Both my two new carry overs as well as SQNM worked out well today. I was not able to get all the losses from SQNM back but I was able to exit at a good price so I walked away. The rest of the day was slow as expected when the market was down premarket. Made for a very good LEAP and ATI which was carried over but I knew the pickings would be few today unless the market turned around. With one hour to go in trading thats not going to happen and if it does not in time for me to be able to trade it. LEAP + 401 ATI + 244 SQNM + 119 YHOO had a buyout rumor today that I was able to get some order flow from. + 91 SVU H, was the only real trade of the day. I was able to scalp it back and forth to squeeze a little more out of it. + 325 CAL was not a direct signal. CAL was brought to my attention by a chat room member and after looking at the chart it appeared to have become overbought and I faded the move. As I watched it I really liked it for a strong short so I placed very aggressive sells on it to ensure I would have some size in the trade. That worked out well as it fell right after and never looked back. + 671 + 1854 Day
Started out as a refreshing day. Without having any carry overs I was in no rush to get to the office. The carefree attitude went away pretty fast as I started trading right away. I had several signals today and scalped a lot of different stocks today. I started the day out with MF and faded the move higher during the open. + 291 SHLD was next to come up on my radar. It was acting very strong and moving around a lot so I felt that I would be able to take a trade as well as scalp it. I was able to scalp for much of the gains. I also traded it several times during the day.+ 1307 CVC H, CVC was a good short and appears to be a canidate for the watchlist tomorrow + 144 EMN was traded on news and was my only loss for the day. I actually thought of holding and writting some options against it to hedge as it appears this is a good stock to own at this price level. I ended up walking away and taking the hit. - 24 MFC news, + 7 MF news, + 291 ELN did not get a signal but based on its chart pattern I shorted it as it appeared to be overbought. + 607 APOL did give a H signal but after the bell rang for the close. News came over the wire on it right before the signal hit so APOL is as much a news play as it is a valid signal. I am trading it as I write this entry so I am unsure what the end result will be. So far I have closed out + 128 and it appears I will carry some to tomorrow. + 2639 Day
Well we knew that APOL would gap higher and I took that into account when I carried over from yesterday but I was a little suprised that it was going to open at almost 87 and I guess the rest of the market was surprised as well. APOL fell to under 85 right away. I traded APOL all day and while my gain was small I started out in the hole with the gap higher then expected. I would have done better but it took to about 3 mins before the close to close it out as it did not move around much after the first hour of trading. + 13 Missed a couple of other trades by a few pennies so APOL turned into the only trade of the day. Day + 13 Week + 3249 Month + 3574 9400 shares 118,500 shares mth
Day started out with an attempt to trade SAY but IB saying that the contract could only be closed and no new positions could be added long or short. Even with the news and loss in value it was surprising that IB was going to just walk away from allowing traders to trade it. I also scalped MS during the open. + 586 Next up was EYE. EYE is being bought out for 22. This is good news for brokers because they can get a lot of volume from arb trading. Basically you take the takeover price and use a formula that consists of the following. current interest rate, date of take over, and add in the risk of failure of the take over. Scalped MR + 243 Sold LVS FEB $5 Puts for .64 each. As I wrote in my posts about LVS, I believe LVS will not go under. Selling puts during dips provides a good risk to reward way of earning income in that the price only needs to stay above $5 to keep all the premium and $4.36 to not lose money by the third Friday in February. I also sold LVS MAR $5 Puts for .95 each. Tried to scalp EYE but the price for the most part only faded downward during the course of the day. EYE is being bought out for 22 per shares and I scalped both long and short. Still long - 297 + 532 Day
