Good to be back

Hi all. Well I have been on a roller coaster for a few months. I've become active on a BOD and also had a long vacation somewhat off the grid. But enough of me. Just wanted to say that I’m sorry for not posting for awhile and glad to be back. For trades that I am now doing.. A somewhat long term spread with GOOG. I recently bought the 9/800 and have sold the April 840. I won't be surprised if GOOG heads past it. If so I will have to decide to roll up the sold strike each week/ or month. But they pay quite well and my 'plan' for goog is to be around 900 by Sept. If so I will capture all the weekly prem's I take in plus capture the 100 pt's on the long side. The downside is how high I can roll the sold one. Otherwise I will have to buy it back to close in Sept. I usually hesitate to roll to soon as you forfeit prem when rolling and then if the stock misses on earns etc. it drops so all the forfeited prem’s are wasted? Always a dilemma. I usually try to stay 20 points below the current stock price. I am also doing some vert spreads with goog. For tomorrow I have a condor 830/835 calls And 790/795 puts This is for a little over 2% when opened yesterday. Still over 1% available at this time today. Tell me some of your trades and fire away any questions ‘good to be back’ Jerry

no more AAPL for awhile

Hi all. I've been pretty busy but with the holidays coming fast I am certainly slowing down. I have given up on trying to make APPLE go up. As you traders know one day up 10 then down 20 etc etc. I have closed all the AAPL options from 4 different acc'ts. Of course that means it will go through the roof. I have opened new positions in the following stocks and some of you might like to take a look for possible trades. A stock I really like is Phillips PSX Everything about it is good except that it only has monthly options at this time. But still you can get around 17% per month so worth a look. Another stock I am using is CAT, to buy the Jan 2014 87.5 and sell the 90's this week for 4.5% Also one I have started using again is GS buying the Jan 2014 115 and selling the current week 120. A negative is that there is no 122.5 strike. So if it gets moving you have to go out and up to stay ahead of it. Weekly for this week is 7% so some god money there. Another one I’m using is MCD pretty dependable. Buying the Jan 2014 87.5 selling this weeks 90 for around 3% My only other stock I’m using is VZ. I’m buying the Jan 2014 42 strike and selling this weeks 45 for 3%. VZ has lots of strikes to pick from which is nice So for anyone looking for ideas take a look at these. Good luck Jerry

Hi all, I can see I either have to do options full time or other business interest full time. I have broken many of my own rules while trying to ‘out-guess’ the market. I have gone to a lot of cash until I can see if this market is actually ready to go north. I have opened and closed so many positions lately my account looks more like a refrigerator door. At this time I still have some AAPL spreads. I have the Jan 2014 550 and selling weekly’s against them. This gives around 14 months for AAPL to stay the same and give a good weekly ROI or move up as many seem to think will happen. It is hard to believe that AAPL has dropped around 150 points in a matter of weeks. Hopefully the new products will produce some good news. Now that earnings season is pretty much over for a while, I am tiptoeing back in but I am very cautious. The coming confrontation between the House and the President regarding the fiscal cliff is spooky. So do be careful and leave lots of cushion in your positions.

Hi all, I’ve been off line for a nice trip and some off time. Well I opened the GOOG trade and got spanked with lousy earnings. I should pay more attention to my own rules…lol. The drop in AAPL also wasn’t all that great.. I have closed all previous AAPL and GOOG positions and opened new ones with Jan, 2013 /600 and selling weekly’s against them. Friday I sold the AAPL 620’s for 4+ and back to making money instead of donating to the option gods. At this time AAPL is the only positions that I have open. The drop in AAPL seems to be a great entry point. Time will tell. Now to the blog to catch up on some of the post.

Hi all, it is 9:45 on the west coast and I just opened a trade that might interest some of you. This is a vertical call spread using GOOG I bought the Nov 745 and sold the Oct 20 750. This was a debit of 8.7 The plan is for Goog to stay over 750 by the Nov expiration. If so here are the approx. results. I will make the diff in the spread ---5 I will sell calls weekly for 4 weeks and make approximately 3.5 each week =4 x 3.5 =14 (could be lots more) So a gain of 19 but it cost 8.7 to open this position so a net gain of 10.3 for each option. I did quite a few of these so the results could be very nice. It is earnings week for GOOG so some risk there but as the Oct 750 has over 17 in time val. for 3 days it seems pretty good to me. This isn’t for all but I’m doing them. Good luck

