With a little bit of cash reserves in hand, although I’d like to have more ammunition, I’m not adverse to spending any next week. The question may be whether to look at expirations for that week or for the following weeks, as the combination of low volatility and only 4 days worth of time will make for some paltry premiums if looking only at a weekly option.

With earnings now pretty much out of the way, the focus will intensify on interest rates, especially as some doubt has been raised about the validity of some of the data that may have played into the FOMC’s decisions to leave interest rates unchanged.

But for now, I just look forward to a nice relaxing Memorial Day weekend and hope that everyone is able to have one of those.

 

 

 

Note: For those who purchased Cablevision this week, the hope, by selling a deep in the money call in advance of the ex-dividend date was that the shares would be assigned early. That would have sacrificed the dividend in exchange for an entire month’s option premium.

I was very surprised that shares were not assigned early, but in hindsight the option volume seen on the day prior to the ex-dividend date suggests that some may have had an intuition about the very significant price rise that was to occur the following day.

That rise was fueled by two things.

The first wa the entrance onto the US scene of a European cable company that bought a small US provider and made it clear that it wanted to enter US markets in a bigger way. That lent price support across the spectrum. But beyond that, the Dolan Family, principal owners of Cablevision and who have used it very much as a personal play thing, expressed an interest in selling. That was the real surprise and that really sent the stock much higher than others in the sector.

At that point, with shares so deeply in the money and with volatility still so low, there was actually very little time value in the premium and very little to be gained by holding onto the position.

By closing the position at a NC of $19.89, effectively $0.04 of the dividend was retained and the overall ROI was 2.1% for the 4 days of holding.

I had considered closing the position on the third day of holding, however that may have subjected some to a free-riding violation if they had used unsettled funds to make the original share purchase.

While the ROI was reduced from 2.7% for the monthly contract to 2.1% for the 4 day holding period, presumably the recycled cash over the next 4 weekly periods can more than make up that 0.6% giveback.

 

 

 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 lo
ts):



New Positions Opened:   CVC

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: GDX

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  ANF (6/5), DOW (7/2), KMI (6/26), MRO (6/5), TWTR puts (6/5)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  UAL (Sep 18, 2015)

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: none

Calls Expired:  none

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  CVC

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions: MRO (5/17 $0.21), CVC (5/20 $0.15), MAT (5/20 $0.38)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: LXK (5/27 $0.36), RIG (5/27 $0.15)

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, CHK, CLF,  FAST, FCX, HAL, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS,  MCP, MOS, RIG, WFM, WLT (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.



Posted on

Week in Review – May 11 – 15, 2015

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 
 

May 11 – 15,  2015

 

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
2 / 0 2 7 3  /  0 0 / 0 1

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

May 11 – 15, 2015

The last few weeks were rescued by Friday rallies. Fortunately this week Friday wasn’t the day to undo the positive price moves during the week, as the monthly cycle came to its end.

Thanks to some good luck and the market deciding that bad retail news was good for it, this turned out to be yet another in a series of nice weeks. Unlike some of those previous weeks, however, I don’t really have too much to complain about, as it was a rare week when everything seemed to click.

The missing piece the past few weeks was the lack of assignments. This week there were finally some assignments to add to the diminished cash reserve.

New positions opened for the week beat the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 by 0.1%.

New positions gained 0.4% for the week. The unadjusted and adjusted S&P 500 ended the week having gone 0.3% higher.

Existing positions also finished the week better than the overall market, beating its performance by 0.2%.

With some new positions to finally add to that list, the lots closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.3% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.8% higher. That 3.5% difference represents a 253.9% performance differential. 

It has been nice having a string of weeks that have fulfilled the essential goals that I have each week.

That’s definitely been the case since the end of March, but the trend has been developing since the end of February. From that time through today’s close, the market is unchanged.

That has been a good breeding ground for generating premium related income from old and new holdings, even as assignments have been more sparse than I would ordinarily like to see.

This week was a good example of the kind of mix of transactions that would be great to have every week, but lately just hasn’t been the case.

What made this week feel better than most is
that there wasn’t too much of a need to spend new money in order to generate the weekly income goal.

All positions set to expire this week were either rolled over or assigned and there were a couple of new call positions sold on uncovered lots. Putting all of those trades together it was a busy week.

But with all of that, I do have one complaint.

There were no ex-dividend positions this week.

At least next week will have some of those as there is also now a little more breathing room in terms of cash reserves.

With the market hitting another new high to end the week I’m not necessarily thinking about spending down the limited cash reserve too quickly. With a number of positions already populating next week’s list of expiring positions, I would love to again see a combination of assignments, rollovers and new call sales.

That’s a combination that never really gets tiresome.

With the week following the next one being a holiday shortened week and with a sufficient number of expirations already in place for next week, any new purchases will likely either look at an expiration for next week or possibly for the week after the Memorial Day holiday.

