Thanks. TASR calls went up quite a bit the past couple of days (nice little jump in the underlying), but I was also wrong about NVDA earnings - they had a very strong quarter during a quarter that is often weak for them. As for TMTA, yikes, it's up about another 13% as I write this.
mini-update 8/16/05: put a position on Aug 280 calls on CME got 7 of cmjhp for 2.35 i commend tdwaterhouse for their execution. i'm currently down as of this time. will provide more info after market-close.
follow-up mini-update 8/16/2005: on options expiration week, i look for a volatile stock that is down significantly for monday and early tuesday morning. i was waiting for goog, but there wasn't enough there... cme was down big on monday but there was news and i chickened out on an entry that could have gotten the cme aug 280 for 2.55 or 2.60 around 11:20AM PDT. i tried to nickel and dime it by putting a bid for 2.50 when quote was showing 2.45 x 2.55. it shot up in less than an hour to show a print of 4.6 x 4.8 real-time. i was kicking myself, because i definitely would have set a stop to exit on the next few down ticks. it could have netted over 1K on a risk-capital of about 1.7K in less than an hour. the opportunity presented itself again after 1:30PM PDT and this time, i didn't chicken out. when real-time quote was 2.35 x 2.50, i put an order on a separate window for 7 @ 2.5 each. before hitting confirm, i jumped on the real-time window and it shows 2.25 x 2.45. it was a fast-market and CME was moving fast downwards. i relied on tdwaterhouse to execute at the best price (was hoping for 2.45, at least). they got me in for 2.35 each. i've seen this happen before and tdwaterhouse is always good when it comes to speed of execution on option orders. now, i know i can always trust them on getting me a fair price, too. target price is 278 for cme to hit by end of day thursday, or try to recover whatever value there is left by then. i just hope that when a good profit is available, i'll be able to take it eventhough it hasn't hit my target. risk capital is: $1645 (plus comm) news was that there was rumor cbot doesn't want merger or buyout from cme. rumor was confirmed afterhours... CME could get hit tomorrow. i'm willing to ride the swings in both direction, but this has to be baby-sat for practically every minute. currently ahead as the options closed showing: 2.80 x 3.00 Peace.
Hi Palawan, Please keep up the posts about your options trading, they are worth the read. As for myself, exited my TMTA position today at $2.11 for a gain of roughly 120% (my first double), felt that the stock was nearing a short-term peak (particularly with the big spike in volume), decided to book my profits. Going to continue to monitor and look for a high probability re-entry point, but I also have a couple of other stocks on my radar that I am watching closely. I suppose that I might end up leaving a bunch of money on the table if the stock continues to rocket upwards, but I'm happy for now to have closed out the position.
Congrats, Chagi! A wise move to take your profits and stay sceptically optimistic! Sounds like you have a steady hand! Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Palawan, for sharing the last post to me and your exciting adventures - I think you have a somewhat spellbound audience, in two of us anyway!
Thanks, Rob! exciting, yes... but when things don't work out, it's kind of a downer . in the hole over 1200 so far. leverage works both ways. it's tempting to add, but i won't. gotta stick to the plan. it was a high-risk and high-reward play and i won't try to dig myself deeper even if it means i could miss out on some nice returns. greed is the last emotion i need to feed right now. Peace.
Adding to a loser, averaging down, etc. is generally a very bad idea, I think you should always wait to be in the green before you look at adding to a position.
yup... tough position i'm seeing right now. it looks like the stock has stabilized and found some support. i could more than double up for less than 1/4 the price of the original position. probably gonna do it.