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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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The Concept of Playing Thursday Options Which Expire the Next Day. Part One

Thursday morning trading patterns in the first hour of trading reflect human emotions running high. Could your favorite stocks in the $200.00 and $300.00 price ranges jump up three dollars on Thursday and three dollars on Friday? Wishful thinkings often shared by option traders on Thursday mornings. Yesterday Boeing jumped up over $4.50 and then down over $7.00. Will it jump back up agian today? It's Call options look so tempting knowing what the stock sometimes does. Then there is Caterpillar which was off during the last two days after jumping up earlier this week on government stimulus news. Why isn't that stock flying? This morning I used the "out-of-the-money", the Caterpillar 212.50 Call option series that were like four dollars "out-of-the-money" with one day to go for a short term ride. Was I dreaming? Not really. Caterpillar had a strong opening and these options remained relativly flat because they were so far out-of-the money. I bought in at a penny under the ask (on a five cent spread) after chasing it up with lower bids as it eventually started to rise and then sold out "at market" not to mess around. I was only in the position eleven minutes.( out at 9:26 a.m. Look at the chart below to see what part of the days action I was playing).
Look now at how this stock did on the day and what the 112.50 out-of-the-money Call options did.
I was lucky to catch the action the way I did. Now for a look at something really wild look at this. Today's action in DPZ. Tell me that insiders are playing this stock. What is so strange is the low number of option contracts traded. Look at the price swing in these Calls.
Sixty five cents to eight hundred and twenty. Wow.

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