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McDonalds Again And A Follow Up To Yesterday's Blog..

Some option traders on Friday mornings just want to be in and out in the first hour or so of trading on short term options they feel comfortable trading. In the second half of the day most of the action calms down. Take your winnings and run. McDonalds sold off a little bit yesterday afternoon and firmed up a bit towards the closing. Could this "mostly downtrend" continue? Here is a partial look at the opening bell's action, today a Friday however let us first look at how the stock traded yesterday. Now a look at it's trading pattern at 9:32.22 a.m. Now this, McDonald's jumps up $4.98 and the 317.50 Puts we followed yesterday which are now "out-of-the-money" acted accordingly. During the fist 2.22 minutes of trading they traded down to 34 dollars a contract. Now this. In the first three minutes of trading the stock jumped a bit and started to come off a touch. These Call options where not attacting all that much attention. The bid and ask jumped up ...
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Some Notes on Playing Apple

In my last blog I almost made it sound to easy to play Apple Calls and Puts. Let me set the stage with yesterdays and todays action. First. here is how the market was up this Thursday and here is what I did.
This chart shows Apple's Wednesday and Thursdays trading movement. I bought Puts on Apple on Wednesday at 3:13 p.m. which was June 21st only to watch Apple jump upwards in price on Thursday morning. Biden made the news saying saying "We've struck a deal" refering to infrastruture spending and everything surged upwards. Obviously I was misinformed on current events. My Puts expire on Friday (tomorrow) which means all my money in this position is at risk. Then also I was running around all day doing other things and missed a selling opportunity to get out at a slight profit. Look at how this series of Puts traded today.
What did I learn from this experience? Well I should have paid closer attention to Bidens working schedule for the day. That's something you can google that. (Caterpillar and Boeing both surged on his news of infrastructure spending). I learned that on a Thursday morning when things are going against you with any short term option position you don't throw in the towel. I learned to be patient as Apple slowly sold off in the afternoon and I was accepting of just getting back my money. Smart money can play Apple. Look at how this series of Puts sold down the the 45 cent range on the strong openinging this morning. So many option traders consider Apple options to be one of their "go to" stocks to play. Very few options priced below a dollar a contract with two or three days to go before they expire can give you such a ride for the money.

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