CAT Puts

Ok, so yesterday, a Thursday I looked at Ford because management was in the news saying they are going to stop taking more preorders on their upcoming F150 electric truck. They have too many orders. They were also saying look out world - we are going electric. V.W. and Toyota were also making similiar claims. Here is a look at Ford at 12:11 p.m. today. At noon Ford was up 5.6% and their short term options which expire today were up ten fold. Stocks the size of Ford seldom jump that much in one morning. Why didn't lightbulbs go off in my head yesterday saying lets take a flyer on Ford Call options for tomorrow with one day's trading life left in them? That would be the Dec 10th 20 Calls. As you can see, the 20 Calls this morning went from .06 or six dollars a contract to .61 or sixty one dollars a contract at noon! Then looked at how they ended up the day. A .06 or six dollar contract would be worth one hundred and forty three dollars! A six hundred dollar investment would be ...

Ford is going electric, that's the buzz. We all know the story. Earnings just came out on the stock and the Call options jumped on the opening. If you were playing options you had to get out just after the opening. With option plays on earning reports that's usually the way to best way play them. First, I will show the prior day's action. There was a gap down on the opening and 94 million shares traded. That's a large number. People were cashing out after recent good times. Now here is a chart of Ford the next day and here is how two option series traded. Buy in at the close and sell out just after the opening. Look at how high each series traded up to just after the opening. The earning numbers were not all that great but it's the buzz about going electric. Ford is one of the better stocks out there to play earning report releases. ** Scroll up to the upper left and read my most recent blog on MacDonald's earning report.

I was sitting in the drive through line yesterday at McDonalds redeeming a free coffee sticker won from being there a few days prior. It was a long line up for mid-afternoon. I am not a fast food junkie. I found myself thinking of how the Domino Pizza stock was on a terror for much of last year but not so much now. When we were all locked in last year everyone was ordering their pizza. I was also wondered if they would now accept my little free coffee sticker as it was only thumbnail size. Then when I pulled up to the drive thru window I hit a patch of bees. Apparently for whatever reason they were enjoying being at that window. They gave me my free coffee. Boy it was busy there. I note in this option series that there were only 292 open contracts. That small number suprises me. Why didn't more option players see this coming?

Aurina Pharmecetical Inc. I have talked about this one before. It has a Canadian history. Here is the news on it late last Friday in the last few miutes of trading and here is how the stock reacted. It closed the trading session at $28.00. Today is Monday Oct.25th and my comments are after the fact comments. I have being playing this stock for years as have some of my friends. I missed the news of this happening when it happened. What a day of the week and what a time of the day for such an announcement of that magnitude! Retail Call option holders have to be out of their Call option positions that expire on a Friday by 3:00 p.m. or they run the risk of their brokerage houses selling them out. Option trading desks play by different rules. Image all the then "just-out-of-the money" Call positions, the 26, 27, 28 calls that would be trading for .03, or 04 or .05 cents a contract around 3:35 or 3:45 p.m. on that Friday. Suddenly they would be worth 100 or 200 or 300 hundred fo...

Did you read the fine print of my Sept. 27th blog about Zen Graphene Solutions? A newish company making claims to be able to crank up production to fill the demands of a new ingredent used in the production of Covid masks. Click around the internet and find out the number of employees they have. Not many. Their new partner is not a listed company. Why are they talking about an estimated capacity to coat the equivant of 800 million masks per month? That many, really? In a similiar sort of way, in my Sept. 16th blog I talked about Limestone Boats and their claims to be able to crank out 550 boats next year. A picture in that blog shows their first two boats being shipped out for motors and sea testing. Without a track record of making boats this year how can they justify such a number? Then there is Odd Burger. I talked about this stock on September 6th with plans to open 20 restaurants next year. How did they pick the number twenty? Why not ten? How do you plan for twenty when you curre...

There is news! The stock is jumping. Look at todays volume of trading as of 2:00 p.m. The average daily volume is around 59 million shares. What a vote of confidence! Anyone holding Ford Call options has been rewarded. Is it clear sailing going forward? It should be for the next few months as Ford revels in this glory. But wait, is this all talk and no action. How long will it take to build these new facitities and what will the E.V. marketplace look like three or four years do the road? This good news report may turn sour quickly as Ford is losing money on on each electric vehicle they sell. That's the problem built into this situation. In the short and mid term, things do not look good. Stay away or buy Puts.

