Tag: Double Diagonal

How to Play Google (GOOG) Earnings
How to play Google (GOOG) earnings and how to benefit from Implied volatility crush post google earnings is on the minds on almost every option traders I have met or spoken to. But before I proceed further let me share that earnings are usually 50/50 at best i.e. in-spite of complete detailed research you may still end-up being wrong. The chances of win are 50%. If you go with that assumption and are willing to take increased risks for potential windfalls, Google (GOOG) Certainly offers great opportunities for option traders.

I have been covering Google earnings for almost 4 years. I also provided 4 different option trading strategies on how to play google earnings. For additional reference, LiveVol has done has done an excellent job on explaining past earings and Google’s move post earnings. You may want to check that out as well.

So let’s begin the current journey. Let’s first look at the IV skew; There is almost 40+% IV skew between Oct and Nov options most of which will narrow by tomorrow (Chart is from LiveVol.com). So a simple inclination will be to sell the expensive IV and buy the cheaper IVs. That’s a good conclusion except that is not without its own risk. Here are a couple of options that you might look into playing (Ref- GOOG last traded price was $543.3)
1. Buy straight call or straight put. Based on recent past history you may conclude that Google (GOOG) tends to move say $20. So you may want to buy Straight Out of the Money (OOM) Oct 560 calls or 520 Puts. Last mid quote for 560 call was $5.00, and for 520 put, it was $3.00 either google needs to be above $565 or below $517 before you can make money if you purchased straight calls or puts. But here you are assuming a directional as well as movement risk.
2. You may choose to buy a strangle i.e. Google (GOOG) Oct 560 call AND Oct 520 Put, thus costing $8.00 combined. In this case google needs to be above $568 or below $512 before you can make money. But at least you are not taking any directional risk.
I personally wouldn’t want to take #1 and #2 options. If I were to choose, I might then choose even further OOM and that too as lottery ticket assuming 100% capital loss upfront.

So How can one increase chances of success while still hoping for good yield from Google earnings move. Here are few more examples.
- Sell Google (GOOG) ATM Oct 540 straddle i.e. Sell Oct 540 Call and Puts, as of the market close yesterday it was $22.65/spread i.e. you will receive $2,265 credit but need to keep about $11,000 for margins. This trade will make money if Google is in between $517.4 and $562.6. The maximum gains are equivalent to the credit you received and if GOOG is pinned at 540 on Friday. Expected yield is 2265/10,900= 21%; the risk is that you might lose all the margins if GOOG moves wildly beyond the break-even points.
- Well you may think that you don’t like above risk reward, but you still think that Oct ATM is pricing the Google move appropriately and hence would like to keep the same break evens but with a better yield. So how about selling an Iron Condor say Google (GOOG) 560/570 Bear Call spread and 520/510 Bull Put Spread. This will generate $367 credit on a $633 margin thus yielding 58% gains assuming Google remains between 520 and 560. The Breakevens are $516.3 and $563.6. The max loss will be if google is below 510 or above 570. Certainly a better option than #1.
- Still don’t like the yield but willing to trade-off risk for even better yield. Other ways to play is that you can choose 10 points Butterflies with the mid strike at 540, 530 or 550 depending upon your outlook. Butterflies offer fantastic yield but then Google has to settle within that zone. Here is an example of GOOG $570 Call Butterfly (You may check out past examples here).
  - Buy +1 GOOG Oct 560 call and
  - Sell -2 GOOG Oct 570 Call and
  - Buy +1 GOOG Oct 580 Call
This can be done for only $83. If GOOG is pinned at 570, this trade will yield $917 that’s almost 1,100% returns. This trade will still make money if google is in between ~561 and 579. The risk is, you will lose 100% of the capital if google is beyond these breakeven points.
- A little more advance option will be to combine a butterfly with either straddle or Iron Condor. That will result in better gains assuming you are right-on for the ATM strike. But even if you are not then remaining Straddle or condor can still make money.
- These are just some of the examples how Google earnings can be played. Others include Calendars, Double Diagonals, Backspreads and ratio spreads and many more.
- If however, you are willing to spend time and make even more educated guess, then don’t forget to check out these articles
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Happy Googling and wish you all the best

Disclaimer– This post is for information purpose only. Please do your due diligence before investing even a single dollar based on any of the contents on this site including this article.
October 14, 2010
OPNewsletter Jul 2010 Up +8.3%

We are on track for our 28th positive month of OPNewsletter phase-2, as of last Friday close OPNewsletter Jul 2010 portfolio is up +8.3% on the maximum investment of almost 60% of portfolio capital. We have started opening Aug 2010 portfolios and our first portfolio is already positive.

