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Costco. It's Short Term Options

 Options on stocks in the $1,000  range often move  50%  or more in only a matter of  minutes on the opening on Wednesday and Thursday's . The trick is to  anticipate correctly which way the markets are going to move. That's a fools game you might say? Yes and no. It may not be a game you ever play but it might be something to consider to put in your bag of tricks when you are on a role. One thousand dollar stocks sometimes move five, ten or fifteen dollars on the day. If you have profits it's best to take them quickly. Costco is a prime example of that. Let's look at this mornings action. First it's five day and one day charts. Tuesday's trading was kind of choppy. Might it drop on the opening tomorrow? Here is a look at where the 1,035 series of Puts closed that expire this Friday. They closed at $8.50. It looks like Costco cycled up about five times yesterday. Given a weak market opening doesn't it stand to reason a three or four or five dollar will be i...
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"Puts" on Caterpillar and The Lion Electric Company

I wanted to call this website "CatCalls" but "Go Daddy" wanted a couple of thousand for that name. Instead I went with "CatPuts" for about twenty dollars. My license plate says "Catputs". Why am I now mentioning this? Well I missed the greatest "Caterpillar" sell off in price so far this year that all happened in the last five trading days. I bought into Calls instead at about lunch time last Monday. My logic and timing were off. I went against my principles of not purchasing "Call" options on a Monday mornings. Here is it's one week chart, it's one year chart and the Deere and Company five day chart. "Caterpillar" dropped twenty dollars in one week or 9.5%. Each day it dropped.
I like playing the Calls and Puts on Caterpillar because as I have mentioned before it is not a stock prone to directional moves based on chit chat. So on Monday and Tuesday I scoured the internet with no luck looking for news on what might be the cause of this unsual decline. There was nothing to be found. The IMF estimates that the global economy will expand 5.8% and the U.S. economy by 4.7% in 2021. Many of last weeks short term "Put" options on "Caterpillar" increased in price ten fold. Analyst are now saying to stay away until it finds a base. The stock has had a good run and as it turns out I got burnt trying to play the top of the market. Stuff like this happens. Next, do you know about a stock with the symbol "LEV"? It's "The Lion Electric Company" which is Quebec based company. They build electric vehicles yet their business model is flawed for the reasons outlined before. Yet traders are buying Calls on it most likely because of it's recent dip.
Orders on the books for over 1,000 vehicles while deliveries of 24 vehicles in the first quarter of 2021 and 2 in the first quarter of 2020. What's going to drive the stocks price back up when their production numbers are so poor. Nothing. 24 or 48 or 96 vehicles is not enough to turn a profit. It's that simple. Now also in the works is the construction of a $185 million dollar electric battery plant next to the Montreal-Marabel International Airport. How are they going to pay for it? Government support? On the surface it seems like they have too much on their plate. Why not just focus more on getting trucks out their door? Incorporated in 2008. That said, it's difficult not to be impressed with how they have gotten this far. The bottom line is that investor's can't wait forever to see profits start to role in.

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