Ways to trade

Hi all, Lots of talk regarding instructional ideas. Wow you guys have more time than I do. I have mixed emotions regarding all the info available on the web and in seminars etc. I am glad that so many find the information helpful as nothing beats knowledge and experience. For those of you that find it confusing, the relationship of the IV compared to a rising delta and a dropping stock price and all the other variables that affect the premiums, I’m with you. I have been doing this nearly everyday for fifteen years. I’ve made lots of money and sorry to say lost my fair share. But I have never found any of the tons of info that is available to be of much help. It certainly will spell out a lot of what if’s, but it all changes immediately with the stock price change. You can spend hours researching all the variables but eventually you have to pull the trigger based on plain old common sense. The correct gamma and delta and IV and all the other info won’t help a bit if you don’t pick your stock or index based on common sense. For those of you that don’t have the time to watch all the videos and web cast, just follow some simple rules. Pick a darn good stock Pick one with a decent PE Use options that have a decent premium and plenty of O-I Avoid stocks with coming news i.e; earnings etc. Optionsense; I think you mentioned that you are finding a longer time period safer as you have more time to be correct.. Hmm don’t you also have more time to be wrong? To me time is the biggest enemy of all. I don’t want to be holding a position a month from now when Israel attacks Iran or vise-versa. I want a position that is only a few days long unless I’m doing a bullish call spread such as I have with AAPL. For short term spreads, call or puts, I want my money at risk for just a few days. An example of positions that I will open probably Tuesday assuming all is right with the world.. AAPL trading around 700 Iron Condor (IC) this weeks 630/625 put for a nickel =1% On the call side 750/755 for another nickel=1% for around 2% a week with these two. GOOG trading around 734 put side 680/670 for a nickel and 765/770 on the call side = .05 for another 2%. I have absolutely no idea what the various greeks or other indicators would say about these trades but they are common sense. A long ways from the stock price and 1-2% in a week. Someone show me a mutual fund that makes 100% a year, and they get to use computers as big as your house… For you traders that love ‘more’ information good luck as there are a ton of people selling ideas of how you can make money. To me I fall back on my natural skeptical side and think if it works that good, why don’t they use it and give the information away as they obviously can make all the money they want. I make quite a lot of money from trading and the last thing I want is some of your hard earned money just so you can have me tell you the end all way of trading. For the traders that are just getting started, take it easy. Use common sense. Don’t try to learn too much or you might get paralysis by analysis. There can be too much info out there for some of us. Gbarbs, you mentioned rolling down the sold side of a call spread. Don’t forget when you do that, it takes profit off of total profit at maturity. I also do it at times but generally it is costly if you assume that the stock will come back by expiration of the long side. If you believe the stock will come back, usually you are better off to not roll down. Good luck all and I do enjoy sharing ideas Jerry

Hi all, a lot of questions on the blog regarding which brokerage is best, cheapest, fastest etc. I have been with Schwab, Fidelity, Ameritrade etc. At this time I trade with two brokerages. Most of my trades are with TradeKing because of the rates. I do manage two accounts that are with Ameritrade and I like their platform. I also seem? to have faster trade executions with them. Maybe I put in a more reasonable attempt? But 75% of my trades are with TradeKing. I get no kick back for recommending them..lol (wish I did). But the rates are 4.95 and .65 per option. I look around every now and then and have not found anyone to beat them. They have next day fund transfers of money. Decent online help when needed. They seem to have a fair amount of tools for you traders that look at that stuff. I trade most days quite few options and never use any of the tools. Most of you that have known me for a year or two know that I don’t use vix, (I have no idea how to use Gamma, Theta, Alpha etc. I never look at the Delta or the Implied Vol. For those that do use all of the Greeks etc. TK seems to offer it? The opening and closing and rolling out is very simple and intuitive. They make a four legged trade very simple. So if you are looking around you might check them out. For those that have been trading AAPLE, it sure has been an upward road. The premiums are good and the upside is still to come. The new phone and other products will just keep producing money. I do think that a pullback could happen as it has gone up a hundred points in the last month or so. But for every seller there is a buyer waiting to jump in on any correction. I appreciate you traders that always jump in to help new traders or anyone with a question. It is a pleasure to exchange ideas with you.