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Walmart Again

On Monday I did a blog on buying this week's Call options on Walmart. Today is now Thursday and there was a big crash in the markets yesterday. For example, Tesla had an insane selloff. Here is what happened to it. Today it is slightly rebounding as are so many other stocks. Thursdays however as oftened mentioned are not a good time to be purchasing one day options on stocks that expire the next day. So how is any of this revelant to Walmart's trading today? Well, there was a whole bunch other stocks that got knocked yesterday that might now rebound back up again together. Look at the chart below of Walmart and see how it was off a couple of dollars yesterday. Could you buy in now and get out later in the day? Fantasy thinking, one might say. Could it sneak up even one dollar? Now this. The stock mid morning is now merely trading sideways. Now look at this, the 93 series of Calls. (On Monday we were looking at the 94 series of Calls). At 10:22 a.m. the stock is up six cents...
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A Nervous Week Of Trading

Issues with the debt ceiling was a cloud on the markets all last week except for a Friday morning bounce. First, here is Caterpillar on the week and I want to point out a couple of things. First the light trading in Caterpillar Calls going into Friday. Here is Fridays trading on the 210 series of Calls.
Here now is the five day chart leading up to this. Note also that we were going into a three day weekend.
Only 396 option contracts traded on this series on Friday and the open interest number was quiet light. Am I afraid to trade in option series with reduced volumes like this? No, however on Fridays some series of options on stocks like Telsa can have 300,000 contracts trade in one day on one series! Look at how Caterpillar was trading in the $214 price range at the start of the week. Short term Call option players all got blown away. That's one of the reasons the volume was low in the lower 210 series of Calls. Back on Monday and Tuesday they were well "in-the-money" and to expensive to purchase. My final note on this is that the Friday morning bounce was aided by a strong rebounding market on the day. The morning bounce in Caterpillar was short lived. Then there was Boeing to watch going into Friday morning. What a dangerous thing to be playing on a one day horizon. It also had a bounce on the opening. After two or three days of srubbing the mood of the market was pretty grim. Debt ceiling issues had scared off many traders like me. Why not learn to catch the actions easier markets? Being in the option market during tumultuous times like this can be a draining experience.
Here is how it's options traded on the day.
Finally Ford which popped. Stocks like Ford and Nio in the lower price ranges sometimes bounce boldly. The trick is in knowing when to play them. I have the domain name Fordputs locked up but I really don't have the energy to open up that can of worms. About ten times a year the Friday Calls on Ford which expire that day bounce like this.
The problem I have with trying to play Ford Calls is that the stock Ford can get pulled under the carpet for so many different reasons. Their managemnet seems to abandon new projects on a regular basis and handles unexpected news poorly. Bronos that leak, plants that go idle for shortages of parts, consistent bad news on what is happening with their operations in India. It seems that the analyst who follow the stock can have a field day on good news or bad news stories whenever they want. Henry Ford one hundred years ago also was plagued with the same issues. Did I follow Netfix, Dollar Tree, Nvidia, Snowflake and Super Micro Computer on the week? Not really. Sometimes I think it's best just to play the stories you think you know.

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