Let’s talk consistency first, especially on trades like Iron condor which is probably the most widely used option trading strategy. OPNewsletter has lost only 1 month of RUT iron condor since May 2008, and the drawdown was only 7.15% while gains have been around 12% on average per month. RUT Iron Condor for July 2010 resulted into +23% gains. If someone has invested US$10K, only in OPN RUT Iron Condor, this 10K would have grown over 5 times to $56K since May 2008. This period includes probably one of the most volatile stock market moves of our lifetime. Of course, I don’t recommend traders to invest all the money in iron condors only and which is why we have portfolio approach at OPNewsletter, to diversify risk/rewards.

If you are not an OPNewsletter member and would like to sign-up, pls click here to sign-up for the waitlist as OPNewsletter subscription is open via invitation only.

During the month of July, we also opend, for first time, an Income portfolio on Google. Just for perspective, since our opening of this portfolio on June 14th, google moved from $480 to $506 and then from $506 to $434 almost without a pause. This portfolio has provided a great deal of learnings e.g. during this period, one of our backspread we opened for only $0.65 debit moved past to show $10 gains!!! Though it was tough and very volatile move, we still managed to gain 4% gains as of Friday close (still open) and we are in for the earning week and out theta gains are a few % points per day.

Even though VIX and other implied volatility fell through the cliff in general, our Double calendar resulted into above +20% gains and Double Diagonal in positive (still open).

These results do not include gains/losses on the speculative trades. It also feels good when I find adding value to subscribers as OPNewsletter members were already warned of the coming meltdown since mid April via constance market updates/projections. Though no one can be perfect or correct all the time, so far OPN has been able to serve well.

If you are not an OPNewsletter member and would like to sign-up, pls click here to sign-up for the waitlist as OPNewsletter subscription is open via invitation only.

Profitable Trading, OP

July 12, 2010
OPNewsletter May +18%, June +5.3% (Open)

Another turbulent and volatile period! Last week started with a huge gap up rally after EU announced a $1trillion bailout package but by weekend it was a different story. Now there are questions on how solid it was. The confidence barometer, Euro, is now 4 years low and maybe even headed for $ parity as I wonder if EU will really step in to avoid Euro slide. They should be pretty excited as EU economy may get much needed push with a weaker Euro. For OPNewsletter, we are 77% in cash. Remainder of the cash is invested across 3 income portfolio and we are nicely up +5.3% for June 2010.

May 2010 was a record month for OPNewsletter. Since the beginning of Phase-2 of OPNewsletter in Jan 2008, this was the highest % gainer. We achieved +18% gains in May 2010. This is coming on the heels of 9.7% in April 2010. We also avoided market meltdown by going into cash before pullback really started hitting hard. These results don’t include returns on speculative trades like VIX (a few times), Google, ISRG, SLGN, and many more. Euro slide didn’t come as much of surprise too, as we had started anticipating this move when 50days EMA crossed the 200EMA for the first time in 18months.

If you are not an OPNewsletter member and would like to sign-up, pls click here to sign-up for the waitlist as OPNewsletter subscription is open via invitation only.

I have been covering market commentary on both OPDiscussion forum as well as on Twitter. Congratulations to all those who benefited.

If I could make a suggestion, [b]pls don’t over trade this coming week[/b]; keep it simple and watch the show…just watch out for the two levels I mentioned ([b]Dow 10,300 and 10,700[/b]).

There were a few trade ideas I shared in the Weekly OPN portfolio tracking; Look out for Silver (CEF, SLV). I think silver’s time is coming soon (how soon, I don’t know). Silver maybe more volatile then gold so you gotta be careful. As usual pls do your due diligence before investing any single $$ into any stocks I/OP mention anywhere. Regarding Gold, congratulations to all those who have been permabull on this, it hit a new record high (but not quite high yet if adjusted for inflation). If you have sometime, pls do read the this link . This is a post I wrote in 2007 which I hope will provide a historical perspective of how far have we come since then.

From Market perspective, Internals don’t look attractive and it seems that this pull back still has a course to run. Whether this is a full blown Market Top or just a healthy correction in the on-going primary uptrend, we’ll know only in the Hindsight.

