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!