CAT Puts

Snowflake is a company valued at 1.22 billion. It's a California based company, a cloud data provider. A Silicon Valley high tech story. What I know is that "Barron's" recently did an extensive article on this company and I know the stock trades in an erratic manner. Here is it's chart this morning just after an earnings report release. So what you might say. I understand. It's a situation outside the realm of most option traders. They are expensive options to purchase. Look for example at this readout from exactly one month ago. It shows the stock down on the day to $131.55 and the 131.00 Call options series on them which had three weeks to go before expiring. Many option traders are not willing to pay the premiums incurred with buying that much time. Notice the then current price of $740.00 per contract. Who wants to pay that much for just one contract? Not very many traders. In hindsight, these options ended up tripling in price! All of this brings us t...

Zoom, zoom goes this little electic vehicle. It's a one seater with only three wheels cruising in a lane reserved for two people cars. Their new factory to build them in is soon to be finished. It's in the U.S.. So much for investing on home turf. Earning reports just came out. I have talked about this company before. Go to their website and listen to a ten minute company report. Everything seems very upbeat. If they can ramp up their production to 20,000 units a year everyone including investors will be happy. Pick the model stlye you like and pick the color. Go to their website and give them your credit card number. A deposit of $250.00 will put you on the buyers list. But wait, Frank Stonach has plans for his three wheeled "Carit" to be built in Ontario. Before you make a decision on any three wheeled companies future you might want to check out some of the driver's reviews found on the internet. They are not the safest vehicles around. Other parts of the wo...

Look at this chart. It's the five day chart on Walmart leading into this morning's opening bell. Walmart releases it's second quarter eanings report before the opening bell. But wait, look at this chart.This wasn't that long ago. Walmart at times can stumble. Do consumers, hit by inflation have money to spend? Now also look at this one. My point is that if you guess the wrong way on Walmart you will get burnt. So now how are the cards stacked up this morning waiting for this earnings report? Here is a look at two close to the money Calls and Puts. So here is what happened about twenty minutes after the opening bell. The Puts got obliterated. The real winners were all the Call option purchasers who got in a few days ago. Here is how this option series closed the day. Why did happen this way? In a way Walmart's results act as a barometer of how the U.S. economy is doing. It's mainstream in a different way than Costco. Opportunities to make a judgement call li...

Look at this Caterpillar chart on a Thursday morning and what what the calls are now doing. The first printout shows Caterpillar up .67 cents 29 minutes into the trading session after first dropping on the opening and the 182.50 Call option pricings at that time. Notice how low the Call options traded down to. The 182.50 Calls dropped down to a low of $1.16. People sometimes ask me what option trading is all about. This is one very good example of how someone could have caught a swing. In option trading the action never stops. Here now is that same option series about 30 minutes later and a new chart of how the stock was then trading. Now here is how Caterpillar and these Call options closed out the day. Now a few of the earning details. All of this happened two days ago and the stock dropped over ten dollars on this news.This morning swing was somewhat predictable.