My trades

OI, the markets have changed since Feb 1, 2018. I don't believe call profits will be as reliable as they were prior to Feb 1st.
Have you given any thought about possibly buying puts on weak stocks to hedge against your bullish earning plays?
 
I've added BA and CAT Mar wk5 puts today. Feels a little late to the game here, but it seems like Trump is the wild card for a few more weeks or months.

Used BA 327.5 puts and CAT 150 puts that expires on March 29
 
jeffalvinson said:
OI, the markets have changed since Feb 1, 2018. I don't believe call profits will be as reliable as they were prior to Feb 1st.
Have you given any thought about possibly buying puts on weak stocks to hedge against your bullish earning plays?
More...


Definitely, I had continued to hold calls betting on the long side as long as the Nasdaq held up and kept a rally mode going. That breakout today below 50-day just turned things around. I'm still hold some calls, but I did add BA 327.5 puts and CAT 150 puts as hedges, and more of a play into what Trump might do later today with new tariffs on China now. BA and CAT seems to take it on the chin, no matter what kind of tariffs are out there, so those were my first choices. I'll look at others to short to as it comes to light.

I still like oil and is the reason I added a bit more to HES May 50 calls today.
 
Well, this market is back in the mud and I might just have caught the downtrend just in time. I'm going to look more into exiting more calls tomorrow to adjust to this market. At last check, INTC, AMAT, and HES have all held up well since Monday, and that's one reason I've been slow to close these out.

But, with this market clearly signaling more selling, there's just no need to hold onto longs right now. In fact, there probably won't be any clarity for a while with Trump's new tariffs just announced on China.
 
I closed out all long positions this morning taking losses on MU, INTC, and AMAT. The only call position I have left is a small DKS position and the HES calls. I was a bit busier adjusting my put positions, but I did lock in gains this morning on all of them including BA, CAT, and BABA puts.

I'm basically all cash right now, the feel is that this market is going to sell off into the weekend and I'm looking to get into these same put positions again before the close. I'm going into DE, MMM, BA, and CAT puts on the US side, and BABA and BIDU on the China side. This trade war isn't going to go well for either side.
 
I'll say that I am more bearish at this point. I added initial positions (1-2 puts on BABA, BIDU, BA, and CAT puts) starting at noon. Then just added more after Trump pushed the markets up to its highs. Overall, I think we have to sell into the close. This was probably a chance for those who missed the exit yesterday to get out ahead of the weekend. After all the news this week, I don't think anyone wants to hold into the weekend. At the very least the buying could come back on Monday if nothing major in terms of news come out.

I have about 4-5 puts on each of those 4 stocks mentioned above now. I didn't want to go heavy. I had over 20 JPM calls earlier this week and took an -1800 hit. Overall, the over puts I had on BABA, BA, and CAT that I sold this morning made some profits back and I locked in +2023 for the week.
 
I closed out my BA Mar wk5 327.5 puts for +800 on what I thought would be a rebound in the market at 3pm. My mistake and I left some profits in the market.

Overall, I'll hold the HES and DKS calls here with both showing minimal unrealized losses of -800 total. That's against the CAT 150 puts, BIDU 235 puts, and BABA 185 puts that I'll hold through the weekend with those 3 showing unrealized gains of +2600. I'm still very bearish in this market because there are too many unknowns right now. I think this market is feeling the same way, hence, the selling into the close today (unless we get some massive buying in the last 20 mins.). I haven't looked at the SPX daily chart yet, but I bet it looks ugly. Just feeling the market right now and price action + volume indicates jittery.
 
Before I call it a week, I'll say this was the most volatile week in my account. Nailed the SQ trade along with MULE position for +6200 in profits, then closed out a bunch of losses (9 in total) before locking in some put positions for gains and finishing with gains of +2023.

I was settled on the fact that I'll finish this quarter at $35K, but at the close of today I'm up to $39.1K with open positions on CAT, BIDU, and BABA puts adding over +2900 in unrealized gains. The thing about the selling in the last hour of today is that I didn't feel the need to lock in profits in all three of those put positions. To me, the SPX should test 2532 very soon and I should be able to lock in better prices on all 3 positions. I switched to put positions a bit late, but it's never too late. All bets are off until next quarter's earning reports are out. The only long position I really have is a $2300 position on HES calls, and oil has continued to hold above $60 giving me the only reason to hold onto this one. I have $40K as my target by the end of next week.
 
I need to recap my idiotic plays of the week to remind myself not to get into this kind of position again. I took a big position on jpm and added to it even after the market fell pushing JPM to lower levels. In addition, I added to most of my bullish position. Even added to the HES May 50 calls. I was looking for the bounce on Thursday back to levels that were seen intraday on Wednesday. That's where I was wrong. Market opened lower, and first thing I did was close out weaker bulls like MSFT and PYPL along with all of JPM position bought at the close just the day before.

I should have closed out all the tech bullish trades at that time, but held INTC and AMAT longer and paid for it by closing both at lower prices. I jumped into bearish positions on Thursday and still managed to misplay it by closing these puts early Friday locking in gains too early. The only thing helping me was that the market always gives us multiple chances to get in and out of trades, and this time the market gave me another chance to get back into those bearish positions. By the end of the day, I was able to show a nice unrealized gain on these positions. These are still short term puts that actually expire on Thursday, so my exit will be Monday and no later than Tuesday.
 
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