Update

Yesterday I bought a March  NSM call. Looking good so far.

Today I sold a $440/435 Feb8 AAPL bull put spread and a March $73/75 TBT bear call spread (both credit spreads).

JAZZ was looking toppy so I put a tight stop under recent support and today it sold, +1.97%. Any green is always better than red.

VRTU was one of those basket stocks I bought and put 5% trailing stops under most of them. It spiked up this morning and immediately fell back and triggered the sell order, +25.4%.

Haste Makes Waste

Last Thursday I rolled the dice on NFLX and APPL, going short on NFLX will a bear call spread, and long on AAPL with calls. I should have waited a day.

On Friday NFLX blew through my call strikes putting both well ITM. Yesterday NFLX opened up, and both calls were exercised (the buyer's by choice, mine to cover) on my OH account, -100%. With NFLX up 4% yesterday morning, I covered the other spread on my OX account while there was still some value there, -68%.

The deep ITM AAPL call is still a bit underwater, but perhaps moving in the right direction, and I can still sell calls against it.

The point here is that, had I waited a day, my entry points would have been so much better and I'd probably have three winning trades to show for it.

Otherwise, options for EWT & VXX (long) and SPY & XRT (short) have been moving against me. UNG dropped yesterday but is still well away from the $17-strike call I sold. Those are all February options.

I sold my CRZO calls yesterday after letting too much profit get away, +23.8%. There seems to be too much selling pressure after the downgrades to stay in, so I'll take what profit is left and look to re-enter later - maybe.

I sold a March bull put spread on GDX yesterday.

January Action

Well this month's options are a done deal. My first systematic go at selling credit spreads worked okay. The bull put spreads took off and would have fetched a lot more using bull call spreads. The bear call spread on EEM cut it very close to the short strike prices ($44.78 close vs $45 strike), but everything expired out-of-the-money fortunately.

Bull put spreads: SLV +12.6% and UNG +7.7%. Bear call spreads: EEM +18.3% and EWZ +8.8%. These were held 30 days or less.

Observations? I made some trades where I sold too little premium and got a weak return. I've done better with my Feb spreads. I was a little too quick to sell some bear call spreads for ETFs that were trending up and taking up residence in the RSI Overbought zone. Risk-reward is a delicate balance there.

I do like the fact that I can trade these with great confidence in a flat or declining market where my usual long trades don't perform well. I also think that reviewing the ETF charts gives me a better perspective on the market.

Bull call spreads for JAZZ and KOG closed as well, +65.8% (on the JAZZ long call cost) and +135.9% (on the KOG spread cost).

NSR hit its trailing stop, -0.14%.

I bought puts and a bear call (credit) spread for XRT. The spread is on Options House where there commissions are considerably less. But I do like the way optionsXpress presents your spreads.

RM down

RM gapped down below the trailing stop and sold. There was never much to trail since it moved down since I bought it. -10.3%

CRZO had another good day. Everything else, not so much. I'm eagerly awaiting Friday's close given my bull put spreads on SLV and UNG, and bear call spreads on EEM and EWZ. Oh, and the JAZZ and KOG bull call spreads too.

Mid Jan Update

I bought more CRZO calls yesterday, and tried to double down again today but under bid 'em. That would have been a nice rebound to catch. I guess the bad news wasn't so bad after all.

The market's drop at the open got me to put more of my KOG call spread up for sale. I got my price later in the day, +117.2%. That drops me to 1/4 of my accumulated position just in case KOG drops below $9 and my buyer expires worthless.

The credit spreads are looking good and even HAIN had a good day for a change. I'd like to add to my position if it will start behaving.

WGO might be losing traction. LULU rebounded okay. Poor AAPL.

Chirp

I bought calls for CRZO and puts for GME. I sold a bull put (credit) spread on VXX (small position). All for Feb. I'm looking to short WGO when it runs out of steam.

Hands In The Air

Today was a bit of a roller coaster day with KOG. Early on it dropped to $9.05 so I sold half of my position in case it closes below $9 next Friday and the shares get called to me. The cheaper lot was sold (LIFO?), net +101%.

Other than that, the ETF credit spreads are holding up, and the trailing stops are in place for the basket stocks.

I tried to short ATLS the first thing this morning but there was no open interest on puts and Fidelity wouldn't let me short it.

Note To Self

The next time I start to short something in my bullish watch list just because of the chart indicators, DON'T do it!

MPWR looked overbought so I bought put options. When it went underwater, it was still overbought, so I held on. Then it went deeper into the red. It finally dropped for 2-1/2 days so I made my exit the first thing this morning near the day's lows. -40.9% on that lark. Fortunately it was a half-hearted attempt to piss away my money with an undersized position.

I sold some KOG calls for a spread conversion near the high for the day. That should return around 54% if the price holds for a week and a half.

The remainder of the RM limit order filled (stock).

There Goes The Towel

I threw in the towel today on MLNX. I thought it found a bottom finally and put a stop loss order under it thinking that if it keeps selling off at this level then things are worse than I had imagined. Well, MLNX blew through the stop and kept going. -32.9% on the BIG position, -52.4% on a tiny one. That one left a mark.

I had a Jan call for OCN that had been underwater for some time. But OCN has a nice pop now and then, so I held off on closing the position in hopes of such an event. Well today OCN popped, the limit order fired, and I got out with a +6.76% profit.

I bought a basket of stocks from the screen I published yesterday; DVA. EXLS, FLT, NSR, PRAA, RM (partial fill), and VRTU. I'll put in trailing stop loss orders to take out the ones that will be topping out soon and can hopefully loosen up the stops once the runners get some profit under them.

Watchlist Additions

Last month was the wrong month to be out of the market. As I flip through the charts I see I could have bought a broad selection of stocks with any semblance of growth and done quite well after last week's pop.

That said, here's a screen of stocks with 4 quarters of double digit (typ. > 25%) YoY quarterly sales growth, 4 quarters of sequential sales growth, a forward P/E below 20, sequential earnings estimated to increase, and > 5% net margin. In order of lowest forward P/E first: RM, CACC, NOV, PRAA, KOG*, VRTU, NSR, OCN*, MYGN,  IACI, DVA, EXLS, and FLT.

Good Luck!

(*) I have positions in these already.

Busy Day

I started off by rolling half of the 401(k) and 403(b) money back into mutual funds.

I added more HAIN shares and bought some JAZZ shares. I had a tight 3% trailing stop on the SMS shares which sold, +13.9%.

I sold (to open) a Feb SPY bear call credit spread. I sold the Jan XLP calls I bought last Friday, +52.3%.

I converted the Jan $45 JAZZ calls to a bull call spread by selling Jan $49 calls for a profit. So now I've banked a profit and I'm free-rolling on the $4 call spread. That should turn a 67% profit on the original well-ITM call investment which is no longer at risk.

HNY!

How about an overdue update?

Last Monday (Christmas eve.) I sold a Jan bull put credit spread on SLV and bought more KOG calls.

On Friday I bought XLP calls.

Now that an agreement has been reached in Congress, maybe we can move forward. Good Luck!