Tuesday, July 14, 2015

BOOK 'EM DANO

Shades of Hawaii 5-0.
I just closed out my Barnes 'n Noble Leap Strangle. It was going fine but in August they spin off some Education part - BNED, which makes options even messier (covered calls, puts). Nice profit for just over i year - 28+%. Plus the safety of having brought in $$ to hedge. (Does not include margin sequester for the put - only the stock cost.).
Did take minor losses on CHK (oil) and FCX (copper) - as China sells commodities to raise cash for the $4T market loss (Their GDP is  only $10T.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

A couple of trades this week to avert disaster. The chart on Intel looks as bad as many dividend-paying stocks that are being sold now (per Barron's top 50 dividend payers were down 6%, bottom 50 are up 6% YTD). Plus INTC's future doesn't look to rosy. Sold the stock for a slight loss, but thanks to DITM and a put rollup, I made a profit overall of nearly 3% in 9 months.
Not so good on my Leap Strangle of FCX , put on in Jan. of this year. Again, the future of commodities, along with global economies, looks longer term than expected - China, Europe, et.al.
Overall loss was $1100 on 200 shares with the stock down over 6 points. Strangle saved me about $200, as I had to buy back the put much higher, and the dividend was cut.