That could potentially leave the possibility of no expiring positions during that week.

Of course, given how quickly the market can change its tone, that strategy can get scuttled fairly quickly, but more and more I am looking at some longer term options, even having now sold some for September 2015, despite the low volatility. That’s being done to get better positioned in the event of any correction that may be ahead. Going further along in time and selecting out of the money strikes seeks to find a balance between risk and share appreciation, while also buying some time for a recovery in the event of any near term correction.

With the S&P 500 at another new record high and with many technicians having looked at the 2120 level as one possibly leading to a breakout, I would love to be able to sit and watch that happen and try to capitalize on existing positions to create the income I like to see get created.

In the event that rocket doesn’t take off and the near term catalyst of earnings is now pretty much out of the way, having a little bit of cash in reserve might not be such a bad thing, but I would rather see those technicians be right and find myself getting more cash reserves from assignments and having that available for the next buying opportunity.

It has now been a couple of months since any correction scare and we may be a little overdue, but I wouldn’t mind if it still took another of couple of weeks for markets to make up their mind and get back into that pattern that we’ve been seeing for the past few years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 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, SBGI

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: ANF, DOW, TWTR (puts)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  BBY (6/26), GPS (6/26), GPS (6/26)

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:  NEM (9/18), NEM (9/18)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: BAC, CY, SBGI

Calls Expired:  none

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  ABBV

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions: none

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: MRO (5/17 $0.21), MAT
(5/20 $0.38)

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, CHK, CLF,  FAST, FCX, HAL, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS,  MCP, MOS, RIG, WFM, WLT (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.



Posted on

Week In Review – May 4 – 8, 2015

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 
 
May 4 – 8,  2015
 

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
2 / 0 3 5 0  /  0 2 / 0 0

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

May 4 – 8, 2015

Now I really understand the meaning of “TGIF” after two consecutive week rescuing Fridays.

This then turned out to be yet another nice week, although like most weeks, there’s always something that could have been better.

Again, it was the lack of assignments, but this time there were also some expired positions that couldn’t be rolled over. It’s been a while since that has been the case, although that’s something easy to get used to.

New positions opened for the week beat the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 by 2.1%.

New positions gained 2.5% for the week. The unadjusted and adjusted S&P 500, despite Friday’s nice gain, barely ended the week having broken even, up just  0.4%.

This week the performance of existing positions was well distributed, rather than being highly concentrated in a few stocks or a single sector, such as energy stocks.

There were no assignments this week so the closed position statistics remained unchanged. The lots closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.5% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.6% higher. That 3.9% difference represents a 253.9% performance differential. 

As with the previous week this was another in a string of satisfying weeks, although again it could have been made much better if there had been some assignments.

As with last week, that means that there will be less likelihood of being very active in opening new positions in the next week and, therefore requiring greater need to be able to rollover existing positions or to be able to sell new call options on existing uncovered positions.

With the monthly cycle coming to its end next week,  there are already enough candidates in the mix that could potentially give the combination of rollovers and assignments that has been elusive the past couple of weeks.

WIth  nothing really going on for the week everything was bottled up awaiting today’s Employment Situation Report.

The only possible report that could have done what it ended up doing was one that was neither too good nor too bad.

This one was right in the middle and could leave no one disappointed, nor elated. That way there’s less reason to believe that interest rates will increase and less reason to think that the economy has stopped growing.

At least that’s the story that everyone will go with.

With a real back and forth all week the market has had a hard time sticking with a single personality, although there’s not too much doubt that the bias continues to be upward. If you try, you know that it’s really hard to fight the current or go against the tape.

As volatility continues to fall, the contrarian, as well as the technician, may be in agreement that it is being set up for a strong move higher.

On the one hand you could wait for that and the higher premiums or sell options now at lower premiums.

The risk is that waiting and being right may also mean losing the chance of getting a strike price that you’re comfortable with having sold.

That’s why I’ve started looking at some longer term expirations, even having gone as far out as September 2015 with some of today’s sales and August 2015, previously.

If wrong about a correction impending, the use of well out of the money strikes will at least allow the possibility of some share appreciation if assigned. If right, well, at least there’s some premium to soften the blow a little.

With next week being the end of the monthly cycle and with lots of positions set to expire and very little cash reserve to make new purchases, I’m hopeful that the market will create opportunities to next to either make money from existing positions or at the very least allow those positions to switch allegiances and head into the cash reserve pile.

 With the market closing the week less than 0.2% from its all time highs, next week is actually a potentially market moving one, despite the general lack of economic news. What will be happening, though, is the earnings reports from the large national retailers that may have to be reconciled one way or another with next Wednesday’s retail Sales Report, as well.

