Good afternoon all, I just jumped out of my 1000 shares of Facebook (FB). I bought the 1000 shares on January 11th at $96.36. On the 12th I sold 10 contracts of this Friday’s $100 Calls and received a $1.15 premium. On the 1000 shares the total premium was $1150. I really hate the way the market has been moving lately. Down 300, up 300, It’s not good for the heartbeat. When I sold the Call on FB I was hoping the stock would go up over the Strike Price of $100 and get assigned. Take the few points on the stock and keep the premium. Well, it didn’t look like that was going to happen because tomorrow is expiration and right now FB is hanging around $97. I decided to dump the stock while I was making a profit and go naked on the Call which will expire tomorrow. I got in at $96.36 and I sold at $97 for a $.64 profit. On the 1000 shares that’s $640 (3 days). FB might continue to go up but I don’t care. I got out with a profit. I do have to watch closely till tomorrow because since I sold the stock I’m naked on the 10 contracts. If by tomorrow afternoon the stock is approaching the $1000 strike I’ll have to cover my Call with buying the stock back. You might ask why did he tell the stock? My answer is, even though the market’s going up as I write I don’t like the way it’s moving. I grabbed a profit and I’m happy. Just as easy as this stock can go up $3 it can also go down $3. The down $3 is what scares me. If my Call expires tomorrow with FB below $100 it will be a great 4 day Covered Call trade. We all must develop our own philosophy and strategy, and mine is grab a profit while I can. Even though my strategy is to be a rules & disciplined trader, SHIT HAPPENS! Murphy’s Law is one of the laws I always try to remember.
Now that I’m out of FB I only have 2 stock positions I have to worry about. One is Gopro (GPRO) and the other is Netflix (NFLX). I’m not really worry about NFLX because it’s a great company. Not to say it can’t go down a bunch but even if it did I know it will come back at some point. I cannot get out of NFLX because I have a 20 contracts Call sold on my 2000 shares and the stocks down from where I bought it. The Calls expire tomorrow.
GPRO is another story. I blogged about GPRO yesterday, so if you don’t know what’s going on with that you can read yesterday’s post. It’s titled “GPRO Trouble.” I own 2000 shares and I think I’ll be holding it for a while. I might sell some Calls on it to bring in some cash but I’ll have to watch the news to see how the company’s doing. I really hope a bigger company buys them. That would cause a move. Actually, the stock’s doing better than I thought today. Right now it’s only down $1.90 from yesterday’s close.
If you don’t get an email some days make sure you go to the blog site and read “Message of the Day” in the top menu bar.
I completed 2 more pages which are under “Philosophy, Strategy & Risk.” The pages are “Naked Calls” and “1 Week/1%.” Make sure you read them, I think you’ll enjoy them.
I added 3 terms to the Stock/Options Glossary, Grasshopper, Money-in-the-Mattress and Murphy’s Law.
Steve
The Options Coach