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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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Roku Jumped in Anticipation Of A Good Earnings Report

Only to fall again. Look at this five and thirty day chart.
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Yet thats only part of the story. Look at it's year to date chart.
How bad was their earnings report?
Do you think their pain and suffering is all now behind them? The stock is down 38% on the year. All I know is that they still seem to be making a pile of money. On a different note and in a different industry a stock named "First Solar" was stuck in neutral a few months back because interest rates where to seemingly high and companies in that industry were cutting back on the size and number of projects they were working on. Since that time and for whatever reason the stock in on fire.
Both Boeing and Caterpillar also crashed last week on earning report releases. There seemed to be a hint of danger present in both companies releases. It's almost as if there was a domino effect. Next question? Why is Netflix gettng beat up? Look at it's chart.
Is it partly because other companies like Disney are beefing up their efforts to become a bigger player in this space. Yet then again, the more things change the more they remain the same. A few years back all eyes were focussed on Netflix tweeking their business model on advertising policies and on the issue of their subscribers sharing their passcodes. Those issues are now largely history. We must not forget that Roku has 80 million subcribers. There is still plenty of money for all to be earned. The lesson to be learned is that following sideways moving stocks doesn't always pay off. ** See how I struggled with Roku in a blog I posted on April 15th. It's all to easy to get fixated on sideways moving stocks. * Roku closed down $.55 cents on the week and as mentioned previously in my April 15th blog, Cathie Wood the founder of "Ark Investor" now has some skin in the game.

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