Hopefully the news will be good, but not too good, so that we can get through next week and see those assignments and rollovers go through as I would love to have it scripted..

 

 

 

 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:   ANF, CY

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: ANF, TWTR (puts)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  AZN (6/12), GDX (5/22)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  GDX (6/19)

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  BAC (6/19), HFC (9/18), HFC (p/18)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  LVS, WFM

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: BP (5/6 $0.60), INTC (5/5 $0.24)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: none

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, CHK, CLF,  FAST, FCX, HA, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS,  MCP, MOS,  NEM, RIG, WFM, WLT (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.



Posted on

Week in Review – April 27 – May 1, 2015

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

April 27 –  May 1,  2015

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
3 / 4 1 7 0  /  0 0 / 0 0

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

April 27 – May 1,  2015

This was yet another nice week, although like most weeks, there’s always something that could have been better.

Unlike last week  when new positions were so impacted by a single bad acting position, this week a single well acting position was impactful.

With Lexmark’s rise new positions opened for the week beat the adjusted S&P 500 by 1.9% and the unadjusted S&P 500 by an even larger 2.0%

New positions gained 1.6% for the week. The unadjusted S&P 500, despite Friday’s nice gain, was 0.4% lower, while the adjusted S&P 500 was 0.3% lower.

As is often the case when the broad market is weaker, the existing positions tend to out-perform, especially if there is ability to sell new calls or rollover existing positions.

Existing positions were 1.5% higher for the week, having beat the S&P 500 by 1.1%. However, as in some previous weeks, some
of that performance advantage was due to the performance of the energy sector, just as that sector had been a drag at other times over the past few months.

There were no assignments this week so the closed position statistics remained unchanged. The 34 lots closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.5% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.6% higher. That 3.9% difference represents a 253.9% performance differential. While I hope to see more positions closed, I would expect that differential to fall considerably.


This was another satisfying week, although it could have been made much better if there had been some assignments.

While I like to re-cap what was good, from week to week, I almost always think about what could have been better.

In this case, not having any posiitons get assigned means that there will be less likelihood of being very active in opening new positions next week and, therefore requiring greater need to be able to rollover exisiting posiitons or to be able to sell new call options on exisiting uncovered positions.

The market’s weakness beginning mid-week took positions that had the potential to be assigned fall away from their strikes.

Fortunately, the bounce on Friday created some opportunity for rollovers that didn’t look very likely as Thursday came to its close.

No matter whether things are looking bleak or looking great, it’s never a good idea to give up hope, nor to get too smug. It’s really amazing how tone, sentiment and outlook can all change so quickly, even when there’s nothing readily identifiable to blame or thank.

It was a week with lots of news and lots of moves, but not necessarily moves that were related to the news.

You would be hard pressed to explain Thursday’s nearly 200 point loss as you would trying to make much sense of Friday’s attempt to erase the previous day’s decline.

I gave up trying a long time ago.

Despite not having any assignments for the week, it turned out to be a good one for advancing net asset value, not only relative to the S&P 500, but also in absolute terms. For me, more importantly, it was a good week to generate income. It was nice to catch some good luck and be able to make all of those rollovers and even sneak in the sale of calls on some much under-loved shares of Coach.

Best of all, it was another week of not adding to the list of non-performing positions. I only wish that volatility was higher so that some of those could become “DOH Trades,” but for now, so many sit and develop cobwebs awaiting their turns.

Next week, however, the handcuffs are on a little bit as there’s no new cash being recycled to replenish the pile after establishing 4 new positions this week.

Additionally, while there are a handful of positions already set to expire next week, at the moment I’m not counting on too many of them being able to add to the cash pile either.

Of course, that bleak outlook could just as easily change as this week’s bleak outlook changed.

But, staying bleak for just a second more, that means, that if there are any new purchases next week, and I will likely tend to be tight-fisted, those new purchases will have to look at weekly options. That has to be done in order to have a better fighting chance of getting some assignments for next week.

While April didn’t turn out for market’s as history had portended, the first day of May was definitely not one to consider going away. Hopefully, that reality counter to history or wizened adages will continue for a while.


 

 

 



This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as as in the summary.below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:   AGM, KMI, LXK, TWTR (puts)

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: GDX, TWTR (puts)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  KMI (5/22), UAL (5/22)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: GPS

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  GM (6/2015), KO (6/2015)

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  COH (8/19)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold< /str ong>:  none

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: KMI (4/28 $0.48)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: INTC (5/5 $0.24)

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, BAC, CHK, CLF,  FAST, FCX, HAL, HFC, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS,  MCP, MOS,  NEM, RIG, WFM, WLT (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.



Posted on

Week in Review – April 20 -24, 2015

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

April 20 –  24,  2015

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
2 / 2 2 4 2  /  0 0 / 0 0

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

April 20 – 24,  2015

This was another nice week, although a little unexpectedly so.

