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Showing posts from December, 2023

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Snowflake Part Two : Thursday Overnight Position Going Into The Final Day Of An Options Life Are Not My Cup Of Tea Unless It Is Perhaps Tesla

The 172.50 series of options on this stock will expire tomorrrow. Today is a Thursday. The first printout shows a bit of a struggle on the opening in the first nine minutes of trading and a return to price it closed at in the previous session. (It did have a nice rally on the previous day then to only give it up). Could it rally again this morning? Now the second printout below the following paragraph shows the high volume of trading pouring into this series of Calls just after the opening. These high volumes of trading shown below happened in the five minutes and twenty one seconds of the trading session. Traders bought in on a slight dip looking for a reversal. Good for them. Are these traders hoping to be out at a profit in the next fifteen or thirty minutes? Yes. Get in and get out. Catch a profit as the stock is deciding which way it will go. It's early in the morning trading session and the volume of trading is always the highest in the first and in the last hour of trading....

Taiga - It's 2,754 Preorders are Cancelable.

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Back on August 6th I posted a blog on this Canadian company which now makes electric snowmobiles and electric watercrafts. It is based in Montreal.The watercraft part of the equastion is a more recent phenomenon. Sales for the second quarter of 2023 where $4.1 million and losses where $15.9 million dollars compared to sales of $400,000 in the second quarter of 2022 and losses of $11.1 million in the second quarter of 2022. These are not good numbers. The company is burning through money at a phenonenal pace and it's stock price is tanking. Export Development Canada recently lent them $15 million after also recently raising $46.9 million dollars from private investors at 10% due in December 2028. I am sorry for throwing so much at you so quickly. Let's back up for a minute. The electric snowmobile thing. Does the concept make sense? Their machines (yes they have several models) only have a range of 100 km. True adventurest need more range than that and a network of dealers who u...

A Fireside Chat - One Year Options and Thirty Day Options. Which is Better?

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Some say to think small, not big. Trying to play Disney options is thinking big. It is a stock slighty 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-mas...

A 1 for 100 Reverse Stock Split. Imagine Living Through That?

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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...

U.S. Steel "BIG NEWS"

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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.

Towards Understanding One Day (Friday) Options Using The Stock "Ford" As An Example

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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...

Caterpillar - An Observation That Defies Logic

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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...