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A Random Walk In The Park On A Monday Morning. A Caution. Monday Mornings Are Often Not An Option Players Best Friend

Let's start with this. It's now 10:26 a.m. A bet on Caterpillar rebounding by the end of the week. There are no takers. Why have to watch the screen for the next four days in agony waiting for a rebound which if happens is just a "break even trade"? But Wait. I made a mistake. The market is actually now down 668 points. What else can we look at? Interactive Brokers. These kind of stocks always do poorly on days with the threat of margin calls. Yet there is something interesting about the printout I am about to show. It is that these options are "one-month-out" Calls. These longer term options trade differently than short term options. (these options trade in one month intervals). If the stock we are following stops it's freefall the value of the options will nudge up ten, fifteen or twenty percent. A seven dollar option Call might creep back up to $8.00 or $9.00 at which time it could be sold. In contrast with a five day option a slight reversal in ...
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Exxon Mobile - Numbers On Option Prices Swirling In The Air

Is this a game to hard for the little guys to play in? I don't usually follow options on Exxon but I played them often forty years ago when I was a stockbroker. Back then the spreads on options were in 1/8 th's. Sometimes the back office would skim an 1/8 off the ticket fills especially if the ticket was for like ten contracts. Exxon had a big jump today. People again are talking about the price of oil.
Might it retrace half it's gains?
I note that in the last six minutes of option trading on the day today (Tuesday June 7th) these option prices remained unchanged. That's a bullish signal as day traders were not anxious to cash out. Let's see what happens next. I jumped in and watched the "oil news". Every hour a new article would seem to pop up about why it is surging. Is it surging or spiking? It's a game most people should not being playing. It's dangerous and it's price swings are impossible to predict. I got in on Tuesday and on Wednesday with Friday Puts. I don't want to tell you what I got out at but my perspective is that the exercise requires way too much babysitting. If your running on profits and if you want to see if you can extend your winning streak then go ahead and knock yourself out and try it.
It's not a fun game to play because so much of what might happen is out of your control. Look at how the spike I was initially attracted to turned out to be a nightmare until Thursday. There is a lot of short term action in this five day chart. It's crazy. *** Look at what happened to Exxon the following Monday.
Sometimes it pays to buy options two weeks out and not only days from expiring. ** a June 17th update. Look at this stock drop over five dollars in one day. What a freefall.

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