That was the case despite seeing the 2 new positions opened for the week having trailed the S&P 500.

With Friday’s fall in shares of Best Buy, the new positions opened for the week trailed the adjusted S&P 500 by 1.5% and the unadjusted S&P 500 by an even larger 2.0%

Those new positions lost 0.2% for the week. The unadjusted S&P 500 had another very good week, keeping the April trend alive. It was 1.7% higher, while the adjusted S&P 500 was 1,3% higher.

After last week’s very strong advance of existing positions over the S&P 500, this week they trailed slightly, despite having closed the week 1.3% higher.

With 2 positions closed out this week by assignment, the 34 lots closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.5% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.6% higher. That 3.9% difference represents a 253.9% performance differential. While I hope to see more positions closed, I would expect that differential to fall considerably.

 

Last week was a satisfying one despite the market being 1% lower, as the OTP portfolio’s energy positions had enough strength to offset the broader weakness. Of course, that wasn’t a good thing when those stocks were falling.

This week was satisfying, even though existing positions trailed the market a little, as it  went 1.7% higher on the week. When using a covered option strategy, especially in a low volatility environment that typically uses strikes right near the share’s purchase price, it’s difficult to keep up with markets that exceed a 1% return on the week.

What made it satisfying is that there was a nice combination of trades for the week.

That combination was able to develop the income stream that I’ve become accustomed to and that causes me some stress if not seeming to develop.

Best of all, after the previous week’s 5 assignments, I didn’t have to dip too deeply into the cash reserves to generate that income and ended the week with enough assignments to bring that cash pile right back to where it had started.

The chance to sell some new call positions on some uncovered lots was something that’s always welcome, as I really do hate seeing positions not paying their way, but also hate the idea of selling their rights for too low of a return.

Additionally, the ability to rollover those positions not assigned and not having to add them to the “uncovered” pile, which is still far too large, made it a good week.

With a handful of positions set to expire next week and all being within the range of being assigned, I may look at both weekly options and extended weekly options for any new positions opened next week.

Volatility continues to head lower and lower, so that means it gets less and less lucrative to look beyond a single week for those contracts, unless earnings or some other event is part of the equation.

Next week, just as this one, will be a very busy one as far as earnings go.

There’s not too much doubt about it, but earnings completely monopolized this week.

Next week, however, as busy as earnings will be, won’t have the same absence of important economic news to send everyone’s attention to those earnings reports.

Next week has an FOMC Statement release due on Wednesday and that will be preceded by the GDP report.

That could make for a powerful combination, especially if the GDP report will reflect the lowered expectations that most have.

While lowered expectations have worked great as far as how stocks have reacted after this quarter’s earnings releases, it’s not so clear that a disappointing GDP report will be greeted with stocks finding another reason to party wildly.

At least I’m glad that the FOMC Statement release won’t be coming during the final week of a monthly option cycle, as it does so often, when there tends to be an accumulation of positions hoping to be rolled over or assigned.

There’s nothing like a disappointing market reaction to the FOMC right before a monthly expiration.

Not in a good way, though.

Hopefully next week will continue to see some market strength, as I would continue to like to continue building cash through assignments and the sale of new calls on uncovered positions over the purchasing of new positions.

In doing so, I don’t mind seeing paper gains grow, but would really like to be better positioned for the next buying opportunity, as every drop has brought that kind of opportunity over the past few years.

 



This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as as in the summary.below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:   ANF, BBY

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle:  GPS

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  AZN (5/8). WFM (5/8)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: BBY

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future
monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  BNO (6/19), MAT (6/19)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: ANF, ATVI

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: FAST (4/24 $0.28)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: none

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, BAC, CHK, CLF, COH, FAST, FCX, HAL, HFC, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS,  MCP, MOS,  NEM, RIG, WFM, WLT (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.



Posted on

Week in Review – April 13 – 17, 2015

 

 

Option to Profit Week in
Review –  April 13 –  17,  2015
 
NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
1 / 1 3 3 5  /  0 1 / 0 0

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

April 13 – 17,   2015

Despite Friday’s big sell-off, it was a nice week. Surprisingly so, but I’ll take anything.

This week there was just a single new position opened and it beat both the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 by a 1.0%, as the market squandered 4 days of decent performance with a closing day’s plunge. 

The new position gained 1.0% while the unadjusted and adjusted S&P 500 each lost 1.0% for the week.

Existing positions had an unusually strong week thanks to energy and some other positions and out-performed the S&P 500 for the week by 2.5%, as they were 1.5% higher despite the market being down 1.0%.

This week 5 lots were added to the closed position list. Positions closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.5% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.6% higher. That 3.9% difference represents a 253.9% performance differential.

