CAT Puts

Look at the volume of trading in Caterpillar Calls on a Friday morning on slightly "in-the-money" Calls options twelve minutes into the trading session. .. This options are $1.33 "in-the-money" and look at how wildly this stock traded on the previous day. Caterpillar has approximately 465 to 466 million shares outstanding. One would think that there would be thousands of shareholders engaged in "covered Call writing" strategies. Apparently not. The open interest number in these Calls is 17. Why? It's all become to much of crapshoot. That's the reality of our times. The good news is that some traders are still capitalizing on the realities of these crazy times. Case in point are Exxon options. How many more bombs are going to be dropped over the weekend? Look at these Exxon Call options on the opening this morning. .. .. Getting in on Thursday before the close knowing that friday mornings would cause this worry was one way to go.

So here are four widely followed companies. Let's see how buying two day (Friday) Let's watch the demise of their Call options over the next three days. Trumph is destroying the markets. 1) .. 38.000 contracts have traded. 2) Is Boeing. .... 3) Is Tesla. . . Now Apple. This time with a 4:00 p.m. chart. . Here now is how the indexes closed on the day. The markets remained largely unchanged in the last twenty minutes of trading. These options are down 28%,63%, 53% and 62%. Let's see what tomorrows opening trading will bring. Now Thursday's closing readings. Down 68%, 89%, 93% and 53%. In two days the Tesla Calls for example have gone from a high of $10.80 to $.28 cents. That's what happens when the markets drop 992 points in two days. Let's see what Friday brings.

Recent Costco blogs have illustrated how "time values" get eaten up the closer they get to their expiracy date this Friday. Here is a five day chart mid morning on a Monday. Now this. The Costco 1,000 Call option. Costco is down $9.23 at 11:51 a.m. to $999.20. Might it rebound back up again? Now a one day chart and the closing reading on the 1000 series of Calls. This afternoon move was nothing. Let's watch and see what happens tomorrow. This is an expensive game to be in. Costco can easily move ten dollars or more on any morning. Here we are again on Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m. Notice the very low volume of trading. This is a high risk/ high reward situation. To be continued. Now Tuesday and it's closing reading. It is off on the day $5.58 and off $6.69 on Monday. It's easy to get caught offside on these options. Now here is it's five day chart on Wednesday morning. The stock and the Call options are down again. Higher energy prices are now a new expe...

The morning action. Now it's 157.50 Puts at 10:43 a.m. Now the 157.50 Puts at 12:45 p.m.. ... .... Here above is what the markets were doing just Here is how it closed the day. ... These Puts did nothing all day. Tuesday morning. These Puts took a hit. Contrast this to the gains the Ford Motor Calls had in a blog I am concurrently writing. Fighting Exxon during a war is counterintuitive. To be continued. Read my blog on playing options on stocks in the $10.00 range. Here is how the 157.50 Puts closed the day on Tuesday. Now here is Exxon on the close on Wednesday. First it's five day chart. To be continued. Thursday. Fighting strong stocks can be a battle. Here is an opportunity to get back your money. Tomorrow is Friday and Exxon could jump again over the weekend. Here is it's 30 day chart. My point is that the "little fish" can play these options - they jump on a daily basis - no one can control what's going to happen next.