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Living on Kraft Dinner?

What does the word disconnect mean? As a verb it means "to sever or interrupt the connection of or between; detach". Option trading - one day options - is a disconnect from the world. What happens to slightly "out-of-the-money" Call options on Costco when the stock shoot up thirty dollars on the day? I will show you what happened on Friday to Costco Calls and the options on a few other stocks I frequently watch. What a disconnect from the real world. But before that a look at how the indexes traded. 1) Costco. It's five day chart and a look at how three of it's option series moved upwards in one day. You may not know how to read these printouts but try to read the highs and lows on these option pricings. One printout shows an "at-the-money" option which means you are buying a contract on the stock, good for one day only at a locked in price equal to (or very close to) what the stock is currently trading at. The other two contracts shown are ...
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Rivian

What does it mean when someone dumps 875,000 shares of Rivian at 3:59:59 p.m. at $13:45? That's a twelve million dollar ticket.That happened yesterday after the stock sputtered around all day on low volumes of trading. (It usually trades about 26 million shares a day so the 875,000 share ticket may not be all that unusual).
That was calculated timing, perhaps computer programmed selling. Would that send off shock waves on it's following mornings trading. Not really.
Look at what happened in the first minute of the opening trading the next day. A block of 275,017 shares traded at 9:30:59 a.m. at $13:71. What does this point out? First, it might point out how computerized trading triggers trades to happen in the last second of the first minute of trading in any new session. How you can profit from that observation is something you will have to figure out on your own. It also points out how infinitesimally inconsequential all of the retail option trading is. Your purchase of five Calls on Boeing that expire this Friday is as significant as a fly landing on the back of a horse. It also points out the efficiencies of the markets. So the next question is how can the little guys make money playing options when the system with it's computerized buy and sell programs is as tight as it is? In some ways retail option traders should find some assurances in the markets having this much depth. For example, from my experience the market makers can not mess around with buy and sell orders going in "at market" at 3:59:57 or 3:59:58 p.m. That's a good thing. Happy trading.

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