 

Despite the market being down 1.0% for the week, this was a satisfying week.

Some of that has to do with the manner in which the market reacted to generally disappointing earnings.

It reacted in a mature way when disappointing earnings were released, if there was a significant impact from currency conversion. It also took reduced guidance in stride.

Based on the past, that wasn’t going to be a slam – dunk. The market hasn’t always been able to retrain itself even when it had already discounted what was widely known and expected.

To its credit, so far, this time around, it has.

Friday’s sell-off, another in an unending examples of why you can’t count those eggs too soon, was entirely ignited by overseas markets, especially news of increasing regulation in the Chinese stock market. Together with increasing speculation over a potential exit of Greece from the EU and you had a sea of red facing our market this morning.

Still, it wasn’t a bad week.

The real relief was being able to still see a nice number of positions get assigned and I especially like seeing that happen as their prices are moving lower.

Additionally, there was the chance to sell new cover on uncovered positions and to rollover most positions. The one position that expired, the United States Brent Oil Fund, was a position bought on speculation that oil would move nicely higher and so a deep out of the money call was sold with a 4 month time horizon.

Rather than roll that over and pay the price for doing so, it is a candidate for doing the same thing on the next move higher, as it closed today right where it was purchased 4 months ago. This time, I might look at an August option or even longer.

The best part, thanks to the strength in energy stocks for the week, despite Friday’s sell-off, was that existing positions actually gained 1.5% for the week.

With a couple of rollovers to next week, there are already some positions populating the week and a smattering of others for each week in the May 2015 cycle.

With a good number of assignments this week and the ability to replenish cash reserves at a time when the market took a nice drop, I may be more anxious and more able than has been the case lately to add some new positions.

The likelihood is that I would consider weekly options, although as volatility climbed a little on Friday’s sell-off and some positions may have upcoming earnings as part of the equation, there may be reason to look at some extended weekly expirations, as well.

Next week will be a busy one for earnings.

After today’s sell off and with cash in hand, I would really like to see some further selling, but today’s may have been fueled by entirely external factors occurring overseas. If earnings continue in the same path and we remain mature in not over-reacting to what we know to be coming, the market may have reason to continue higher.

We’ll see.

 

 

 

.

 

 



This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as as in the summary.below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:   GPS

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle:  ATVI, GPS

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  GDX (5/1)

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:  BP (6/19), DOW (5/15), GDX (6/19)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: CSCO, LXK, MRO, SBGI, SBGI

Calls Expired:  BNO

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: ABBV (4/13 $0.51), CHK (4/13 $0.09), FCX (4/13 $0.05)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: FAST (4/24 $0.28)

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, BAC, CHK, CLF, COH, FAST, FCX, HAL, HFC, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS, MAT, MCP, MOS,  NEM, RIG, WFM, WLT (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.



Posted on

Week in Review – April 6 – 10, 2015

 

 

Option to Profit Week in
Review –  April 6 –  10,  2015
 
NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
1 / 1 3 5 1  /  0 0 / 0 0

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

April 6 – 10,   2015

This was a surprising week, to a degree, as the market dug out of the hole created for it last Friday when it had no opportunity to respond to the Employment Situation Report as the futures and bond markets reacted as if it was something akin to the end of the world.

This week there was just a single new position opened and it trailed the both adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 by a large 1.5%, as the market had a stealth rally and has now finally strung some consecutive days higher together. 

The new position gained 0.1% while the unadjusted and adjusted S&P 500 each gained 1.6% for the week.

Existing positions broke their streak of out-performance and trailed the S&P 500 for the week by 0.2%.

Positions closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.3% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.5% higher. That 3.8% difference represents a 257.6% performance differential. That remains unusually high and is associated with the longer period of holding of those closed positions than is more typically the case. I would much rather see that differential be smaller but be based on far more assignments resulting in closed positions. This week saw only one new position added to the list of those closed on 2015.

 

For just a few minutes this week as trading opened, did it look as if this might be yet another in a series of weeks with a significant downward bias that began at the end of February.

Instead, after those few minutes were up and traders realized that the futures market’s reaction to the Employment Situation Report the previous Friday was really unwarranted, it simply did the right thing.

Someone came to the realization that the previous month’s decision to greet the news of a terrible Employment Situation Report with dumping stocks didn’t make too much sense when the same dumping was done the previous month because the numbers were too good.

Unless of course we’re at that point that bad news is bad news and good news is bad news.

As irrational as the market sometimes seems, it doesn’t get to that point very often.

While there really wasn’t too much news this week to move the market in either direction and certainly not in any perceptible size, it did just that.

What made the week pretty impressive is that not only did it not allow the previous Friday’s futures trading a chance to really take hold, but it also recovered from 2 days of late sell-offs that dashed decent rallies, as the week came to an end on a very positive note.

