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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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"Tony The Tiger" - A Food Stock

The mood of Wall Street is now changing as the reality of tariffs is starting to kick in. Two weeks ago not so much so. Kelloggs had "so-so" earnings come out a few weeks ago and the stock exploded upwards.
Note the very last line above mentions the effects of tariffs are not taken into consideration. So many stocks with "so-so" earning reports have jumped in price based on the "lets make America great again" slogan. Deere stock is shooting to the moon as I keep writing about in spite of declining sales in the last quarter. The sentiment seems to be that they are immune to tariffs. On paper they might be. Read this.
Americans are struggling to buy gas, eggs and insurance. Total housing starts in the U.S.in 2024 were down 3.9%. Walmart, the recent darling stock in the last four weeks for Call option players woke up this morning with an earnings report which was healthy but with came with some caveats. Here is what happened.
Perhaps the U.S. is starting to wake up to the fact that tariffs could shake things up. In response to this news the option chain on Walmart changed. Forget the striking prices one dollar apart. Now they are $.50 cents apart and here is a snapshot of this mornings action.These are one day Call options on Walmart set to expire tomorrow. It is now 9:54 a.m. on Thursday. Talk about Wall Street having the ability to making trading the market a party.
Now look at this same series of Calls a few hours later.
Now this. A quick look at how Trump is messing up the solar energy business. Look at how these two stocks are trading today.
How do you trade these types of stocks? This one pop in these two stocks was credited to an analyst saying that tariffs on solar panels coming into the U.S. would help domestic producers. So many stocks are now so jittery.
A disruptive President, a world of disconnect. Perhaps people are just tuning out. Perhaps that's why Netflix is trading at over $1,000.00 a share.
I am still watching Deere to see if it is going to decline. Let's see what happens with the Walmart Calls. Also if grain prices start to go up as mentioned in the Deere news about commodity prices then six month out Kelloggs Puts might be something to look at. Yet then agan, people still have to eat. Walmart continued to disappoint much to the chagrin of one day Call option players. The 97.50 Calls we were watching to rebound went south as the markets crashed all day.

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