Look at the attached chart of NYSE stocks that are trading above 50days moving average. The lows are getting lower, in fact recent correction had the lowest % of stocks trading above 50days MA in the last 1 year; including all the three pullbacks. The distribution days are increasing and 90% down days are also increasing which doesn’t paint a healthy picture.

Here is what one industry veteran (Mr Richard Russell of Famed Dow Theory has to say) –

Russell suggestion — Do your friends a favor. Tell them to “batten down the hatches” because there’s a HARD RAIN coming. Tell them to get out of debt and sell anything they can sell (and don’t need) in order to get liquid. Tell them that Richard Russell says that by the end of this year they won’t recognize the country. They’ll retort, “How the dickens does Russell know — who told him?” Tell them the stock market told him.

He is of the view that one should monitor the two Averages ($DJI and $DJT) hit “spear point” lows, Industrials at 10380.43, Transports at 4298.12 and he considers these to be of extremely importance. If both Averages hold above their May 7 lows, it will be a bullish indication; If both Averages turn down, and one Average violates its May 7 low but the other refuses to confirm, that could be a very bullish sign; If both Averages break below their May 7 lows, it will be a very bearish action, and could predict a crash (the two Averages do not have to break on the same day, but the closer in time they both violate the May 7 lows, the more authoritative and bearish the action).

Besides a 10,300 level that one should be careful about, I think hard rain is not coming until the averages drops below following levels- Industrial at 9,835, Transports at 3,740. Though I am not an expert on Dow Theory, I would stay clear if Dow drops below $10,300 and will reposition to re-enter around 9,835 but with risk management plans in place, in case Markets drops further. If However, Dow manages to remain above 10,700, I think we might have run this pullback course; at least for now.

Thank you all the positive feedback on “Financial Freedom” article. I am glad you liked it and that it could add some value to your existing knowledge. If you are not an OPNewsletter member and would like to sign-up, pls click here to sign-up for the waitlist as OPNewsletter subscription is open via invitation only.

Trade Carefully, Trade Profitable, OP

May 19, 2010
OPNewsletter April +9.7% (closed); May +12% (Open)
While markets are struggling to make any meaningful advance, for OPNewsletter, we are having another excellent month. We closed April’10 portfolios for +9.7% gains, and for May income portfolios, we are up +12% with 3 weeks to go. These results don’t include gains on speculative trades. Another point to note, these were also two months when I significantly upped investments allocation. In April’10 we invested 88% of capital and this month we invested 75% of capital. If one considers compounding effect, these income trades resulted in +18% gains on overall capital in just two expiration cycle alone (still 3wks to go).

We achieved most of these results, by having plans in advance and shifting our option trading strategy in way so that more trading alerts can be sent before or after market hours to allow even working professionals to benefit.

Here is a snapshot of my speculative trades (even for free ideas, just check the screenshot of my tweets). It was an excellent time to generate gains from Goldman Sachs (GS), Harman (HAR), Wynn Resorts (WYNN), VIX, Google(GOOG), Baidu (BIDU), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG). The only losing trade was McAfee (MFE) (we played it as a takeover rumor) which was also up +40% at one time.

If you are not an OPNewsletter member and would like to sign-up, pls click here to sign-up for the waitlist as OPNewsletter subscription is open via invitation only.

It has been over 3 years since OPNewsletter was first introduced. I am so thankful to all subscribers and a special thanks to those who have been with me since the beginning. It’s been an absolute pleasure and honor to serve this community.

As part of my final phase of OP Brand development, I am discontinuing “No Profit, No Fee” business model after May expiration cycle and make it a fixed fee. Old members may recall OPN Phase-1 was introduced @ $28/month, Phase-2 @ $148/month. I shall continue to limit subscribers through waitlist so that we continue to have quality in the OPN besides obtaining fills for our trades; for new members, their first month will still be “No Profit, No Fee”.

With this change, I hope to bring more value to OP subscribers via-
1. Introducing multiple months’ strategies; tracking those on monthly basis is challenging as those span over various months.
2. Introducing more opportunity via additional income trades; I often run out of the limit for a $10k model and hence I step back from suggesting new trades.
3. Spending time on developing OP into a full scale Option’s boutique introducing trading options on futures, forex and add even other countries.
4. Eliminate transaction time required in refunding; instead redeploy that time to find more opportunities.
5. Spend more time/develop plans for speculative/directional trades as well.
I hope to bring more and more value to OPN members and make it much more rewarding experience. Thanks again for your valuable feedback.

