WFT – The slight 1.5% decline in shares to $18.02 today has not deterred some option traders from making bullish plays on the oil and equipment services firm. The August 17.5 strike price had 9,200 puts sold short for an average premium of 1.50 apiece. The investor(s) who sold the puts will retain the full premium as long as shares remain higher than $17.50 by expiration next month. Traders appear to expect shares of WFT to remain high enough such that the puts remain out-of-the-money by expiration. However, such individuals must be prepared to have shares of the underlying put to them at an effective price of $16.00 in the event that the puts land in-the-money and are exercised. Additional bullishness on the stock appeared in the November contract where it looks as though one trader initiated a covered call strategy. The sale of 1,600 calls at the November 23 strike price yielded a premium of 95 cents each. Perhaps the investor purchased shares at an effective price of $17.07 and simultaneously sold the call options to establish a potential exit strategy. If the November 23 calls land in-the-money by expiration the investor will have the shares called away from him. At that point he will have attained profits of about 35% on the accretion in market value of WFT. – Weatherford International Limited

XLE – A bullish reversal in the energy ETF caught our eye amid a more than 2% decline in the price of the fund to $45.20 today. It appears that one investor chose to sell 1,700 puts at the December 42 strike price for a rich premium of 3.25 apiece. The put options were then spread against the purchase of 1,700 calls at the December 53 strike price for 1.52 each. The net credit enjoyed on the reversal strategy amounts to 1.73. The trader can augment his gains if the price of the XLE rises approximately 17% through the exercise price of $53.00 by expiration at the conclusion of 2009. Otherwise, he will retain the full credit received today as long as the puts options at the December 42 strike price remain out-of-the-money by expiration. – Energy Select Sector SPDR

MS – The global financial services firm has experienced a 1.5% decline in shares to stand at $26.50 today. Investors wary of continued bearish movement in the price of the…

Just a week ago, I was apologetic for being so bearish on the markets.  People were complaining that the writers at PSW were "too negative" and that we were out of step with the MSM, who saw nothing but "green shoots" under every economic rock.  On June 28th, I wrote an article comparing the US consumer to the NY Yankees as a way of explaining how the analysts can be so wrong in their expectations for a recovery.  I pointed out that, although they are the winningest team in baseball history, I can still remember a 10-year dry spell from 1965-1975, saying: "Like the US consumer, you come to EXPECT the Yankees to be in contention and you may make your bets that way out of habit, but that storied history of performance is NOT going to stop you from hitting a 10-year losing streak is it?" 

Like the Yankees, the media EXPECTS the US consumer to win.  After so many consecutive years of stuffing our faces and shopping until we drop, the global media simply refuses to believe that the US consumer can do anything more than stumble slightly before getting right back on the horse and refinancing or whatever it takes to get out there and start charging once again.  As the US consumer makes up 70% of our economy, it’s no wonder all the sentiment polls think prosperity is just around the corner because everyone believes the US consumer is simply resting.  The homebuilders telll us things will rebound, the manufacturers tell us things will rebound and the companies reporting earnings, who are "beating" expectations by only doing 35% worse than last year, are all giving us sunny outlooks as well because the US consumer is coming to save us all.  

Isn’t it amazing how, just 7 days later, the media has suddenly gotten on a totally different bandwagon?  Just as a crowd turns on a star ballplayer who strikes out in a clutch situation, the MSM has turned sour on the US economy and has changed their outlook on the US consumer from "resilient" to "dead" overnight.  While extremism grabs a lot of headlines, sometimes the truth can be found in the very dull places between the labels.  I have long pointed out (some may say ranted) that commodity prices were unjustifiably high and were jeopardizing the recovery by pulling money out of the pockets of already-nervous consumers…

Finding investing education advice for stock options trading can be a frustrating endeavor at times. New traders often share with me that it feels like the options trading community is a very tight-lipped community with a high price of admission. I’ve been through that process so I’d like to offer you some advice.

Learning to invest your own money is a journey, not a destination. It takes time, patience, and education. It’s a proactive journey for those who no longer desire to be a victim of the so called experts.

Over the years I’ve made enough mistakes and have had enough successes to know that the ability to master your money is not something that just happens. It takes a bit of work on your part.

Increasing your investment IQ is a key part, especially when you’re dealing with stock options. You have to find a qualified and trustworthy source for investing education. There’s quite a bit of hype out there so you have to filter out all the "noise".

You may have already searched online for information on stock options, or read a few books. Most people are drawn to options trading by the potential to create large sums of money in a short period of time.  Here is my forewarning; having a great deal of head knowledge about stock options doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be a great trader. It’s going to take some real world practice.

Most of what I’ve learned about investing did not come from a classroom or a book; it came from real world experiences. I found people who were willing to give me unbiased investing education and I applied the knowledge through practice and a bit of trial and error.

Investing Education is your Financial Road Map

Investing education has a purpose in our lives like a map has a purpose to a traveler. A map can take you from point "A" to point "B" when you’re traveling. Investing education can take you from school loans, credit card debt, and no budget to debt-free with money to burn. It’s your financial map so to speak.

You could try to figure out options trading on your own, but if you’re smart and value your time you’ll find a map that can get you to your destination quicker.  It’s extremely rare for me to meet someone who doesn’t want to provide additional income for their family, position themselves to retire early,…

Wheee, what a great way to end the week!

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we had gone into the day flipping our short firepower to BG $60 puts at $1.30 and TOT $55 puts at $1.20 as well as our remaining DIA $84 puts at .84.  We went back to cash for the weekend but consider that the DIA $84 puts finished at $2.04 (up 142%), BG $60 puts finished at $2.10 (up 61%) and TOT $55 puts finished at $2.83 (135%) and you can see how even small allocations out of cash yield very nice one-day returns on put options.  You do not have to take big risks to make big rewards, playing put options allows us to stay flexible and mainly in cash without "missing" too many market market moves.

We blew right through the upper targets I set in the morning and the Dow flew right down near enough our 8,250 (June lows) target that it looked bounceable, as the other indexes were holding up better than the Dow we felt we could play it for a small recovery over the weekend.  We picked up some DIA $85 calls for .76 but elected not to DD at our scale-in target of .64 into the close as we already had bullish plays on ZION as well as Dow components AA, BA, GE and PFE, all longer-term plays that we are looking forward to adding to cheaper if they keep heading down.  VLO and SNY were added in the afternoon as well as a UNG spread since they decided to just give it away at $13 again. 

While we are just dipping our toes into some long posItions, it is the first time in a month we’ve been happy enough with the pricing to even take a chance.  Of course we maintain our long put covers (just in case) but what’s the point of having protection if you have nothing to protect?  On the whole, the volume simply wasn’t that impressive and we attribute much of this drop to people who were "shocked" that the economy isn’t as good as they thought it was (cough, Cramer fans, cough, cough) but it’s EXACTLY as weak as we thought it was and that means there are certain price points we are willing to hit long-term.  Kudos to all who patiently waited with us for pretty much the whole month of June - now comes…