Cover APC short puts

I cover my short APC Mar 80 puts APC@83.7 for a 95% profit. APC isn't acting well. So while the chance of an assignment with only 2 days to go before expiration is small, so is the remaining time premium. This makes my expiration Friday an easier day at small cost. I am still short Mar 72.5 puts, Mar 90 calls, Apr 75 puts for a net long position.

While a 95% profit in 26 days sounds super exciting, the dollar amounts tend to be small and there is also margin cash involved in selling puts. At ThinkorSwim the margin is typically about 10% of the price of buying the underlying, plus some fudge factor. For selling APC Mar 80 puts, the margin starts at $800 per contract plus a bit. This compares to $8000 for buying 100 shares of APC at 80, so there is a potential of 10x leverage with selling short puts. It is more like 8 or 9 times leverage because of the fudge factor on the margin number.

This APC position was the only short option that was realistically at risk of assignment and even then it was at 5% or so. The rest of my short options look to be safe going into expiration this Friday.

Elsewhere AAPL looks like a tempting short, or at least short premium, but I feel like I am too slow moving a trader to be stepping in front of that popular train.

GLD getting smacked down again. Too late for my GDX Mar 45 puts. The good news is that I pivoted the GLD calendar spread from net long to net short after the last Bernanke rout so limited the overall damage.

Long AXP IBM IWM SPY XRT
net short APC, GLD
* long BRKB, MCD
* short GDX
* delta is near zero on these positions