Mondays are not the best of days to look for reversals however Caterpillar jumped upwards a modest amount which impacted the value of this series of Puts. The Puts are off about 50% on the day at this point in time. This is a 1:36 p.m.readout.
Here is it's five day chart.
Now its one day chart.
It's Puts. Why consider them? It would seem like kind of a random thing to do. Why fight a strong stock? One reason is that the markets are only mildly up and could give back some of it's gains before the end of the day. Caterpillar could be gaining strenght based on all of last weeks business articles talking about how Caterpillar could potentially benefit from all this new AI movement. Caterpillar afterall builds heavy equipment which can be used in the construction of nuclear reactors.
Notice that the five day chart is in an uptrend and notice the small open interest numbers in the Puts. That's understandable. No one wants to hold Puts on Caterpillar when it is in this uptrend. Could it have a soft sell off in the next few hours? Here it is now 50 minutes later. The "bid and ask" are almost unchanged.
There is also not much change in the DJIA index. Now this. The DJIA is sellig off and Caterpillar is hanging tough.
Caterpillar hangs tough.
Now here is how these Puts closed the day.
The closing on the DJIA.
The common theme of all my blogs are the same. Mondays are ok days to be buying any "end-of-the-week" options. Anyone now holding these Puts are now at the mercy of how the market opens tomorrow. Yet holding overnight positions in "one-week" options is a common reality.
Now let us look at the premarket trading. You can't see what the options are trading for however you can see what the stock is trading at.
This printout is at 9.00:a.m. Yes you can trade in the premarkets. You can sell "at-market" or you can pick a price. 3,700 shares have traded and the stock is down roughly $1.50. If you want you can try the asking price of $3.95 and see if you get a fill.
Now this.The Put options did reach a high of $420.00 in the premarkets. On the opening it showed no trading for the first ten minutes or so and then two trades were reported at different prices. One trade would be a premarket trade (the higher fill) and one trade after 9:30 a.m..
This is a 9:50 a.m. reading.
What I failed to show you were the "bids-and-asks" on the opening. They were miles apart. That's because the stock was dropping and with the small open interest numbers in the contracts the option makers wanted to protect their margin of errors knowing the two or three day charts on this stock were in an uptread and that this momentary sell off could simply be a short term glitch. My instincts would be to sell out and wait for the dust to settle.
Now at 10:30 a.m. update. The Puts are finished. See a printout of how they are trading just below. Caterpillar is back up again.
The Monday gitters have gone away. Not many traders participated in this action. Here is a chart of how Caterpillar closed the day and a look once again at the 387.50 Puts.
Getting out of the Puts in the first thirty minutes was the way to go.
Comments