Friday, April 20, 2012

12-3 for April

I count 12 winners 3 losers on individual option trades for the April option cycle. I give myself a gentleman's C grade for the month. Overall, my timing was poor, almost comically bad at times. A flat month usually means good times for option sellers, but some big blunders limited my profit. The bright side is another month in the green.

The three losers include a short strangle on APC Anadarko Petroleum, a short put on LGF Lions Gate, and one leg of a put spread on IBM. Winners include short puts on AXP, LGF, SPY, XRT, IWM, IBM, SLV, some with multiple layers of short puts, short calls on APC, IWM.

The big loser was about -330% on the recently rolled LGF Apr 13 puts which I initiated when the stock was 15.1 and rolled with the stock at 12. The short LGF Apr 12 puts got rolled at a profit. Some positions such as APC and SLV were closed early. The SLV puts would have expired worthless. The APCs would have been a lot worse had I stayed in.

Going forward I am short puts on BRKB, LGF, SPY, TLT, and have complicated positions on GLD and IWM that are net long.

Long LGF SPY TLT
net long GLD, IWM

AXP American Express
BRKB Berkshire Hathaway
IBM International Business Machines
IWM Russell 2000 ETF
LGF Lions Gate Entertainment
SLV Silver ETF
SPY S&P 500 ETF
TLT Treasury bond ETF
XRT Retail sector ETF

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