CAT Puts

Last week I did a blog about a little trade on I did on "Home Depot" hurricane news. A second tradable trade presented itself this morning that in hindsight was easy to predict. Last week we all witnessed the carange of cars and boats being destroyed by rising sea levels. Thousands of cars where destroyed. One of the things this means is that Florida instantly needs thousands of rental cars. That's good news for Avis, right? I would think so except for the fact that they too lost vehicles. Here is a look at how Avis traded last week up until Thursday morning. Avis is a company I have never traded before. With the high demand for used cars these days it is not a situation I feel comfortable trying to outguess. This stock made some nice moves upwards last week. Today is Monday. Doesn't it stand to reason that over the weekend tens of millions of people got to watch news clips on t.v. of the damage incurred? The following chart shows the lift Avis got on the first few m...

Carnival got stuck in the mud today after an earnings report was released showing a slight loss. See the chart below. Why isn't credit being given to this company for all of its diligent work? Afterall, 95% of their fleet is back out sailing the oceans once again at a 85% occupancy rate. Can you believe these numbers are this high? Think of where things were at one year ago. Who would ever dream such a turnaround could happen so quickly? Carnival now just has to tweak their numbers. (Yes they had to take on some additional debt to keep things floating but the worst seems to be over now). So my question now is where do you want to sail to in 2024? Start planning? Start buying a couple of long term Carnival Call options now.Your profits from such a trade could pay for your trip. Note I am not a financial adviser and these claims may be without without proper logic on my part. Call me a dream weaver. This was a tough week on the stock. Now a longer term look at the stock. I think i...

Here is a one day chart and a five day chart. Home Depot closed up $2.30 on the day however the markets were off. Home Depot can jump in Hurricane Seasons. Now the five day chart. Here is my buy in at the end of the day with three seconds to go. Look at how these options traded on the day. Florida might get hit tomorrow. Talk like this can go away as fast as it came. Two days ago no one saw this coming. An 8:30 a.m. Wednesday update. Let's back up a second. Look at how strongly Home Depot opened up yesterday and look at how light the volume was on the day. In a way this play is "old news" and the question is, am I one day late in coming to the party? These options still have three days trading life left in them. Do I want excessive demands on my time going forward? Is this a wise application of effort and creative energy? I could bail in the premarkets and take a profit and never have to follow this news again. The connection between Home Depot going up in price and h...

Look at this chart. It's the five day chart on Walmart leading into this morning's opening bell. Walmart releases it's second quarter eanings report before the opening bell. But wait, look at this chart.This wasn't that long ago. Walmart at times can stumble. Do consumers, hit by inflation have money to spend? Now also look at this one. My point is that if you guess the wrong way on Walmart you will get burnt. So now how are the cards stacked up this morning waiting for this earnings report? Here is a look at two close to the money Calls and Puts. So here is what happened about twenty minutes after the opening bell. The Puts got obliterated. The real winners were all the Call option purchasers who got in a few days ago. Here is how this option series closed the day. Why did happen this way? In a way Walmart's results act as a barometer of how the U.S. economy is doing. It's mainstream in a different way than Costco. Opportunities to make a judgement call li...

Look at this Caterpillar chart on a Thursday morning and what what the calls are now doing. The first printout shows Caterpillar up .67 cents 29 minutes into the trading session after first dropping on the opening and the 182.50 Call option pricings at that time. Notice how low the Call options traded down to. The 182.50 Calls dropped down to a low of $1.16. People sometimes ask me what option trading is all about. This is one very good example of how someone could have caught a swing. In option trading the action never stops. Here now is that same option series about 30 minutes later and a new chart of how the stock was then trading. Now here is how Caterpillar and these Call options closed out the day. Now a few of the earning details. All of this happened two days ago and the stock dropped over ten dollars on this news.This morning swing was somewhat predictable.

It starts off slowly.... a storm in the brew. Earning reports are coming out for a multitude of companies this week. G.M. is one and a day later Ford. Rising rates means lower vehicle sales. But what's going to happen when the first 25,000 Ford electric truck drivers start to tell their friends about them? It's one of the weeks of the year many odd balls like me look forward to. So much can happen. It will be quite a ride.Here is where the 13 series of Calls and Puts are trading at 9:42 a.m.. Notice the bids and asks are tight which I like so that every ten cent move in the stock's price sets them off in different directions. Here now is what it's five day chart looks like now at 10:05 a.m. going into an earnings release this Wednesday. Ford didn't move all day and here the closing Call and Put readings. Now here is the news going into Tuesday's markets. Now a look at the Ford options twenty minutes after the opening bell. "/> It is interesting to...