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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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The Hurricane - An Avis Option Trade

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 minutes of trading this morning. In hindsight we all should have bought Call options on Avis at 3:59:57 p.m. last Friday.
Also now shown is how Avis traded on the day last Friday. Do you see how late in the day profit takers caused the stock to take a slight dip just before the closing bell?
Ps. Here is something I did on Friday (the DJI sold off 500 points on the day) in anticipation of a Monday morning rally. I try not to hang onto positions for to long with short term options. I purchased at around 2 p.m. one contract at $154.00 on Caterpillar that expires this week.
I didn't stay in this position very long. I stayed in it for just less than ten minutes on the opening this morning. The reason I got out so quickly was that I also bought a Boeing Call near the close on Friday so I wanted to lock in as early as possible one profitable trade. Doing so would offer protection just in case the Boeing Call option position started to go south. I got out at $310.00 after buying in at $154.00.That's a double.

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