These blogs are starting to get repetitive. Blogs about Boeing and Caterpillar rising after Monday's meltdown. The DJIA was up today over 500 points and here is how these two companies did. Look at the extremely light volume in both of these two Call option series. What does this tell us? Two things. It tells us about the sophistication level of today's traders. Getting in on a Thursday looking for a one day bounce is not a smart way to trade. Secondly, these are both "in-the-money" postions and the best percentage kicks happen with near-to-the-money options. Let me show you the swings on the 195.00 and 197.50 Caterpillar Calls today. Both were up over 200%. In both of these series the volume of trading exceeded the open interest levels. Out-of-the money postions in near term expiring Calls is where the action is on days that enjoy 500 point rallies.

Blackberry sometimes follows A.M.C. and now options trade on Robinhood. Look at the trading volumes. What a day for all three of them. On day two they all lost steam. Going forward line up all three of these stocks on your screen together. Watch out. When one of these three start to go up the other two will most likely follow. It's a cult like thing. I don't know how Robinhood is going to sell it's sizzle going forward. Brokerage stocks with no proven track record are not something instiutions are going to take notice of.

Why am I stuck in the mud watching Ford when there are hundreds of more exciting stocks to watch? That's a good question. The answer I guess has something to do with the concept of leverage and how options on stocks in the five to fifteen dollar price range can sometimes have explosive moves based on percentage increases in short periods of time. Look at this week's chart of Ford and look at the opportunities it provided option playes. So the question then becomes how is it possible to anticipate these moves? Well the first big move upwards on the far left hand side of the chart was an earnings release explosion. The following chart better shows how the stock traded in the few days leading up to the release of this news. That was an instant double if you were paying the short term Calls. In at 3:58 p.m. on the previous trading day and out at 9:34:00 a.m. on the following morning. Trying to anticipate earning reports is tricky. With Ford there were reports of chip shortages...

So tomorrow is the big day when Caterpillar releases it's second quarter earnings report. It is expected to be good. Boeing just had a great earnings report yesterday and analyst are expecting Caterpillar to also report decent numbers. Let's look at the five day trading charts on these two companies and this mornings super strong premarket indicators. (It's always good to be selling into strong premarket indicators because history tells us that they never stay strong forever). It's July 29th and Caterpillar's earning report is tomorrow. Ford also just had their earning reports and good new also on that front. So far so good? Good news everywhere right? It's only good news if you can capitalize on it. What am I implying? Well I don't want to digress to far off topic however option trading can be an exacerbating experience. I missed the Boeing and Ford trading opportunites despite the fact that I anticipated both of these two companies would do well. Do I...

In a recent Blog I made the comment many options players shy away from playing Boeing Calls. Why? Well it can be a mentality exhausting exercise. Boeing profits suprised this morning. Look at the price increases on some of these Boeing option series. - These are the Boeing 220 Calls and the ones most likely to be on the radar screen of short term option players. There are only 1,839 outstanding option contracts open on this particular series of options and only 243 contracts traded just after the early release of this news. This are truly insignificant numbers compared to the usual number of outstanding open option positions on stocks like Apple. So the question is why were so few players waiting for this news release and trying to play it with Call options hoping it would go up? Why were expectations so muted? The takeaway. This will go down on the records as being one of the summers of 2021 best option trading situations. Analyst totally got this one wrong. It will also be a wakeu...

Monday mornings. I try and stay away from option trading on Monday mornings but this time I thought I could catch the upside on Boeing on a weak opening. Here is the premarket quotes at 9:08 a.m. and here is the premarket by ticket I placed. At 8:02 a.m.I placed a bid of $2.52 when the premarket at that time had Boeing trading down by about two dollars a share. I was trying to purchase a Boeing 225.50 Call which would then expire at the end of the week. I was being a bit stingy with my order but it was an experiment. It must be mentioned that when your placing an order in the premarket there are no "bids' and "asks" so you have to pick a price you feel comfortable paying. Thats what makes the exercise tricky. How much lower will a Call option open than it closed on the previous day? It depends in part apon how many days it is away from expiring. The more days further out the expiracy date is the less it will go down in price. That plus you don't get an instant fi...