Option to Profit
Week in Review
DECEMBER 14 – 18, 2015
| NEW POSITIONS/STO | NEW STO | ROLLOVERS | CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED | CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED | CLOSED | EX-DIVIDEND |
| 1 / 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 / 0 | 4 / 0 | 0 | 2 |
Weekly Up to Date Performance
December 7 – 11, 2015
This was yet another week that was best to be avoided.
What a week to have avoided.
This week was exactly like the one two weeks ago. There were lots of big moves but not too much in the way of a net change on the week.
Following the large loss of last week it would have been nice to have at least made back some of that lost ground.
There was only one new position opened for the week and it was 0.6% lower, compared to the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 which were both 0.3% lower.
With no new assignments for the week there are still 75 closed positions for the year and they continue to outperform the market. They are an average of 4.6% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been 1.0% higher. That difference represents a 358.7% performance differential.
After a late day rally on Monday and after the response to the FOMC decision and Janet Yellen’s press conference, things were looking pretty good.
The real handwriting on the wall should have been recognized when so many people starting talking about how we were in store for another “rip your face off rally.”
The subsequent sell-offs on Thursday and then even bigger on Friday took the market away from the optimism that began seeing the possibility of a modest gain for the year to one that was again showing a loss on the year.
Finding a reason to account for the deep selling is really hard to do, just as it should have been hard to find a reason for the strong buying in the days ahead of the FOMC, or in the selling of the previous week.
There has been absolutely nothing behind any of these big moves of late, but that’s of no solace to anyone.
This was a pretty awful week, not just because of the sell-offs, but because of the wasted opportunity to take the year out on a positive note.
It was also another week where the net change for the week didn’t do justice toward painting a picture of just how dynamically changing the week had been.
As is often the case, when the monthly cycle is coming to its end, as it did today, I usually have a fair number of positions up for grabs.
This month had a number that had been longer term call sales from earlier in the hope that time would heal the wound of a fallen price, but the wounds have just gotten deeper.
The one positive note is that during the pre-open futures this morning I didn’t believe that there would be any opportunity to get additional rollovers performed.
I had already resigned myself to not getting any assignments for the week, but the idea of not getting the rollovers was especially disappointing, as I do like that income stream.
Somehow, though, there was the chance to roll four positions over today, in addition to the one rollover earlier in the week, so it wasn’t all bad.
Just mostly bad.
Next week is going to be an especially quiet trading week with Christmas on a Friday and probably lots of otherwise occupied people on Thursday, as well.
With no assignments and already low on cash, I don’t expect to be in the market to add any new positions, especvally with the lower premiums that you typically see during holiday shortened weeks.
But who knows?
With 4 positions set to expire next week and no ex-dividend positions, if not opening any new positions, then all hope is going to be placed on doing something with those four.
Even while some of those are still in the game for either assignment or rollover, we’ve continually seen how quickly things can change.
Hopefully the next change will be for the better as the market has suddenly found itself off by about 6% from its August peak and with time running out until the year mercifully comes to an end.
This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below
(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):
New Positions Opened: DOW
Puts Closed in order to take profits: none
Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: DOW
Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle: BBBY (1/8/16), WMT (12/31/15)
Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: DOW
Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle: UAL
Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle: none
New STO: none
Put contracts expired: none
Put contracts rolled over: none
Long term call contracts sold: none
Calls Assigned: none
Calls Expired: F, GDX, HPQ, IP
Puts Assigned: none
Stock positions Closed to take profits: none
Stock positions Closed to take losses: none
Calls Closed to Take Profits: none
Ex-dividend Positions: GM (12/16 $0.36), LVS (12/18 $0.65)
Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: none
For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts: AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CY, FAST, FCX, GDX, GPS, HAL, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)
* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.
