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"Tony The Tiger" - A Food Stock

The mood of Wall Street is now changing as the reality of tariffs is starting to kick in. Two weeks ago not so much so. Kelloggs had "so-so" earnings come out a few weeks ago and the stock exploded upwards. Note the very last line above mentions the effects of tariffs are not taken into consideration. So many stocks with "so-so" earning reports have jumped in price based on the "lets make America great again" slogan. Deere stock is shooting to the moon as I keep writing about in spite of declining sales in the last quarter. The sentiment seems to be that they are immune to tariffs. On paper they might be. Read this. Americans are struggling to buy gas, eggs and insurance. Total housing starts in the U.S.in 2024 were down 3.9%. Walmart, the recent darling stock in the last four weeks for Call option players woke up this morning with an earnings report which was healthy but with came with some caveats. Here is what happened. Perhaps the U.S. is starting ...
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Apple Again... A Strong Option Trading Stock Some Players Exclusively Play

Trading Apple Calls and Puts can be a full time, do nothing else adventure. Massive volumes trade on these options. Large swings follow the "at money" Call and Put options which means that if this stock is trading at 133.50, the minute to minute action will be the options with the 133.00 and 134.00 striking prices. It's Friday morning thirty minutes into the day. Apple closed the previous day at 133.41. The 134 Apple Puts which expire today closed the previous day at .90. So what happened next?
Apple came off in price on the opening which was a continuation of it's previous day's trend. Then, about ten minutes into the market the opening strenght of the market became apparent, a 200 point opening rally. Look at the value of the 134 Puts. They dropped to a low of .61 as Apple started to rebound slightly. Then another reversal as Apple decided to move down again. The Puts jumped back up again to over 1.00. To recap, a two hundred point rise in the D.J.I. on the opening "lifted the boat" so to speak on a series of Puts that started the day following the downward momentum of it's previous day's trading. A fifteen minute trade on the opening presented itself. That's what trading Apple options is all about. As the trading continued later that morning the logic of what transpired in this short period of time was quickly forgotten. My point is that it's this first half hour of option trading on every Friday morning which is the climax of option trading for the entire week. My June 4th blog, "Working the Markets on a Friday Morning..." shares this same sentiment. A 10:45 update. Look at how the logic of the first part of this blog gets totally obliterated as the trading day continues.
In only a matter of minutes the bid .89 ask .94 we saw at 10:03 a.m. shrank down to bid .45 ask .48. That's one of the reasons I was happy to get out of my position in this yesterday. Now here is how this option series finished out the day. They closed at .78.
**** A look at Apple one day later on June 28th. It's a new ball game! At the same time the markets are tanking!

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