CAT Puts

Understanding the "bids" and "asks" is study in itself. The system is set up to ensure that most option traders are dissuaded from speculating in short term options. Look for example at the spreads on the opening on these Caterpillar Calls. The stock had a decent bounce on the opening however only one contract traded and it traded for only eight cents more than the previous days close. Does that seem fair? Not really considering the options we are looking at are "in-the-money" and the the stock made a decent bounce. The spread between the "bid" and "ask" is huge. The following example illustrates the same thing. The stock is only up a touch but the "ask" is priced defensely making it expensive to buy into yet the holders of the Calls are not being rewarded for the stocks upward swing. Early morning "bids" and asks" like this are troublesome. It's not only Caterpillar stock, there are other options series ...

If your sitting in a Boeing Call on a Wednesday that expires on Friday hoping to day trade it for a profit I would ask you why? It's an expensive gig to be in with the time value working against you. Case in point is today's action (Wednesday October 14th). Look at it's one day chart. I see a bit of a jump between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. that was playable however that's about it. Now a look at the 165 Calls. All this jumping up and down with the 165 Calls actually down on the day. That's why I don't like Thursday options with two more days to to go. Yet buying in on Thursday around 3:59:47 ( near the close) might be one way to go, looking for an opening bell uptick. Now look at how these $172.50 Calls moved upwards on a Thursday morning bounce. Also look at the how the 165 Calls also moved up however not as much on a percentage basis. As with my advise in my last blog on Tesla I would get out of a situation like this. Hanging onto options on Thursday that...

First a Monday morning August 12th premarket look at Tesla. First a thirty day chart. Tesla has a lot of moving parts which means that no matter how much you study the dynamics of how it operates you never can predict which way it is going to move next. Here now is a look at this coming Friday's 200 series of Calls and Puts. These numbers show closing Call prices of the closing markets last Friday. Do they look kind of expensive? It looks like you need a price swing of at least five dollars over the next five days to make any money trading them. What a daunting challenge. Let's move forward. Let's look at the days closing numbers on these two series of Calls. Notice how the open interest number in the Calls is unchanged. These numbers will only be updated before the following mornings openining. Now the Puts. There are always more Call than Puts outstanding. Now lets jump into the action on Tuesday morning at 11:49 a.m. . Tesla is jumping up. Now here it is now at the...

First it's three month chart. Now read this news. So here now is a look at two series of Call options before the markets are to open after the release of this news. First the Call options that expire tomorrow at the striking price the stock is trading at. Note that on this day, yesterday there were no trades in this series of Calls. Now a look at the 800 series of Calls which are some $23.00 "out-of-the-money". Once again these are options that expire in one day. Note once again a volume of trading of zero and 608 open contracts. It would be fair to ask the question why are their no trades in either of these series of options? Well there is a risk in paying such exorbitant prices. In the case of buying the 772.50 Call series the stock would have to go up $27.00 in one dollar just to break even. In these dour markets speculators have other things to worry about which dampers their urges to take more risks. Look for example what just happened to Super Micro Computer....

So the market tanked last Friday and tanked again on Monday to then rebounded on Tuesday. They are still down from where they were one week ago. Caterpillar released their second quarter earning's report this morning. Readers of my past blogs might know that the guidance offered for this most recent three month period of time was not particularly stellar. What I am referring to is the guidance offered after the release of companies first quarter earnings report earlier this year. Here now is the companies current financial highlights and two articles by writers with deeper insights than I have. I noted in my most previous blog how Deere, Boeing and Caterpillar have all tanked in the last week. Did I know this was going to happen? Well commodity prices are not particluarly strong which indirectly affects their profit margins and rebuilding countries like Ukraine is not yet in the near term cards. Mentioned was the fact that sales to construction and resource industries declined. W...

Yet some lucky option trader's could have made money buying Telsa Calls. Bumpy markets offer Option traders some of the best times to make money. How have Caterpillar, Boeing and Deere done in the last five days? All three of these stocks offered Call option players decent returns if the bought in just after the opening this morning a Monday. To be continued.