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Learning To Pick Your Battles

In the last week or so I have done four blogs on Walmart and each time I seem to show situations where traders can eke out small profits tracking the 91 or 91 series of Call options. What is the logic in such an approach? Well look at Walmarts one year chart compared to two other charts I have provided. The difference of coarse is that Walmart's trading pattern has an upwards bias. One other factor comes into play in helping to make Walmart interesting options to play. The one dollar spreads between the "bid" and "ask" unlike the two dollar and fifty cent spreads between the "bids' and "asks" on stocks like Caterpillar and Boeing. This has the effect of making small changes in a stocks price more playable. Walmart also seems to have "less chatter". What do I mean by this? Well its not like Boeing which has scares of doors coming lose on their airplanes or like Caterpillar which is having to constantly adjust the size of their workfo...
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Tuesday and Wednesdays Looking For Reversals - That's What Some Option Traders Do

What if? But who has money to throw around like water? What if the markets decided to cool it? Wednesdays are usually better days for market reversals than Tuesdays. Caterpillar and Deere both had crazy high gains over the last five trading days. Deere is up after exposing the details of declining sales. Exposing is a strange word to use but it better helps to explain the pain it is now facing. It is so confusing as to why it is up so much. Read my November 22nd, 2023 blog when Deere was pretty much in the same situation. So much forward looking thinking is baked into the the current prices of these two stocks. The question now is could the markets turn on a dime? Look at the Put prices on short term "out-of-the-money" on Caterpillar and Deere positions. The Caterpillar Puts I will first show are like ten dollars "out-of-the money" and the Deere Puts five dollars "out-of-the-money".That's a bit to far out.
Now Deere.
Both charts show a similiar trading pattern and both stocks have next to no outstanding open interest Put positions. Fighting strong charts can be the kiss of death. Yet what happens if a mild selloff hits the markets in the next few days. Are these two stocks sitting ducks? Do you have any crazy money to play with? If you own Deere or Caterpillar stock would now be a good time to cash out and take a touch of your profits and consider Puts options? Admittedly this Friday's Puts are an extreme gamble. Going forward into December traders might be thinking of lightening up on positions with the transfer of leadership coming up after Christmas. Maybe. It's only a thought. The markets will be closed Thursday Nov 28th for Thanksgiving. Trading volumes will be light on Friday. This factor might negate making a trade in "this weeks" Puts with one day of trading to go. Perhaps next weeks Puts might be the ones to be looking at. Now this. Wednesday morning. Caterpillar and Deere continue to climb. Here are the Caterpillar Puts.
Now the Deere 455 Puts.
Both got beat up because they were to far "out-of-the-money" and time is working against us.Sometimes reverals come into the market on Wednesday around noon. If we are still thinking about short term Puts on Caterpillar and Deere here are two now current readouts on the same two stocks but this time with adjusted striking prices. Both are "out-of-the-money" Puts option positions however this time not so crazily "out-of-the-money".
Let's see what happens next. Now this, Wednesday's end of day readings.
Caterpillar Puts had a nice move and Deere continues to go up. Now both their five day charts. What do you think is going to happen?
As mentioned, with a holiday on Thursday friday's action will be somewhat mutted. Both stocks ended up trading slightly up. So looking at Caterpillar only worked on Wednesday and Deere retained most of it's strenght all week. Here are their five day charts. First Caterpillar.
Now Deere.
Stay away from option positions that expire at the end of the week if Thursdays are holidays.

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