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Showing posts from January, 2024

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This One Is Too Nervous To Watch. Pfizer

This is a short blog full of twists. Try to get through it. First a five day chart of Pfizer. chart. In the past week it was up $1.05 and it was the 7th most activity traded stock on the NYSE most active list. It's in a breakout mode. Look at how it traded over the last three years. This breakout mode might last a few days, weeks or months. This stock has a history of moving somewhat slower than most stocks. A second quarter earnings report comes out July 30th. If it's good that could add a touch to the stock's price. Now this. As a general rule stocks and options on stocks in this particular price range are difficult to play and in this case everyone is following the same story. Fred down the street and John around the corner and Mark across town are all dialed into the same commentary. There is nothing that really gives you an edge when it comes to playing it. That's the problem. Here now is a look at the Pfizer "next-week-out" $30.00 series of Call optio

Setting up Caterpillar Puts For A Try On The Downside. If A Stock Is In An Uptrend It's Not A Very Bright Idea.

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Last week we tracked Caterpillar for it's entire week. This is a new week.  This time I will be suggesting it's  time to try an "in-and-out" 15 minute trade.  If my reasonings turn out to be are wrong, they could be, I will try to explain what happened. Here is what what the markets are doing at the close on Monday. Now here is the five day chart on Caterpillar.  Now the one day chart. Are you able to see the strength coming into the stock near the closing? Sideways most of the afternoon until the last hour. Strength coming into it on the closing.   What's going to happen on the opening tomorrow? Well it's going to be a play more on how the market is going to open than a play on Caterpillar itself. Look now at these three series of Puts. Which one is better to be considering? Look at the open interest at the end of the day in the 300 Puts with 171 open contracts. With the 302.50 Puts the  open interest is 342 contracts and with the 305.00 Puts the open interes

A Test To See How Smart Short Term Tesla Option Traders Are.

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This is a unique opportunity to observe something which could shed some light on how smart Telsa option players really are. Telsa crashed on an earnings report release and short term option players were given a unique opportunity to speculate on a one day Friday rebound. Alternatively, a second option they were offered was to speculate on a further one day (Friday) decline caused by "late-to-the-party" investors wanting to get out of this news before things got even worse. YouTube videos scream a crash is coming in EV sales. It's one of those occassions where the earnings were actually pretty solid but where analyst set their expectations slightly higher. First a one day look at how Telsa traded on Jan 25th, 2024. It was down a chunk. When I say down a chunk it was down 12% in one day. Here are two short articles to better explain this action. So what is the "Let's See How Smart the Telsa Short Term Option Traders" is caption all about? Well it all has t

Caterpillar on a Monday Morning At The Start of the Week

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When a stock pops on a Monday morning can you go against it? That is a logical question to ask. Here is Caterpillar on the opening. It's an interesting chart because it is hitting a resistance level. What do your instincts tell you to do? Here is a look at the Puts and Calls. Now the Puts. Yes there is more action in the Calls, there always is. Both look pretty inexpensive given the recent volatitity in the stock's price. Now consider this. Caterpillar is the largest manufacturer of heavy equipment in the world. Why are the open interest numbers of "near-to-the money" options on it so low? One of the reasons is that the stock is mostly owned by institutions who make buying and selling decisions based on more sophicated tracking tools than what are made available to retail traders. Retail investors/traders, in my opinion are to some degree handicapped for this reason and option trading on this stock is always more of a gamble than it is on other stocka like Telsa f

Looking At Call Options at 11A.M. On A Friday

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Here is what the markets are doing at 11 A.M. on a Friday morning. Here is Nio at this time. First it's five day chart. Now a one day chart. Now the Call options which expire this afernoon with a six dollar striking price. Is it crazy to be looking at these? Not really, the stock was down $.31 cents the previous day. What's next? Let's now look at the Ford Calls at 10:52 a.m. Here is how the stock has traded over the last five days. Could is rebound in the next four hours?. Here is how it's options are trading. Notice that the volume of trading is greater than the open interest? Now Boeing at 10:45 a.m. This time we are looking at the price of slightly "out-of-the-money" Calls, the 212.50 series. It did pop $8.55 cents on the previous day as shown below so could it gain more momentum today? One might think so. *** So what happened at the end on the trading session? Nio closed at $6.06 so the Call holders who hung on got their money back. Remember at

January Blues and News on Taiga- The Opportunity to Tap Into 90 Dealerships

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Here is the list of auto stocks I watch. All are down this morning. It's difficult to think about playing the upside. It's also difficult to play the downside. Caterpillar is struggling. It dropped today. Analyst are always busy looking in their rear view mirrors to explain what is happening. They now say that Caterpillar is exposed to the slowdown in China. That's not really a fair assessment of the overall big picture. It recently had a nice run up. Boeing is entering into a cup formation. Moderna was $86.00 back at Christmas and jumped to $115.00 on Jan 8th only now to settle back down again to $96.00. Then there is Nio an Ev maker. They are expanding their sales into Europe. I often talk about this stock as it trades in very high volumes and has a huge following . A few years back it traded five times higher in price than it does now. It's product line is now much improved. The stock however is now crashing. There seems to be to much focus on monthly production