OPNewsletter is still not about “make money” in 5min per day. It still requires one to think and act vs let robots do it for them (at least to begin with). There are no short cuts for making money, consistently. Making money is a hard work and requires one to be patient and to learn and continuously sharpen the craft. If you are not an OPNewsletter member and would like to sign-up, pls click here to sign-up for the wait list as OPNewsletter subscription is open via invitation only.

Though it is still an art to make 5-10% monthly on small capital, making rather big % on large capital accounts, consistently, is a completely different game. (How large are the investments via OPNewsletter Portfolio?). That’s what the aim is, so that even if you have a medium to large sum of capital from retail investor perspective, OPNewsetter should be able to help you make consistent income.

Option Trading strategies used were Double Diagonal, Iron Condor, Iron Fly, Butterfly Spreads, Credit spreads, Calendar spreads, Vertical spreads and some more.

If you are not an OPNewsletter member and would like to sign-up, pls click here to sign-up for the waitlist as OPNewsletter subscription is open via invitation only.

Should you have any questions, pls let me know,

Warm regards, OP
April 30, 2010
A Straddle Strangle Swap on Berkshire

This post will explain what’s a Straddle Strangle Swaps option trading strategy? And also share a trade idea on how to use this strategy on Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) to make some money while learning it as well.

A Straddle Strangle Swaps (SSS) is the sale of a front-month Straddle and the purchase of a back-month Strangle. From the pictorial perspective, it looks like a simple Calendar Spread.

(For beginners who are wondering what is a Straddle and Strangle- A straddle is long 1 call and long 1 put at the same strike price and expiration and on the same stock. For example, long 1 IBM Mar 120 call and long 1 IBM Mar 120 put ; and a Strangle is long 1 call at a higher strike and long 1 put at a lower strike in the same expiration and on the same stock. For example, long 1 IBM Mar 125 call and long 1 IBM Mar 105 put)

Straddle Strangle Swap (SSS) is a Market-neutral, defined-risk position that profits from positive time decay (theta) as well as collecting credits from rolling short options forward. Most of the time it is a Theta Positive, Vega positive and Delta neutral. Albeit, depending upon IV skew it can be Vega negative; and as underlying moves higher/lower than the short strike, trade can convert into a directional trade thus delta positive and delta negative.

[OPNewsletter has outperformed the broader market. Pls read customer reviews or If you would like to sign-up for OPNewsletter directly, pls click here to sign-up for the wait-list (as the subscription is by invitation only)].

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February 9, 2010
RIMM- A Speculative Play

RIMM is going to announce earnings Thursday after market close. It will be followed by Options Expiration on Friday. The IVs will drop significantly post earning announcements.

What to expect from earnings; Here is from briefing.com-

RIMM Research In Motion: Expect strong Q1, with gross margin bounce and follow-on catalysts for Q2 outlook – Caris (77.35 -2.94)

Caris notes that RIMM reports Q1 results tomorrow and firm is comfortable with the aggressive ests they raised to back in early May, namely revs $3.50 bln and EPS $0.98 (consensus $3.43 bln/$0.94), driven by 8.2 mln handheld units vs. 7.5-8.0 mln guide, and 4.1 mln net sub adds vs. 3.7-3.9 mln guide, including particular strength at VZ. Looking into Q2, firm also remains above consensus, modeling revs $3.70bln/EPS $1.01 vs. cons $3.61bln/$0.95 on 8.7 mln units. Firm continues to get feedback from G.S.M. operators that RIMM keeps pushing more EDGE models at them, and while this could risk being too “evolutionary” vs. revolutionary, firm thinks it reflects a strategy to drive lower-ASP units but while also cost-optimizing using more established platforms, which firm sees helping support gross margins.

I expect RIMM to beat both revenue as well as earning estimates and don’t be surprised if they do raise the estimates. There are multiple strategies that one can use to play this. I am particulary looking for a RIMM Double Diagonal to play this event.

Trade specifics – Buying to open Jun/Jul 70/75 Put diagonal spread ($0.20 debit) and Jun/Jul 85/90 calls for $0.56 i.e. Sell Jun 75 PUT and 85 Call, Buy Jul 70 Put and 90 Call.

The overall cost will be $5.76. One needs to be quite careful while using this as there will be no time left for adjustments.

Pls invest only the amount that you can afford to lose 100%.

Disclaimer- I don’t have this trade opened yet. I may or may not open, and even if I open, I may close any time. Pls ensure that you have risk management plan in place should it go against above trading plan.

Profitable Trading, OP

June 17, 2009