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A Jumpy Week For Caterpillar - A Week With Earning Reports

Here is Thursday's trading on the day on Caterpillar. Here is how the $417.50 calls that expire tomorrow closed the day. Something happened this week. Caterpillar had a quarterly earning report come out on Tuesday. It's stock trading action survived this news unscathed. Here is it's five day chart as of the end of Thursday. Maybe the 420.00 or the 422.50 series Calls are better to look at? Here they are. But wait. Deere got clobbered today on the release of a quarterly earning's report. Why didn't Caterpillar sell off in price in sympathy? It shoud have. Deere sold off $34.70. For this reason alone I would be more inclined to purshase the Puts. Here is the series I would consider. To be continued.
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"Ford" and an Extreme Opportunity Missed

If you were out cruising in your Mustang convertable on Friday you probably missed this action. It's a shame because had you purchased $1,000 of a certain "Ford" series of "Call" options on the opening and sold out just after lunch you would have made enough money to turn your ride into something a lot nicer, something like $47,000 nicer. Honestly, this did happen and it wasn't all that complicated trade. This blog from this point on is going to write itself. Try and follow this action.
Look at the high and low on these options. .01 and .47 . One thousand dollars actually turned into $47,000 if you caught it right. I have talked about how options on stocks in the ten and fifteen dollar range can often be darlings to play and "Ford" and "U.S." Steel are two of these darlings with options series that are the most splendid to play because their liquidity is excellent, bid and ask prices tight and price movements swings on only five and ten cent moves in the stock's price. .
The first series of options illustrated had a striking price of 13 and the second series illustrated had a striking price of 12.5 and both performed nicely. Notice also that the stock actually dropped a touch on the opening so all this "good news" was a Friday after the opening bell event.
It doesn't really matter what the news was, its more just recognizing the power of good or bad news on stocks in this price range when they have options on them expiring that day. What was the good news? Well honestly it doesn't much matter. A few weeks back I played the rebound on "Ford" after bad news about a "Chip Shortage" took it down. Folks. I don't make this stuff up. With a click of a mouse and with money in your account you can be part of this action. Am I rich from playing options? No. Some people equate trading in options to the experience of going to a casino. The difference here is that the house doesn't win when the volume of shares traded triples in one day on a stock like "Ford" and when it surges upwards or downwards in price. Going forward "option trading" is going to grow exponentially. Todays traders have become much more forward thinking. *** I note "Ford" closed Thursday at 12.49 so purchasing the "out-of-money" 12.50 "Calls" that expire the next day would not be that big of a stretch. In contrast, purchasing the 13 series of "Calls" would have being an extremely aggressive trade. Both end up performed well."Ford" opened on Friday at $12.70 and hit a high of $13.47. Moves of that magnitude are unusual. What was the news that caused this uptick? A report on the numbers of buyers putting deposits on a new Ford 150 electric truck. Everyone seems to want one.

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