OptionPundit

Tag: income spread

  • How to Play Next “Black Swan” Bear Leg

    Which side are you at? Bull or Bear? Based on the current market sentiments, general bullish bias, feeling of missing last up leg and given that every indicator is screaming buy buy buy, chances are that you are on the Bull’s side. If so, there is not much point reading this post any further.

    There are still a few perma-bears (and they have solid record to attach) are predicting about March lows being penetrated or touched again. This kept me thinking if I should listen to what they are saying given their past history.  So I worked out a low risk strategy that is explained later in the post. What if they (and hence my bet) is wrong, I’ll lose 100% of 1% trading capital that I have invested in this idea. But what if, even though it is only 4% probability, these guys are correct? First trade has potential to return over +2,800% with 4% delta based probability (by Dec’09 expiration) and another trade has potential to generate +700% with 24% probability (by Nov’09 expiration).

    (more…)

  • A Record Month OPN (Jun’09) up +14.7%

    June 2009 was a record month (2009) for OPNewsletter! Overall June’09 OPN is closed up +14.7% (x- brokerage commissions) and +12.1% (including commissions). We invested almost 60% of 10K assumed capital across various sectors and diversified strategies. All the portfolios were closed positively. Overall an excellent performance that was almost double the OPNewsletter objective of 5-7% per month.

    Here is an update by individual portfolio-

    • GDX was closed for +5.15%
    • UPS was closed for +8.9%
    • X was closed for +13.85%
    • RUT was closed for +23.08%
    • DIA was closed for +22.89%
    • IWM was closed for +26.07%

    This doesn’t include returns on speculative trades on POT, GDX and GMCR, MCO and AAPL (Pls read here on OP calculates it’s results)

    To Reinforce what I said last week, and I still believe in it-

    Believe it or not, market internals are deteriorating day by day and the surprising thing so far is that it is still holding very well. I have trimmed my personal stock holdings by almost half (as lot of those increased by almost 60-70% in a few weeks time). The only holdings where i still continue to hold (or rather increase on every pull back) is gold. But pls don’t follow it without full due diligence as gold trading is not for everyone.

    This time around, our strategy was slightly different vs. usual way of adjusting. We were short delta all throughout the month, expecting for a sharp correction which didn’t arrive but markets didn’t rally either and didn’t go beyond the expected upsides break-even. This was a well thought out technical as well as psychological analysis that helped determine what to expect and when to move. We were short delta and as soon as markets fell, our results improved.

    This was another record setting month for RUT Iron condor. Since re-opening OPNewsletter in Jan’09, OPN’s RUT Iron Condor never lost money and just one condor alone was more than enough to pay for the subscription.

    We have started to open Jul’09 income portfolios. If you would like to sign-up, pls click here to join waitlist.

    Profitable Trading, OP

  • OPNewsletter – May’09 (+9.48%), Jun’09 (Open)

    OPNewsletter closed May’09 for +9.48% x-commissions and +6.76% inclusive of commissions. As I stated earlier, after many months of waiting, we crossed our 60% portfolio investment target. It’s always an advantage if the capital was preserved. Yes we did have a few months of low returns, but that preserved capital is an out performance (vs general markets) already and now we can start using this preserved capital for further gains vs. wasting energy in recouping the losses. Just 1 single covered call (X) was more than enough to cover OPN fee  (and triggered no adjustment needs).

    Sign-up for the OPNWaitlist here.

    Maximum investment incurred was +64.4% (reached on April 23) and since then we continued to use that as basis for returns calculation even though we were generating credit since then for the next two weeks. Here is the tally-

    • IWM, USO and UPS were almost breakeven
    • USO was closed for +0.8% (after Mar @ >+22% and Apr@>+13%)
    • GDX closed for +18.38% in May
    • X closed for 23.29% gains
    • HAL was closed for +22.69%
    • AMZN was closed for +15.83% and
    • IBM was closed for +23.01%

    This doesn’t include bonus speculative trade on Visa earnings (V) that was closed for +35%, CSX , GS, GOOG and others some of which didn’t make much money or closed for breakeven. We have already opened our June’09 income portfolios and invested almost 35-38% of capital. After a few months gap, we opened a 160 points wide RUT Iron condor for $2.20 credit which is already making money in two days.

    If you would like to join OPNewsletter, pls sign-up for the waitlist here.

