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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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G.M. and Tesla. Both Surprised. So Did Ford.

G.M. is pumping out vehicles and people seem to be buying them! Against that backdrop is that they are losing market share in China.
Falling interest rates should help car sales. Does that mean that the Ford stock will also jump? They report October 28th. Look at it's 30 day chart and year to date chart.
They have a history of earning suprises with some being not so good. Here is how the 11 series of Calls traded on Ford on Friday Oct.26th on next weeks 11 series of Call options.
As these prices the stock would have to jump 40 cents on the week to make these Calls think about coming to life.Here is what happened.
Now there is Tesla which reported their earnings after the markets closed on Wednesday Oct 23th. Here is how it traded on that day just prior to earnings report. The open interest numbers were quite low as sometimes we see like 150,000 contracts trade in one one series in one day.
So the 212.50 series of Calls closed at $9.28. Now look at this chart and the closing price one day later.
Now look at the $212.50 Calls today. Up 418%
This kind of a spike doesn't happen very often. It was the trade of the week. Do I like paying earning report using options on automotive companies? Yes, the action is usually short and swift.

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