LiveWire

My last blog was about Harley Davidson and what I didn't bring into the conservation was their spin off business which is building electric motorcycles. To be honest these bikes are not getting rave reviews. Two complaints are their crippling range and the possible issue of them being more dangerous to drive because they are so quiet. There is also competion from abroad. Last quarter they built only 63 of them and that experience is part of the company expecting to incur a loss of over $115 million this year. If you do the math each bike built cost them over $200,00.00. A $115 million dollar loss vs a profit of $1.3 billion for Harley Davidison. That loss makes a small dent in the overall big picture and in the process of getting going they used other people's money. Nursing this project to life from a business point of view has merit. Covid didn't help anything. LiveWire has to go slow until the product itself evolves to a level they feel proud to put their name on. Inves...

Harley-Davidson

First, I am not a big fan of playing options on stocks in the thirty and forty dollar range. It's not like speculating in Boeing or Caterpillar Calls and Puts with these stocks swinging up or down two or three dollars nearly everyday. Harley Davidson is a thirty five dollar stock. Look at how it is trading so poorly on the good earnings news back at the end of April. Now here is some of this news. All the good news was wiped out by the forecasting of a bit of a slowdown in the second half of this year. Investors who bought in early this year when the stock was trading over fifteen dollars higher who correctly anticipcated this surge of earnings must now feel so frustrated. Where are their rewards? Now look below and see where the January 37 Calls are trading at. If the stock gets above forty you would be in luck. That would buy you their next two earnings reports. By then management might see their business in a more favourable light. Yet the chart looks ugly and there doesn...

Toyota

Very few option contracts trade on Toyota. I have wondered why and offer one potential explanation. It's listed on multiple exchanges around the world and "option makers" in North America are basically just following the action. If the markets open stronger in North America that means Toyota traded stronger overnight on markets overseas. Secondly, the Calls and Puts trade in incriments of five dollars.There are for example 135 Calls, 140 Calls, 145 Calls. Having a five dollar spread wipes out the incentive try to daytrade option series which are soon to expire. If the stock moves from 142 to 143 the "bids and asks" on a 140 series of Calls might hardly change. It's not like trading the stock like Boeing where you can get in and out with option series set up in increments of $2.50 . Here is it's one month charts. The company now has a new C.E.O who is getting criticized for not moving to go electric quickly enough. J6KhPh0s8HMgUnhmv/s600/Screenshot%20202...

Ford Earnings - This Game Repeats Itself Four Times A Year

They should be up right? Supply issues are getting better and their electric trucks are coming. Ford released their earning report yesterday after the close and they were good. A 20% increase is a decent increase. The stock should rally on that news, right? But wait. Remember in a blog a few days ago how Caterpillar tanked on the morning after a great earnings release? To refresh your memory here is what that chart looked like. . The Ford stock trades in an interesting price range. Price swings of fifty cents on a twelve dollar stock can send option prices into a tisy. So here is what happened. Remember earnings came out after the closing bell yesterday on May 2nd. The stock surged Monday morning up to $12.25 and that was the time to be selling out of the Calls bought on the previous Friday. Now let me digress for a moment. G.M. had an earnings release on April 25th and their profit were up substantially. This helps support the thesis that the automobile industry is on a month to mo...

A Blogging Website About Caterpillar

Ok. I am guilty of falling asleep at the switch. Caterpillar had great earning report this morning and the stock tanked on the opening. Here is it's five and one day chart. Now the highlights of the report. So now what do I want to show. How the different series of Call options traded. Notice the volumes in the 200 and 202.50 Calls. Next to no volume. Notice the rewards on the higher priced "out-of-the-money" Calls. Big rewards. In the ninety minutes of trading this morning the stock was off slightly. What an opportunity missed!

Cat Calls

Caterpillar Calls with one day go and Caterpillar Puts with one day to go. Boeing Calls and Puts with one day to go. Both stocks have had massive unbated run ups in the last five days trading sessions. Now lets look at the Caterpillar Call and Puts options at Thursday's close going into Friday. These are the Calls and Puts that expire tomorrow. The premiums on these option contracts are at slightly elevated levels given the volatility in the trading of these options over the last few trading sessions. Will this be another day, like most in the recent past where these stocks gain one to three dollars? This is to rich a game for me to play. It was a good game to be in during the last few days. Let's start with the Caterpillar Calls. The premiums on the Cat 225 Calls don't make sense. At $1.60 per contract thay are .46 cents "out-of-the-money" meaning the stock would have to jump to $227.04 just to break even. That's crazy expensive. The Puts also are no bargai...

Rivian and Dream Machines

So Rivian shares have dropped. What a dream machine they have built. But wait, they also are hooked in with Amazon and they are providing them with electric trucks. Now look at this. Their number of employees. How would you get to this level of employees if you were not onto something good? Look at how they have more employees than many of their piers. Yet there is a risk to the stock's price if they were to suddenly announce that they are laying off a thousand or so workers. Amazon is using a number of their delivery trucks and it's obviously a learning curve for both of them. How well are they built and will they prove to be problem free? Rivian still has to prove the quality is there. Then there is also the issue that G.M. has leaped ahead of them and is busy shipping out these electric trucks from Canada with a 250 mile range .G.M. has deep pockets and their factory for exclusively this product is up and fully operational. On a different note the truck company Lordstown...