    Profitable Trading, OP

  • OPNewsletter- Mar’09 +8.8%, Apr +2.4% (Open)

    March’09 portfolios were closed +8.8% (excluding commissions) and +5.6% (including commissions). I used up about +46.7% of the assumed 10K capital for OPNewsletter. This result doesn’t include excellent results from bonus trade alerts.

    market-movement-mar09-opn-portfolio When compared with broader markets, this was probably one of the best months for OPNewsletter. Look at the major market movements since we opened the Mar (Mid Feb’09) portfolio. RUT traveled almost -20% south; and DOW, S&P500 and Nasdaq ranging from -14% to -16%. All this was followed by sharp snap back rallies. Isn’t this amazing, almost 20% back and forth move in one month. I have not researched to find if this is one of its kinds or has happened before. But whatever be case, this is not income trader’s best friend. This was surely not an easy period. In fact one of the toughest and most volatile periods, at least of my lifetime (leaving aside Oct 1987 crash). Hence preserving capital and delivering just positive results itself is good enough. One of the strategy I used was to focus only what was opened and keep cash free to make adjustments as needed. This served nicely without really triggering panic due to shortage of capital. For Option Trading Strategies, We used multiple strategies i.e. Calendars, Credit Spreads, Digonal Spreads and so on. I however, decided not to open an Iron Condor this month anticipating extreme movements which also served nicely (There is not a single losing Iron Condor since re-opening of OPNewsletter).

    For OPNewsletter, The best performing portfolio was USO which delivered +22.8% and it was also rolled over to Apr. I expect this portfolio to deliver +50% by July. The worst portfolio was ABT which was almost break-even (+0.89%). MCD delivered +5.5%. A tough month though, it required greek’s analysis, technical analysis, gut feel and past experiences with similar situation (VISA, May 2008) helped sail through this month.

    Some of the excellent intraday trades, results not included in OPN tracking, were +42% on SRS, +58% on VIX, CF arbitrage of $6, DECK for +220%, AZO (+27%, +39%, +73%), SKF +20% to +50%, FDS lost to break-even, NKE earnings +22%, DELL earnings amongst others. As mentioned, These results are not part of OPN tracking.

    We are nicely positioned for Apr’09 portfolios as well and so far invested only +19.7% of assumed 10K capital. I shall be opening a few more portfolios next week, if you would like to join, pls sign-up for the OPN waitlist.

    Those who could trade intra-day, markets offered wonderful trading opportunities, specially on the Expiration day. A smiling butterfly was shared with all the free members as well, that resulted into >+100% gains. Hope folks who followed invescafe/speculative trade alerts (some of those listed above), probably had some good opportunities that I played for intraday trades.

    (You may want to sign-up for the Basic Membership (Free until Dec 2009) that I use to share free trade alerts for registered members).

    I have been experimenting with several underlying/strategy combos over past 3-4 months, with real money. I think I am ready for opening new Portfolios/newsletter(s) to take advantage from current environment. I shall share more on this later.

    One final message, markets are not out of woods yet, pls don’t let complacency set-in, these are extraordinary time and it requires one to be taking extraordinary steps.

    Trade Carefully, Trade Profitably, OP

  • Option Business aka Insurance Business

    A bounce is due, no, I think overdue. We have all realized that Mr. Market can remain irrational longer than one can remain solvent. So though the probability of bounce is high, don’t count on it for long term bull market till there are sign of economic improvement. The primary trend is bearish, as clear as that could be.

    However, this market is bringing its own unique rewards. I would like to compare it with insurance business and let’s apply their business model to option trading.

    As the risk is rising, Options’ premium is rising as well and as an option seller it is to our advantage. So why not start building positions that are going to give regular income stream. An example of that strategy is called Covered call (Covered Call is an option strategy in which a call option is written against long stock on a share-for-share basis).

    I earlier shared a real trade example of covered call on SRS, where I was able to keep full 17% of profits for 4wks. I again opened it this month and have done a few changes to maximize my yield. Of course I can’t expect to have 17% month after month, but even 5-7%, month after month via credit generation from short roll over, can result into substantial gains. Alright, Ultrashorts are not for weak heart. Let’s move on to a company like Caterpillar (CAT).

    (more…)

  • OPNewsletter (Jan’09) +8.17% x-commissions

    This was another positive month for the OPNewsletter Income portfolio. On the invested capital, OPN delivered a total +8.17% excluding brokerage commissions and +5.39% including commissions.

    As part of on-going pre-caution, OPN’s Jan portfolio consisted of 3 income portfolios and all 3 were positive. Highlight of the results was Iron Condor Income portfolio that delivered +14.2% gains and was another successive winning streak. In spite of extreme unfavorable conditions in 2008, not even a single OPN RUT Iron Condor lost money last year.

    I am about to open the Feb’09 income portfolios, should you be interested in joining, pls find what is OPNewsletter here.

    Profitable Trading, OP