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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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A Surprise Caterpillar Jump on a Friday That Option Players Missed.

The action on Caterpillar on October 21st, 2022 defies logic. Here is it's five day chart showing Friday's action. Read On.
In the past I have said that it's stupid to be buying Call or Puts just before a Thursday's closing that expire the next day in anticipation of a rally or a sell off that day. The future market was down big time between 8:00a.m. and 9:00a.m. and then the markets opened flat and then took off. Look at how these for series on Caterpillar Calls traded on the day.
$.16 to $510.00
$.05 to $250.00
$.01 to a high of $.67. In hindsite, the tip off to this possibly happening was in the premarkets turning from negative to positive in a short period of time before the opening bell. This kind of action makes it difficult refocus. Now what I didn't show you was the 180 Calls. With the stock trading around 180 on the opening this is the option series you would expect most casual options traders to be playing. Look now at the suprisely low volume of trading on this series of Calls.
Only 146 contracts in this series traded on the day. Why didn't more players jump in?

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