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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 Concept Of Playing Caterpillar Calls From An Oversold Situation

There is a danger in playing oversold situations. How do you truly know it's oversold? Well last week there was a total blowout in the markets as it kept dropping everyday. Each day last week was a blur to the downside. What are weekends all about? They are a reprieve in situations like this from all of this negative energy. Thing's can't go down forever. Here is Caterpillar's most recent chart.
So this morning, with fresh minds coming to the screens an uptick could be in sight. I would think so, I watched this mornings action. Look at these printouts. I was tracking one of the series of Caterpillar's Calls. It was lonely experience. Few people were watching this action, or lack of action. There were no trades in this series of Calls in the first few minutes and the speads were far apart. Where was the rebound? Look at this..
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Wow. Only 2 contracts traded 9 minutes after the opening bell and 31 contracts traded in the 225 Calls an hour into the trading session. No one saw an uptick coming but it did. Let's move on. Here is how these options closed the day.Trading options on series like this (a big name stock after a weekend reprieve from the slaughter and no real volume on the Calls) is a good strategy.
No volume, to me that's a good thing. Tomorrow should be a good day. ( the Yahoo chart cut out at 2:00p.m.)
****** A next morning March 14th update. These options are up.
At 10:45 a.m. look at how light the volume of trading is. Look at a morning jump to over $6.00 per contract. Amazingly next to nothing in the way of Call options traded on it. Yet it's Caterpillar which has a huge following. I find that all so strange. But then again option traders are afraid to play options on this stock because it's not like playing Tesla or Boeing which both have more knee jerking reactions to ongoing news. That's the way I see it.

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