Been struggling with this trade all day....I was thinking about setting up an iron condor again on AMZN like the one I had on NFLX....but AMZN's just not a mover like NFLX. It's no 15% pop. AMZN is more like a guaranteed 7-8% swinger. I'm just going to go with calls....Looks to me like expectations are low this time around, after all, AMZN has been warning for for the past few quarters about margin pressure as it pushes growth. If AMZN somehow get a nice surprise in the FY12 guidance, I think it just might push to $220. Anyways, weeklys with amzn 205/215 at for $225 with $775 potential reward seems like a good risk for me. I'll go in with 2 calls as usual. 2 calls seem to work well for me lately. I don't see anything else I like, and I'm just going to stick with SYNA and BIIB for now. I mean, BIIB guided fy12 below estimates and they are still trading higher? Can't get better than that to be wrong on the guidance direction and still have the trade go in your direction. Going to need some luck later though.
lol, the bid's showing 0.01, about $2 in premium left for my position, I'll ought to give my broker another $5 just to put that out of its misery.
ryan playing earnings the way you do is always a gamble. a winner or a loser, and I have no problem with it; I just want to say I am glad to see how you have changed over the weeks. You came out guns blazin' putting 50%+ of your account on the line. Now we see you buying a few contracts on certain names and taking the gains or losses as they come. Usually buying 2 contracts at a time or doing some spreads Just glad to see you changing a bit and playing the game smarter. best of luck and happy trading
Of course you realize that the naysayers from 15 pages ago are waiting on the sidelines for him to blow up his account before we hear from them again.
hey Ryan as I mentioned before, why do you only trade front or weekly... why not pay for some time, and if you get a move like FFIV/NFLX etc. you still perform OK. Of course, in your account you cannot convert you long puts/calls into a spread to try and recoup or turn a loss into a profit. i understand your account is not authorized for spreads. But take for example GMCR last earnings. Had you bought a back month call the stock traded almost 25 points higher from its gap lower. So had you done a back month on RVBD there is still potential for it to close the gap; and you can either 1. average the calls and/or 2. create some back ratio spread etc. best, S p.s. I am in GMCR march against feb puts/calls - will take delivery if by chance it hits my lower put strikes - lol
haha and I surely was one of those naysayers. I never really root against anyone to blow up but am realistic in knowing many do. I'm just glad he's appeared to adopt some risk management in his approach.
LOL, keep proving them wrong, ryan! maybe try to keep any one trade below 5-7% risk? (7% only for highest probability choices) anyone look at RCL? maybe cruise lines are ready to start a nice downtrend; earnings on 2/2 before open i would be more interested in Mar puts; cost a little more but give time to catch big price movement; am looking at Mar 25.00 last price 0.93 comments?
Thanks, I came out blazing to see how it would feel on some heavy losses and heavy winners....Trading stocks, when you take a $1000 gain, it's only an 8-9% gain, so not much to gloat about. So far here in options, I've seen -100% losses, and 200% gains per trade. That drop in my account from about 2750 to 1755 was to calm my nerves. As you can see, I'm feeling much more comfortable now taking losses and knowing when to let the winners just run a little. I was looking at $5500 in my options account today, but that AMZN loss will bring me down to about $4800. Not even going to look back on this one, just moving ahead and start research on QCOM for tomorrow. Still have that GMCR trade to think about, but serious thinking of setting up spread with GMCR after losses today.
Well, something like AMZN today is one of those reason I try not to get too deep into the money. I mean my spread will be close to $0, but at a small cost to me, imagine those traders who took AMZN Feb 18 2012 $175 call at $23.90. That's $2,390 for 1 contract. First of all, 2390 would put me deep into this position with half my account. And tomorrow if AMZN opens at $177 as shown in AH, I bet those options will be near $5-$6 at best. One important thing I've learned when testing options out paper trading last year was that volatility crush kills when I'm wrong. I expect the stock to push through my options when I'm right negating volatility crush, but when I'm wrong, that's it. That's why I try to stick to high beta trades, where my notes told me that a stock like AMZN at $190 will move by 15-20 points minimum and more if earnings surprise. I'm glad I didn't also set up a spread on the put side because I would have used 175/165 puts and with AMZN only at 177, I'd get crushed there too. As my position looks now, it's going to be a -505.90 loss