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Caterpillar Approaching An Earnings Release

What a week for Caterpillar. Now this. A printout showing how one series of Calls, the $390.00 series traded on Tuesday last week. Thursday was January 23th. It was up over 313% in one day. If you look at the chart you can see how the stock moved up. Now look at how the same series of Calls closed out the week. Now notice the small volume of trading in this series of Calls and notice the very small outstanding "open interest" numbers. Caterpillar has over 130,000 employees. It boggles my mind that it's Call options don't have more of a following. I have mentioned this before and many of us know one of the the reason why. Caterpillar never has much gossip to talk about, other than the strike it had last year. Contrast this to let's say a stock like Apple. Apple like Caterpillar has an earnings report coming out this week. What might happen to it is widely reported. Wall Street is bracing for a weak iPhone sales number, especially in China, and a guide down for t...
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Sweet Spots In Option Trading - Deere

A fly on the back of a horse. An option contract that expires at the end of the day on a billion dollar company that few traders dare to play options on. A company for the most part void of news releases with Call and Put premiums which are prohibitively expensive. Which stock am I talking about? John Deere. Here is it's five day chart.
Now here is it's one day chart on Friday which is the last day on the above five day chart..
Can you see how it went up in price in the early morning trading and then sold off? Think about how this would effect the Puts. Yet then again who would have the nerve to be playing them?
In the early morning trading they were down to $98.00 a contract and then a few hours latter hit a high of $420.00. Look at how insignificant both the "open interest" numbers and the "volume of contracts" traded numbers were on the day. Friday morning reversals are something that some option traders learn to cherish. If you can't get your head around this idea, I get it. Option trading is afterall a solo experience. Call me timid. I played one Call option contract on Deere (the $402.50 series of Calls) for a two hour hold on Thursday. It's a good thing that I didn't hang onto to it going into the next day.
I didn't want to be holding onto the contract overnight. *** On this stock I find that the option premiums are crazy expense until part way into Thursday and then into Friday when options on it on that day expire at 3:00 p.m. ****** One final thought which I am hoping might help to further quantify the risk involved in making this type of "last day" option trade. Deere hit a high of $411.69 in early Friday morning trading. That's when the 410 Puts went down to $98.00 a contract. On a stock which is known to swing five dollars in anyone day isn't it conceivable the stock could drop in price over it's next five hours of trading? PART TWO OF THIS STORY. Deere drops $20.00 on the day, Thursday May 16th on trade talks. Look at this five day chart.
Can you shake it all off and buy one day Calls that expire tomorrow?
To be continued. Next Friday May 17th. In the last day Deere got dumped on with fears over trade war talks. Here are it's new charts. First the thirty minutes into the Friday market chart.
Now it's five day chart.
Next how the Call options which expire today are trading. What a gamble.
To be continued.

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