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CarMax Puts?

 Here is the number. Call in to listen to their just released quarterly report. You won't have to talk to anyone. It is 800-839-1247. In about five days this link will disappear. Please listen to it. I listened to all of it once and to the first half of it two times. What I learned is that their retail car sales on the quarter compared to the same quarter a year were up 6%. They purchased 336.000 vehicles from the public, up 7% and 48.000 from dealers up 38%. Their average retail sale price was $26,100, down $400.00 per vehicle from last year. They doubled their share buy back program. AI technologies are now helping them operate more efficiently. Everything seems positive. But wait, we are talking about  the used car business and what could happen if consumer confidence suddenly starts to wain? Look at it's three year chart. It now sees to be hitting a rough patch.  Now a one month chart.  All of this talk about tariffs and what level of tariffs will be imposed on n...
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The Hurricane - An Avis Option Trade

Last week I did a blog about a little trade on I did on "Home Depot" hurricane news. A second tradable trade presented itself this morning that in hindsight was easy to predict. Last week we all witnessed the carange of cars and boats being destroyed by rising sea levels. Thousands of cars where destroyed. One of the things this means is that Florida instantly needs thousands of rental cars. That's good news for Avis, right? I would think so except for the fact that they too lost vehicles. Here is a look at how Avis traded last week up until Thursday morning. Avis is a company I have never traded before. With the high demand for used cars these days it is not a situation I feel comfortable trying to outguess. This stock made some nice moves upwards last week.
Today is Monday. Doesn't it stand to reason that over the weekend tens of millions of people got to watch news clips on t.v. of the damage incurred? The following chart shows the lift Avis got on the first few minutes of trading this morning. In hindsight we all should have bought Call options on Avis at 3:59:57 p.m. last Friday.
Also now shown is how Avis traded on the day last Friday. Do you see how late in the day profit takers caused the stock to take a slight dip just before the closing bell?
Ps. Here is something I did on Friday (the DJI sold off 500 points on the day) in anticipation of a Monday morning rally. I try not to hang onto positions for to long with short term options. I purchased at around 2 p.m. one contract at $154.00 on Caterpillar that expires this week.
I didn't stay in this position very long. I stayed in it for just less than ten minutes on the opening this morning. The reason I got out so quickly was that I also bought a Boeing Call near the close on Friday so I wanted to lock in as early as possible one profitable trade. Doing so would offer protection just in case the Boeing Call option position started to go south. I got out at $310.00 after buying in at $154.00.That's a double.

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