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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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Deere and Boeing, The Second Day In A Row With A 500 Point Day Decline

In this market environment playing the market has become for some traders an hour to hour exercise. Many investors shy away from this method of trading and consider it to be a fool's game. Yet at times opportunities present themselves that are just to good to ignore. First, here is how the markets closed out the day followed by where the DJI index was at at 1:30 p.m. this afternoon.
It got ugly quickly in the early afternoon. Here are a look at Deere and Boeing at that time.
Now for some afternoon Deere "Put" quotes. Deere spent most of the morning in the 398-399 range at which time the 400 series of Puts that were to expire that day traded down to $2.00 a contract. Can you see that?
Here is how this series of options closed on the day. Note the price swing in the day from an interday low of $200.00 per contract up to a high of $1,057.00 per contract.
This you might say was a one time blip. Yet what's going to happen to Put options on a stock in the $400.00 range just prior to the markets losing hundreds of points in the matter of two hours? It's not rocket scientist stuff. It actually happens and I am amazed that more traders are not tuned into this stuff. It's the leverage you get with options that have an expiry date only a few hours away. Yes it's high risk but when the bottom falls out of things like it did today the downward action is often swift, directional and decisive. It's like watching a train reck about to happen. The Boeing story today was much the same. Here is it's one day chart and a look at the action in the Puts. Notice that the 220 Puts were trading for $.50 going into the lunch hour. Look at how high they traded up to. One slice of the action here shows them going from $2.15 per contractto $6.30 per contract in only 26 minutes. Look at the chart below.
Look at the open interest and volumes of contracts traded today in this series of Puts. Boeing always has a large following. Option traders playing the downside watched the carnage happening all around them with glee and were able to make out big time on this one. **** to read yesterday's blog on Deere on the previous day scroll up to the top left icon.

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