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

Option traders on Friday mornings just want to be in and out in the first hour or so of trading on short term options. In the second half of the day most of the action calms down. McDonalds sold off a little bit yesterday afternoon and firmed up a bit towards the closing. Could this "mostly downward trend" continue? Here is a partial look at some of the opening bell's activity. Today is 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. The McDonald stock jumped up $4.98 and the 317.50 Puts we followed all day yesterday which are now "out-of-the-money" acted accordingly. They shrunk in value. 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 then started to come off a touch. These Call options where not attacting all that much attention. The bid and ask jumped up on no volume. ...
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Hog

When it comes to option playing are stocks in the thirty and forty dollar price range good options to play? I would say generally no. Why? Well, it generally takes good news or bad news to cause stocks in this price range to move and they can sometimes go sideways for months and months. Waiting for good news or bad news is not an exacating science. There are exceptions to this thinking, sometimes offbeat airline company stocks for example go charging up quickly for a week or two when it becomes apparent that material changes are happening in their operating environments. Five, ten and 15 dollars stocks and stocks like Caterpillar and Boeing that cost a lot more are where the action is. Harley Davidson (Hog) recently had good news and here is how the stock reacted.
Once again, options on stocks in the thirty and forty are not as much fun to play.

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