In fact the week came to its close at the highs, leaving the S&P 500 less than 0.5% away from it’s all time high.and volatility once again near its 52 week low and easily in range to  drop below that level with only a single day’s rally necessary to do so.

That positive note is made even more impressive by virtue of it coming right before the financials begin to report their earnings and before the season really gets underway in earnest the following week.

Instead of being cautious or tentative traders went in buying instead of selling, even though you would have been very hard pressed to have found anyone of merit suggesting that there were good times ahead for the market.

The week was a good one, even with some under-performance. The ability to generate income from a nice combination of new options sales and rollovers was welcome and for now I do like the way next week’s expiring positions are set up.

Although I would have liked to have seen more assignments this week the principal goal of generating income was satisfied and next week’s expiring positions are still in reasonable striking range of being assigned or being rolled over.

With a fair number of positions set to expire next week as the monthly cycle comes to an end each of the 4 weeks in the May 2015 cycle already have some positions populating them. It’s been a while since there has been that kind of time diversification.

With the number of positions for next week already sufficient, as long as there continue to look as if there may be some in line to be assigned, my goal for next week would be to be able to rollover whatever is possible in order to generate the week’s income.

With only a single assignment I would like to preserve cash, particularly since there’s not too much to preserve at the moment and I would like to see that reserve grow.

New purchases for next week, if any, would likely equally look at a weekly expiration as it might at an expanded weekly. However, with volatility going even lower it does get more difficult to consider going out too many weeks into the future.

The exception may be for those positions that will have earnings entering into the equation, as the banks really get things going next week and the next few weeks may be fairly hectic as earnings pour in.

 



This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as as in the summary.below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:   WFM

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:  KO (5/1), UAL (5/1), WFM (4/24)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  GDX (5/15), GPS (5/15)

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  BAC (5/15), CHK (5/15), LVS (5/8)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: HAL

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: GPS (4/6 $0.23), WFM (4/8 $0.13)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: ABBV (4/13 $0.51), CHK (4/13 $0.09), FCX (4/13 $0.05)

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, BAC, CHK, CLF, COH, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, HAL, HFC, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS, MAT, MCP, MOS,  NEM, RIG, WFM, WLT (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.



Posted on

Week in Review – March 30 – April 2, 2015

 

 

Option to Profit Week in
Review –  March 30 – April 2,  2015
 
NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
2 / 2 1 4 1  /  0 0 / 0 0

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

March 30 – April 2,   2015

It was yet another week of uncertainty, but at least the week ended on an up note.

There were 2 new positions opened this week and they lagged both the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500. Those positions trailed the adjusted S&P 500 by 1.0% and under-performed the unadjusted S&P 500 by 1.1% in a reversal of last week’s comparative results.

The new positions lost 0.7% while the unadjusted S&P 500 gained 0.4% for the week and the adjusted S&P 500 gained 0.2% for that period.

Existing positions, on the other hand, again out-performed the S&P 500. They were 0.9% higher, which was 0.6% better than the S&P 500’s performance for the week. That’s better than last week, when they also out-performed the S&P 500, but still lost money for the week.

Out-performance is good, but only to a degree.

Positions closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.3% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.6% higher. That 3.8% difference represents a 242.1% performance differential. That remains unusually high and is associated with the longer period of holding of those closed positions than is more typically the case. I would much rather see that differential be smaller but be based on far more assignments resulting in closed positions.

 

Despite a couple of large moves this week, it was like a number of other weeks so far in 2015.

Not much really changed and there certainly wasn’t too much going on to account for any of the moves seen.

With a couple of large declines this week I had lost much confidence that rollovers or assignments would happen and with only 4 days of trading each and every day and each and every big move was that much more meaningful.

Luckily, and again there really wasn’t too much reason, Thursday ended the week on a positive note, although it did look for a while as if it all would vaporize.

Somehow, when it was all done for the week all positions expiring were either rolled over or assigned.

I definitely wasn’t expecting that outcome.

I would have liked to have seen more than the single assignment that occurred, but even that one was in doubt until the final few minutes of trading, so I won’t complain. I’m happy to have even that small amount added to my cash reserves which are uncomfortably small right now.

That means that I’m not too likely to be in a big buying mood, or even in position to want to be buying when the bell rings on Monday.

When that bell does ring it may be in the position of having to catch up to whatever tomorrow’s Employment Situation Report will bring. Since bond markets will be open on Good Friday, while stock markets are closed, any significant reaction to the report on Friday could create a considerable gap when equity markets get ready for trading on Monday. Given how volatile the bond market has been lately, especially in response to the Employment Situation Report, I’d be happy to see a very mid-range number being released tomorrow.

It’s hard to imagine what kind of a number could possibly lead to stock market optimism, so I’d rather not see any reason at all for bonds to make any kind of meaningful move.

