CAT Puts

Some say to think small, not big. Trying to play Disney options is thinking big. It is a stock slightly out of favor. If we start with it's a three year chart, we will see it is down by about 50% over that period of time. Now it's one year chart. If the stock can break 110 in early 2024 the sky is the limit. It does have a lot of moving parts so anything could happen. Look at these Calls options one year out. One year in options buys a lot of time.They look reasonable. If the stock ever inched up to the $105.00 price level in the three or four months these options would jump up in price by about 50%. Even more if they had really good news. Yet it's the "what-if" aspect of the equation that castes such a trade in doubt. "What if" stories just don't cut it. There are to many variables in play. Then again, why are we even thinking of long-term Call options after a December's rally? Let's switch gears. If consumers are out spending for X-ma...

Here it is, I have talked about Mullen before. Now a letter from the C.E.O. $1,000 worth of stock is now worth ten dollars. One would have to ask the question as to whether there is even any point in keeping this company going? Stumbling along shipping out a few EV trucks here and there is a recipe for a slow death. Here how it traded this week after the reverse split. ($9.84 prior to the reverse split was $.09 cents. People selling out on the morning of the reversal thinking the stock would continue to sink forever, it probably will, sold out only to watch new sharks buying it getting an amazing short term rise. That was somewhat unexpected). Yes there was a bounce however who wants to buy in now? Look at it's five year chart. What a mess! This wasn't the first time the company did a reverse split. There where some comments flying in the air last summer to address the issue of short sellers interfering but in all fairness management seemed to be to busy bragging about h...

I talked about U.S. Steel on August 20th. It is a company 122 years old. There were takeover talks back in August with multiple suitors. It was just a question as to when the cards would unfold. Now this news which caused the stock to jump in price. (It's a complicated business to follow with big players all over the world involved). Is the Blackberry spin out story which I have recently blogged about an animal with the same outlook? That's something I still can't decide. Maybe it's one to watch.

Stocks like "Ford" in the ten dollar range can suprise. "Ford" is actually at twelve dollar U.S. however that is close enough. A move of like forty or fifty cents in a one day rally or a one day sell off can really can move the needle on Call or Put options that expire that day. I have witnessed two cent options ($2.00) options on "Ford" jump to fifty cent ($50.00 options) in two or three hours. It happens more often than you might think. So what happened on Friday this week with the "Ford" 12 series of Calls and Puts. Let me walk you through some of the action, or lack thereof. I will start with the five day chart of Ford a few minutes into the Friday morning trading session. Can you see Ford starting off with a little dip? Now the early morning 12 series of Calls, nineteen minutes into the action. Ford is down and this series of Calls are "out-of-the-money" Could the stock rally? The stock is down 15 cents on the opening and the 12 s...

This observation totally defies logic. The markets go up somes days and down some days. It's something like 50:50 right? How do you explain this? Here is how Caterpillar traded on Thursday Dec. 14th. Yes Caterpillar is on a role. It is up 14 of the last 15 days. Now here is the only news I could find on it this morning. This isn't really news because it's dividend was never really in question. Come to think of it, it's really bad news given that earnings were up strongly in the last quarter. Why isn't the company sharing it's profits? Is it buying back shares? Now here is a chart from September showing how Caterpillar gave up a gain on a Friday. It could happen again? So now what? Look at this. It's the 285 Puts on the close today with only one day to go. Look at the open interest. ZERO! Look how cheap they are. Couldn't the stock retrace half of it's gain? Why aren't traders looking at this? Even if I am wrong I find it so strange that t...