Today was a tough day due to allowing SAY to whipsaw me around and while I closed out my long near the bottom for the day I was happy to get rid of it. I largly wanted to scalp it for small gains but didnââ¬â¢t give it enough time to work its way around. - 939 I missed shorting SQNM calls during the open as I was away from the office for about the first hour of trading. i will be looking for a move up tomorrow in the major market indexes and that should hopefully send SQNM up to its peak as well. I was able to scalp USO pretty well today and wrote put options against a drop in USO. The 25 Feb and Mar puts where sold near the high of the day so I end today with an open gain in options that I plan to hold for a while. + 253 Scalped SEPR near its HOD. + 38 I also scalped GE which has been hammered recently. + 42 Along with scalping GE I shorted some put options. GE FEB 10 puts for .24 each GE FEB 12 puts for .60 each I currently have short some FEB 14 GE puts that came close to going into the money today. I expect that GE will have its price firm up tomorrow as today marks the fourth day in a row it has fallen and today was a pretty big move downward. At the end of the day I was not able to overcome the hit I took with SAY but I also ended the day with an open gain of $554 so I donââ¬â¢t feel too bad as today closes out. I was underwater most of the day but I traded for three over three hours after the closing bell and ended up making a small gain for the day. I shorted some GE and USO put options today. Near the closing bell came an announcement that Steve Jobs would be leaving Apple AAPL due to health reasons. The stock was halted and when it opened up it opened near 79.60ish. It feel to under 77 per share and at that point I started buying to scalp it. It continued its way higher off the lows and then I reversed course and started to short it thinking that I would be pretty safe as it could be expected to have follow through tomorrow at the open to the down side. Over three hours after the closing bell I finished trading. +351 This also changes my daily results. + 117 Day + 1158 Week + 4720 Month 29300 Shares 222,200 Shares Mth
Today was a mixed day. while I did have some things that went my way today, Others such as APOL moved against me. I started out the day, positioning my covers for APOL at a point that was as luck would have it was Just below the low of the day. I then went nine to trade APOL by fading the moves up and covering during the moves down. I ended the day with 2600 shares short ending now cost basis of $88 and a partially hedged with two February 85 puts. - 487 I covered the ESI call options and I am flat with ESI at this time. Will be watching to see if the charts tell me to short again. + 123 I scalped both TSO and BCS TSO + 43 BCS + 39 GE went on a ride today. Starting out strong only to fall from grace and looking into the abyss to fool everyone and end up the day stronger. If you want volatility you need to look no further than the oldest SnP stock there is. LVS was also all over the map and ended up a little bit higher. * USO 26 PUT Wrote for 1.35 $270 * USO 28 put wrote for .20 (wrote today ) $100 * LVS 7.50 call wrote for .80 (against stock that I own) $320 * APOL 90 call wrote .20 $ 77 * APOL 85 put wrote for .07 $ 161 Total added to the day that does not show up in the PnL as it was not executed. + 928 + 647 Day + 1951 Week + 5513 Month 8800 Shares 258400 Shares Mth
Today started out very well in pre-market when I checked on APOL to find that it was trading lower in premarket trading. During the open I covered all but 400 shares that I was short and the 400 remaining are covered shorts with FEB 85 Puts written against them for a premium of 4.30. If APOL options close in the money (below 85) on expiration day I will have a net gain of about 7.30 per share. My goal is not to actually make that much but rather be able to take the gain of the options at the time of expiration for a gain of 4.30 for the stock I covered + 1052 PNC H, was just crushed today. It never made it to the magic 50% down mark but it did become oversold on a weekly basis so I started to short some puts in it. They went into the money for a short period as the stock started to recover some of the losses. Further in the day it rolled over and made new LODs. I traded the stock for a day trade and closed out a gain but I am also long overnight. + 307 2 FEB 15 Put sold for 1.10 12 FEB 12.5 puts sold for .78 USO was sent downward once again today due to the fall in oil prices. I wrote some more FEB 23 puts for .53 each. I like GE even with half its profits and half the dividends. I been selling puts with the thought that if I have the stock put to me I will just write calls against it and ride this out. At some point and maybe not soon the stock will have value again in the eyes of investors. In the mean time I will continue to buy it on sale and with the method of selling puts. I sold 4 more GE Feb 10 puts for .47 It was a busy day and I will be watching PNC during the open tommorrow. Depending upon the premium I will either exit out or short some calls to hedge the stock. More than likely I will exit. Scalped a couple of stocks KGC + 257 BVN + 60 + 1678 Day / Week