With a number of positions set to expire next week and a handful more the following week to end the April 2015 cycle, the only goal I would have in the event of any new purchases is to be able to recycle whatever money is put to work as quickly as possible. That would probably mean sticking to a weekly contract next week.

In the best of all worlds the market would begin the week as this week started on a strong move higher, as I continue to prefer any opportunity to sell calls on existing uncovered positions.

Friday’s apparent deal with Iran, to at least establish a framework for a nuclear inspection deal may again alter the energy pricing dynamic and that could again cause the market to react to energy prices.

With 3 days to digest what just happened, much of it may be forgotten by Monday, especially if the EMployment Situation Report is still on people’s minds.

Hopefully Thursday’s trading, which was essentially positive, will set the tone for the rest of the month as we await earnings challenges that actually start all over again next week.

 

 

 



This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as as in the summary.below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:   CSCO, UAL

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle:  UAL

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: ATVI, CSCO, GDX

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  ABBV (5/15)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: MET

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: EMC (3/30 $0.12), CSCO (3/31 $0.21)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: GPS (4/6 $0.23), WFM (4/8 $0.13)

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, BAC, CHK, CLF, COH, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, HAL, HFC, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS, MAT, MCP, MOS,  NEM, RIG, WFM, WLT (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.



Posted on

Week in Review – March 23 – 27, 2015

 

 

Option to Profit Week in
Review –  March 23 – 27,  2015
 
NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
3 / 3 0 1 1  /  0 2 / 0 0

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

March 23 – 27,   2015

This was another in a series of familiar kind of weeks.

Despite very flat days to begin and end the week, what was in-between wasn’t very good.

There were 3 new positions opened this week and they were able to beat both the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500. Those positions beat the adjusted S&P 500 by 1.5% and surpassed the unadjusted S&P 500 by 1.7% in a week that the market really had no stories to follow, as almost nothing of interest happened this week.

As with a number of previous weeks lately, while the new positions did out-perform the S&P 500 they were still lower. Those positions were 0.5% lower for the week, while the unadjusted S&P 500 finished 2.2% lower and the adjusted S&P 500 was 2.0% lower

Due to the strength in energy this week the existing positions performed quite a bit better than the overall market, ending the week 1.5% higher than the overall market. However, those positions were still 0.8% lower for the week.

Positions closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.5% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.7% higher. That 3.8% difference represents a 224.2% performance differential. That remains unusually high and is associated with the longer period of holding of those closed positions than is more typically the case.

 

This week started and ended fairly flatly.

As far as bookends go, Monday and Friday were just fine, even though Monday gave up a nice gain in the final 30 minutes.

It was really what was in-between that was the real problem as the market finished the week with another very disappointing performance, even though there wasn’t much in the way of disappointing news.

In fact, almost nothing happened this week and what did happen was barely noticeable.

There was no news to fuel inflation fears and there was no news to fear deflation fears. Lately that has been what’s been worrying the market, so it’s hard to understand what caused the market to trade so poorly this week.

While we all know what the impact is of the strengthening dollar and how it will reduce corporate earnings, we still have another two weeks until the new earnings season begins. Besides, to a large degree that impact should already be discounted by analysts in their expectations.

So it remains a mystery, but at least the market didn’t flounder further today as the GDP data was released. That data gave no indication of anything, neither positive nor negative, and played no role in today’s trading.

With all of the negativity the market is barely 2.5% below its highest point from the first trading day of this month.

With just 2 more days left to the month it has been a repeat of what January was like and the antithesis to what February was like. Hopefully that pattern will find itself continuing in April, but the challenge of earnings starts all over again in less than 2 weeks. Those two days will also determine whether this ends up being the first negative quarter in quite a while, as the S&P 500 is up only 0.09% YTD.

Next week is a holiday shortened week although the Employment Situation Report does come out on Good Friday. Stock markets are closed, although bond markets will be open. That could create some catch up trading the following Monday morning if there’s a significant reason for the bond market to make a big move.

But that’s an issue for another week.

With just a single assignment this week  and another week with only a small number of expiring positions, I don’t expect the coming week to be a very busy one for opening new positions.

In all likelihood whatever new positions are opened will probably focus on using a weekly contract in order to have some opportunity to generate some more assignments in order to fund any trading for the following week. Those premiums, though, will be relatively small, as there are just 4 days of time value.

With this week being predominantly a negative one there was no opportunity to find new cover for existing positions. That still remains my top interest and right now, the best way to both conserve cash and still generate weekly income.

At the moment all of the positions expiring next week are in position to be assigned, but it doesn‘t take too much to change that possibility. At the very least, however, it would be nice to have those positions stay within the range of being rolled over.

I never ask for too much and try not to be unreasonable in those requests, but lately the market has been anything other than generous.

