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McDonalds Again And A Follow Up To Yesterday's Blog..

Some option traders on Friday mornings just want to be in and out in the first hour or so of trading on short term options they feel comfortable trading. In the second half of the day most of the action calms down. Take your winnings and run. McDonalds sold off a little bit yesterday afternoon and firmed up a bit towards the closing. Could this "mostly downtrend" continue? Here is a partial look at the opening bell's action, today a Friday however let us first look at how the stock traded yesterday. Now a look at it's trading pattern at 9:32.22 a.m. Now this, McDonald's jumps up $4.98 and the 317.50 Puts we followed yesterday which are now "out-of-the-money" acted accordingly. During the fist 2.22 minutes of trading they traded down to 34 dollars a contract. Now this. In the first three minutes of trading the stock jumped a bit and started to come off a touch. These Call options where not attacting all that much attention. The bid and ask jumped up ...
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A Follow Up To A Recent Blog I Did About Playing Two Week Options

Let's begin by saying I am not a big fan of buying "two-week-out" options. Yes they cost a touch more than "one-week-out" options however that is not the reason why. I like thirty day out options and one year out options and Monday, Wednesday and Friday "one- day-options" better. So what's the matter with "two-week-out" options? Here is my answer. Back on January 6th we looked at the Interactive Brokers Group 180 series of Calls that expire on January 17th. At that time they were trading at $4.90 a contract. Here is a look at that printout I posted.
Now this, a Friday January 10th printout. The DJIA closed down over six hundred points on the day.
So here we are at the end of the week and we have for lack of a better word, wasted four days or almost half the life of these options. But wait. Can you see how they where down 47.66% on the day? That means on the previous closing session they were trading at $6.25 per contract. (It's a brokerage company so it's obvious it's going to drop on a day the market has a big sell off). Now a look at it's five day chart.
Imagine buying Puts on it on the morning rally on Tuesday morning and getting out at a huge profit minutes later at about 10:30 a.m. If you follow the charts wouldn't you recognize that could happen? If you answer yes then why do you need to clutter up your mind with "two-week-out" options. I say this because I feel more secure playing five, three or one day options than I do playing "two-week-out-options". Yet that's only me. ** Yes there was a decent profit to be had on the "two-week-out" options preceding Fridays precipice slide but that's another part on the "two-week-out" option holding syndrome. The urgency to take profits isn't there compared to playing shorter term options. ** How did these 185 Calls end up trading on January 17th?
Bottom line. The options on this stock are more interesting than most.

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