<p>I like your straddle trade. I never thought to sell it though which I like better than buying it.</p>
<p>Apple’s earnings are coming out tentatively for Apr24. </p>
<p>I would not sell weeklys then…</p>
<p>Unless you are using spreads…To cover you on bigger moves…</p>
<p>I guess I didn’t delete that straddle post quickly enough…:)</p>
<p>Although you make money on the straddle between 560 and 640…</p>
<p>On your overall position…</p>
<p>Your breakeven on the downside is 580… Because you are long the stock.</p>
<p>When you sell the straddle against the long stock…you are really just
switching the position from long stock to short the 580 puts…
If you sell the straddle one for one against the stock position…</p>
<p>You are betting that the stock won’t move as much as it has lately.</p>
<p>By the way as far as the weekly aapl put - I sold the put at 590, if it gets close to that ~595 - I’ll roll it over to next week to 560.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t do the aapl puts near earnings because of volatility near earnings - which is to some level captured in the probability calculators</p>
<p>Ok…on your last 2 posts…</p>
<p>Economy is definitely getting better. Especially if you are highly skilled.</p>
<p>We just lost an employee. I spent lots of time getting him up to speed. He’s only been here a year. Oh well.</p>
<p>My company is expecting somewhat of a slowdown in the second half of the year. Last year we had record profits. That being said we’re not hiring anybody. We have a group of jobbers who cushion the company during slowdowns. If things get bad, they’re gone - when things are good - they get hired. This keeps the full time staff at a steady number.</p>
<p>Nice to read that the economy is getting better…BCEagle91.</p>
<p>Doct…I have another idea for you…</p>
<p>If you are long stock in aapl…and are willing to sell around 630…</p>
<p>Long 100 shares of aapl.</p>
<p>Sell 2 apr 630 calls</p>
<p>Buy 1 may 630 call…</p>
<p>What can happen…</p>
<p>Stock stays below 630 at apri expiratioon…calls go to zero</p>
<p>You end up with stock and the may 630 call for nothing…there will be a
premium for the may 630 call… The apr 630 calls pay for the may 630 </p>
<p>call…</p>
<p>The stock goes above 630 at apr expiration. You lose the stock …and you end up short the stock and long the may 630 call…you end up long the equivalent of the may 630 put for almost nothing going into earnings…</p>
<p>If the stock goes down a lot…this trade doesn’t do much for you…</p>
<p>And if the stock goes way above 630 before apr expiration…maybe 640… You will be disappointed that you did this trade…</p>
<p>You can also do this with other strikes…the math changes…</p>
<p>I think that the type of people that we hire are in pretty strong demand. We aren’t in the best of locations for grads in New Hampshire. A good place to start a family but most grads aren’t in that category. Undergrad hires tend to live in Boston and commute here which gets really old when winter comes rolling along.</p>
<p>Nobody mentioned first time unemployment claims but they were down 5K around 350K, expectations were a rise of 4K.</p>
<p>BCEagle91…Your own kids don’t want to live where you live. 
I can see other young people choosing Boston.</p>
<p>Well…my wife may be out of a job in two weeks…</p>
<p>We will see if there is age discrimination.</p>
<p>so looks like calendar spreads. I don’t own the stock - only options. I could do this with options but I wouldn’t want to own that much aapl outright above 630. I don’t own any stock except good dividend yielders > 3% and in mutual funds that are in my 401k plans.</p>
<p>Yes…a calendar spread…but in a ratio…</p>
<p>Ok…this doesn’t fit you…</p>
<p>I’d love to live in Boston for a year. It would probably be a lot of fun. And expensive. Though that’s okay. I think that my wife would like to be down there too - I was suggesting that she look for a job cooking food (she can make indian, chinese, japanese, korean, thai, vietnamese, italian, breads, pastas and a lot of other stuff). I don’t know if there’s demand for cooks in Boston. There are a lot of cooking schools so I imagine that there are a lot of people with skills.</p>
<p>“Yeah CS isn’t for everybody…”</p>
<p>BC - Probably more opportunity (and money!) in managing CS types. Most organizations don’t require a CS background for that … in fact a technical background is an impediment in some organizations.</p>
<p>I bet there is a demand for chefs. Does your wife share your interest in moving to Boston for a year?</p>
<p>Oh wait…she does…
I bet it would be fun…</p>
<p>Why not?</p>
<p>Where I work, the first-line managers are individual contributors too. Almost all of the managers at higher levels were engineers and they are technical even though they are managers. I have known only one notable exception.</p>
<p>Our daughter is not the hard-driving workaholic type that my son is - she enjoys being more social. She has a lot of potential but she doesn’t work towards it. The kids are like night and day. So I just like to point her in a direction that I think will work for her.</p>
<p>Well, I still work in New Hampshire. I probably don’t have to come in that often but I’d want to. I may just leave everyone down in Boston while I’m up here and go down there a few days a week. It would be fun working on a park bench in the Commons with the squirrels running around.</p>
<p>Sounds good to me…</p>
<p>My kids are very different also. My daughter plays it by the book. She loved Cambridge and Boston - so do I. She would like to do her residency there and settle down permanently there. Most of my relatives live in that area and its only 140 miles away so we wouldn’t mind her staying there permanently. My son is more “entrepenurial” and doesn’t do anything by the book. He hates cities and lives in Vermont.</p>