 

 

 



This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as as in the summary.below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:   ABBV, ATVI, DOW

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle:  MET

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:  none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: DOW

Calls Expired:  ABBV, BAC

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: ATVI (3/26 $0.23), DOW (3/27 $0.42)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: EMC (3/30 $0.12)

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   ABBV, AGQ, ANF, BAC, CHK, CLF, COH, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, HAL, HFC, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS, MAT, MCP, MOS,  NEM, RIG, WFM, WLT (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadshe
ets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



Posted on

Week in Review – March 16 – 20, 2015

 

 

Option to Profit Week in
Review –  March 16 – 20,  2015
 
NEW POSITIONS/STO NEW STO ROLLOVERS CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED CLOSED
1 / 1 5 2 2  /  0 5  / 0 0

    

Weekly Up to Date Performance

March 16 – 20,   2015

This was a difficult to describe week.

Each and every day, followed the trend that began with the last 2 days of the past week and closed at a triple digit change in the direction opposite that of the previous day’s close.

That’s something you don’t see very often.

There was only a single new position opened for the week. It beat the adjusted S&P 500 by 1.2% but trailed the unadjusted S&P 500 by 1.0% in a week that the market again followed only a single story, but lots of interpretations of the meaning of that story.

The new position was 1.6% higher for the week, while the unadjusted S&P 500 finished 2.7% higher and the adjusted S&P 500 was only 0.4% higher, as the sole purchase for the week was on Thursday, effectively undoing much of the gain subsequently seen on Friday to close the week.

Positions closed in 2015 continue to out-perform the market. They are an average of 5.6% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.9% higher. That 3.8% difference represents a 202.3% performance differential.

 

All eyes were focused on the FOMC this week and the market really didn’t know what it was looking for, nor what it really wanted.

Sometimes, just like a small child, who is more interested in just receiving something, there wasn’t much attempt to discern whether what was received was good, bad or indifferent.

It’s not very clear that the market got anything resembling clarity to the question of when the FOMC will begin to raise rates, but it did act as if all was now crystal clear.

The market itself seems to be telling a different story and it’s far from one that’s crystal clear.

This is what the past few days of trading looked like at the closing bell:

This is sort of ridiculous.

What makes it ridiculous is that there’s been basically no volatility during the course of these past few days. The market, with the exception of a single one of those days has ignored the pre-open futures trading and just headed in a single direction and had traded with almost no intra-day variation.

The exception to that lack of intra-day variation was this past Wednesday when the FOMC Statement was released.

With all of this faux volatility, there actually hasn’t been much real volatility, even as
the uncertainty has seemed to be increasing. In fcat, the volatility is about at the last low point, which was at the beginning of December 2014, even though it may not really feel like that.

This was a difficult week to want to make any commitments and was a perfect example of how the slightest change in your timing could have made such a significant difference in outcomes.

Looking forward to the next week there’s really no additional information that’s available to push in one direction or another.

For those who look at charts, looking at the net change in the closing level of the DJIA over the past 7 trading sessions shows lower highs and higher lows, so there will surely be someone who will say that the prevailing pattern is for a breakout in prices to the upside.

I have a hard time embracing that, but the reality is that for more than 2 years that really has been the case, regardless of what the charts have looked like.

I was happy to see positions go along for the ride this past week and was especially happy to have a chance to find some new cover for some of the previously uncovered positions. Although there were a couple of rollovers and a couple of assignments, there were too many expired positions to end the March 2015 option cycle.

With some additional cash available next week being added to the pile and with only 2 positions set to expire next week, the greatest likelihood is that any new positions would primarily look at next week’s expiration, rather than in forward weeks. With a smattering of positions already sprinkled through the individual weeks of the April 2015 option cycle and with premiums again following volatility lower, there’s little incentive to look at further diversifying positions by time of expiration.

While I wouldn‘t mind letting go of some of the cash reserve in order to pick up some new positions next week, my preference would be to have another week such as this past one. I’d prefer to generate the income from existing positions, where possible and put as little additional capital at risk until there is really some clarity.

That should begin fairly soon as earnings season is about to begin anew in just a couple of weeks as we may finally get some information regarding the impact of falling energy prices as well as the impact of the strengthening US Dollar.

 



This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as as in the summary.below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:   MET

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:  LXK, MRO

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  AZN (4/24), GDX ($21 4/10), GDX ($20 4/2), HAL (4/10), KO (4/10)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: GME, SBGI

Calls Expired:  BAC, BP, DOW, EMC, GDX

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: LVS (3/19 $0.65)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: DOW (3/27 $0.42)

 

 

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, CHK, CLF, COH, FAST, FCX, GDX, HAL, HFC, .INTC, JCP, JOY, LVS, MAT, MCP, MOS,  NEM, RIG, WFM, WLT (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



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