<p>Hope everyone made some money on this bounce-back, especially in the $compq.</p>
<p>I had a look at son’s apartment rental prices in Boston and was stunned by the prices this morning. Prices are down 12-15% from a year ago and there are a huge number of units for rent. The studios are down about $200-$300/month. Some of the one-bedroom rentals went from $2,700 to $2,250. There are many more units available than I’ve ever seen.</p>
<p>Perhaps low interest rates are moving people from rentals to buying homes - kind of what we’ve been hearing about how well the housing market is doing. Our son is getting to the point where he is pretty effective working remotely and I could see him just going in one or two days a week and otherwise working offsite which would open up a lot of other housing options. His manager already gives him jobs to do at night and on the weekends and he does those remotely.</p>
A lot of companies these days give out Restricted Stock or Restricted Stock Units rather than options, for tax reasons.</p>
<p>These are different than options in that when they vest you get immediate ownership of the shares, and you have to pay taxes on the full value on the day it vests, because the cost is $0 to the employee.</p>
<p>So perhaps what the insiders got were restricted shares that had vested.</p>
<p>In the MetroWest area, which is where DW does most of her work, rental prices are holding steady. There certainly aren’t 12-15% drops in prices.</p>
<p>Have any large new complexes come on line? Maybe Boston over-built. Maybe investors have been snapping up distressed properties and they are now flooding the rental market.</p>
<p>I think that it was more of a bubble. There were a lot of complaints at this complex where one-bedroom renewals went up by $500/month in late 2011. I think that was the peak and they have been coming down this year and only today dropped a lot more.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, there’s still a healthy job market in Boston but maybe people are looking at cheaper options after living right in Boston for a year.</p>
<p>I think that there has been a moderate amount of building across the river in Cambridge. It was relatively easier to find rentals there than in Boston, especially in Beacon Hill. T access isn’t quite as close on the Cambridge side.</p>
<p>I watch the prices at this place because it’s easy to do (they have a website showing their inventory and the rental prices by unit).</p>
<p>BTW, I just took a quick look at the 3 BR units. It doesn’t look like those have dropped in price at all. They range from $4,265 to $5,590 per month and there are only a few of them available. I guess that price really doesn’t matter much at those levels.</p>
<p>Dstark: I had bought a 1/19/13 500 calls in aapl for 96.58, sold 1/19/13 645 calls for 9.5 and bought a 590 12/22/12 put for 16.50. I must be looking at this in some strange way since when I put into a calculator different scenarios I got some unexpected results. For example: if aapl is at 500 on 12/22, the 1/19 call is still worth $20, the 645 call is almost worthless and the 590 put is worth 90 so I get -76.58 +9.5+90 = 22.7?? Of course this assumes the implied volatility on 12/22 is the same as today. It looks like I make money at some higher level than the 596.58 (somewhat < 603.58) but also if its down a lot?? How am I looking at this incorrectly?</p>
<p>Sounds like you have the ability to run option values at different dates. </p>
<p>Your put profit calculation is wrong. </p>
<p>The jan Call option still has lots of premium left.</p>
<p>Fix the profit on the puts… </p>
<p>You are going to end up short stock (the puts are going to be exercied) long calls after dec expiration if Aapl is 500 a share at expiration. I am ignoring those 645 calls.</p>
<p>When you put on the position, you were long aapl… And wanted the stock to go up.</p>
<p>At 500 a share, you are short aapl.</p>
<p>You can make money on this position with the stock at 500. You are </p>
<p>making money because as the stock goes down, You are getting shorter. If the stock dropped to 400 you would make even more.</p>
<p>You are up on the trade with the stock at 500 on 12/22 because you still have premium in the calls…</p>
<p>Run the trade for dates 12/29 1/05/2013, 1/22/2013 and your profits will erode.</p>
<p>The January 645 call is still at most going to be <9.50 because I sold it when aapl was around 590 and the erosion of time value. Even at that I’m still making money at 500. The purpose of this trade was so that if aapl had a large drop by 12/22, I would sell it. At the time I thought the market would be rocky with the fiscal cliff and all, expecting perhaps resolution before Christmas. Now that is appearing less likely so if aapl has a big drop, I’m out on the 22nd. When I put the trade on, I was protecting myself to the 22nd, I hadn’t looked at the possibility that if it dropped a lot or went up a lot, I would have a profit on that date.</p>
<p>Interesting - how do you do this so quickly? I’m putting in numbers into a options calculator and doing the arithmetic by hand. Is there a program that does this more quickly?</p>
<p>There has to be software programs out there that will show your profit and loss from option positions over time, specific dates, specific volatilities, etc…</p>
<p>I don’t know of any, but the programs have to exist. Some brokerage firms may even have this software. Maybe IB? Trade Station? The Najarians option company. Schwab owns sn option company now? Maybe Schwabs?</p>
<p>Might be some free programs floating around too…</p>
<p>There supposedly an article floating around that discusses the fact that there are massive layoffs in the trading industry. I can’t find it. The article discusses that returns are not very good and with the layoffs, returns still won’t be good.</p>
<p>I think hedge funds are having a pretty bad year as a group. </p>
<p>SF residential real estate might be at all time highs. I was told prices are at all time highs. Multiple bids. 50 homes priced over 5 million have sold this year.</p>
<p>This is a great house. A little out of my budget.</p>
<p>Options pricing formulas exist and should be available, most of them are based on variations of Scholes-Black (or Black-Scholes) that take into account the volatility of the option, underlying price, maturity date and interest rates to give you pricing at a certain date. </p>
<p>Most trading houses in options and derivatives have proprietary models they use for pricing, but I suspect there are basic black-scholes calculators out there you could use, I don’t know if any of the trading firms like e-trade, schwab or the others offer those to their investors. </p>
<p>And yes, trading firms have had a rough year, either in options or derivatives, a lot of the firms are cutting back, plus in derivatives there is uncertainty because of the pending Dodd-Frank regulations and what they will mean.</p>