Weekly: Fed Monster Truck Rally

Wednesday was Fed day. Stocks, bonds, and gold all rallied. There was a bit of a fade later in the week, but overall the shorts were wrong. I did okay with my cautiously bullish stance. I was relatively happy with my results. Yes, some big swingers made big money by being aggressive. Long time readers know that I describe myself as a cautious trader.

Highlights include new longs in ADBE, FDX, SCTY, SRPT. Here are the trades (c = calls, p = puts, all are third week expiration unless noted, sell means sell-to-open, cover means buy-to-close, number is price per contract):

Mon Sell WYNN Oct 125 c 41

PCLN vertical: 

Sell PCLN Oct 1300 p 357

Buy PCLN Oct 1250 p 212

Sell SCTY Oct 11 p 25

Sell BRKB Oct 148 p 103

Sell TSLA SepW5 185 p 51

Sell FB SepW5 122 p 22

Sell SRPT Oct 35 p 35

Thu Sell FDX Oct 160 p 44

Sell ADBE Oct 100 p 29

Sell IWM Oct 116 p 34

Sell GLD Oct 122 p 24

Sell TWLO strangles: 

Sell TWLO Oct 50 p 82

Sell TWLO Oct 90 c 50

Sell NTES Oct 300 c 50

Monthly: Weathering the storm, 51-5 grade B+

Volatility ticks up. My cautious approach works fairly well. Stocks, bonds and gold all moved lower for this cycle. I made modest gains. I count 51 winners, 5 losers for the September option cycle.

The year-to-date etf tracking follows, best to worst, dividends not included:

SLV +35.4% silver

GLD +23.3% gold

EEM +13.4% emerging market stocks

TLT +11.8% U.S. treasury bonds

IWM +8.2% U.S. small cap stocks

SPY +4.7% U.S. large cap stocks

my trading account +6.8%.

Good news: I finally leap frog out of last place, moving ahead of SPY for calendar 2016. Considering how the year started, with about a 9% drawdown, being positive, moving ahead of the S&P 500 is all good news. Cynics can say that "good traders" made much more. Just look at the big gains in other asset classes, such as silver, gold, treasury bonds.

Going forward I continue to be cautious. That said, a surge to the upside in stocks, might be the most frustrating thing the market can do. Last month I wrote about some election trades. All were mediocre to dead wrong. I thought gold and bonds would go up, and both went down. I thought stocks would be more volatile, and that was true, but my positions did not move much.

Weekly: Apple blow out

I got blown out for a loss on some sold AAPL calls. Thankfully, that was the worst of the damage to my chicken coop, as the markets moved up, down, up, and down again. Being short way otm options was a decent place to be this week, so I came out ahead. GLD and GDX positions also became uncomfortable.

Market rollercoaster may continue with Fed next week, then the first presidential debate on the 26th. It may be concidence that the Fed meeting is Wednesday, and Mercury goes direct on Thursday, but hey, whatever works. The monthly update will be posted soon.

Here are the trades (c = calls, p = puts, all are third week expiration unless noted, sell means sell-to-open, cover means buy-to-close, number is price per contract):

Mon Sell FB Sep 124 p 16

Sell BRKB SepW4 143 p 31

Sell AAPL SepW4 100 p 33

Tue Sell TLT Oct 143 c 21

Sell GLD Oct 135 c 35

Sell IWM Oct 128 c 29

Sell BRKB SepW4 149 c 60

Sell GDX SepW4 29 c 25

Wed Cover AAPL SepW4 110 c 252 for a 1800% loss. Ouch. Thankfully a small dollar amount.

Sell TWLO Oct 40 p 70

Sell VRX Oct 20 p 34

Sell WYNN Oct 85 p 47

Sell BABA Oct 85 p 22

Thu Sell GLD SepW4 130 c 17

Sell AMZN vert: 

Buy AMZN Oct 650 p 124

Sell AMZN Oct 675 p 193

Sell NTES Oct 195 p 102

Sell AAPL SepW4 123 c 15

Fri Sell TLSA SepW4 185 p 36

Weekly: Live long and prosper

This week Star Trek fans celebrated the 50th anniversary of the show. The Vulcan farewell is "live, long and prosper." Friday, the stock market hit its first bit of real turbulence since the Brexit scare. I am down for the week. I was cautious, but still got hit. For those tracking planet Mercury, it comes out of retrograde on 9/22/16.

I don't think this is the "big one," but as always we can only tell in hindsight. One trading buddy moved to 100% cash on Thursday. Good move. I don't do all-in, all-out, all-short kind of moves, so would never do that. My market timing tends to be no better than flipping coins, so mostly I manage risk, and mostly sell premium.

I thought a stock market decline would be good for bonds and gold, but on Friday all three went down. Highlights include a whipsaw loss in GDX, a new long position in AMZN that quickly went to red, a bearish ratio spread in FB. 

Here are the trades (c = calls, p = puts, all are third week expiration unless noted, sell means sell-to-open, cover means buy-to-close, number is price per contract):

Mon Sell SPG Sep 200 p 19

Sell GDX SepW4 25 p 19

Sell GLD SepW4 123 p 31

Cover GDX Sep 28.5 c 83 for a 500% loss

Sell SPG Oct 190 p 59 add

AMZN 730/750 credit put vertical: 

Buy AMZN Sep 730 p 47

Sell AMZN Sep 750 p 97 gross 50

Big sell off on Friday. I came in light, but still took it on the chin. I sell calls, I short FB, I turn my put vertical AMZN into an iron condor. With gold, bonds and stocks all down, my thesis so far has been wrong. I thought a decline in stocks would mean a rally in bonds and gold. It ain't working out so far.

Fri Sell BRKB Oct 155 c 50

FB ratio spread: 

Buy FB Oct 110 p 118

Sell 2x FB Oct 110 p 27 each

Sell TLT Oct 126 p 25

Sell TLT Oct 145 c 18

Sell AMZN vertical: 

Sell AMZN Sep 792.5 c 98

Buy AMZN Sep 802.5 c 44

Sell TSLA Oct 235 c 83

Sell TSLA Sep 210 c 38

Sell GDX Oct 32.5 c 18

Sell GLD Oct 137 c 31

Sell SPG Oct 230 c 43

Sell BRKB SepW4 150 c 72

Sell BRKB Oct 155 c (2nd) 36

Weekly: CMG SPG TSLA UAL

New positions in Simon Property Group SPG and United Airlines UAL. I reenter CMG and TSLA. I adjust my GLD and GDX positions.

Here are the trades (c = calls, p = puts, all are third week expiration unless noted, sell means sell-to-open, cover means buy-to-close, number is price per contract):

Mon Sell BRKB Sep 142 p 27

Sell SPG Oct 190 p 81 new long Simon Property Group

Sell TSLA strangles: 

Sell TSLA Sep 190 p 56

Sell TSLA Sep 240 c 38

Sell CMG strangles: 

Sell Sep 375 p 72

Sell Sep 470 c 62

Tue Sell SPG Oct 230 c 53 hedge

Sell GDX 28.5 c 17 hedge

Sell AAPL Sep 98 p 18 add

Sell BRKB Sep 144 p 28 rebalance

Sell GLD Sep 131 c 16 hedge

Wed Sell UAL Sep 45 p 17

Thu Sell TSLA Sep 230 c 35

Fri Sell GDX Sep 25 p 17

Sell TLSA Sep 215 c 63

Sell GLD Sep 123 p 17

Sell BRKB Oct 140 p 54