<p>Started a trade this morning shorting an IPO stock, it’s already making money. I wish I was not so hesitant this morning. No a big money trade.</p>
<p>Closed out NDLS, Noodles for some quick money. The traders are back from lunch. I initiated another trade on a big oil company. Let’s see how that goes.</p>
<p>Apparently you do this full time</p>
<p>Full time? No just 15 minutes while eating breakfast. I’m working full time but not in full capacity.:D</p>
<p>Doct , looks like it is a good thing you rolled.</p>
<p>I waited 5+ hours to do the trade I mentioned yesterday in aapl… And I am not going to do it. </p>
<p>Just like razorsharp in nat gas , I changed my mind .</p>
<p>I’m just rockin and rollin! I guess I’m becoming senile as I suddenly realized that I have jury duty for the next 3 weeks starting on Tuesday which will make it very difficult to watch the market and those puts. I think I’m going to have to move them further out.</p>
<p>Lol!</p>
<p>Are you going to be on the jury for sure? I am just asking. Obviously you can’t really take a chance. We are usually notified the night before whether we are needed to sit on a jury or not.</p>
<p>Why not aapl dstark? What makes you change your mind.
Checking my trade on big oil. It’s finally going my way. Not sure I’m going to close today because short term trend seems to indicate it will going lower, it could be one of those multi-day trading.</p>
<p>Yes I was picked even though I thought I answered questions in a way that would have disqualified me. It looks like those 9/5 200 - 199.5 puts may end up working.</p>
<p>My experience made me change mind. That and the fact that the probability of the trade working has changed. </p>
<p>I like higher probabilty trades. </p>
<p>If aapl closes here tomorrow, the trade is a loser.</p>
<p>My intuition tells me it’s going to a be a down day tomorrow. We’ll see if my intuition is correct.</p>
<p>Yeah…doct, you are right about the spy trade. </p>
<p>This is the first day in over a year I set up a computer screen so I could actually see what is going on. :)</p>
<p>Sorry you were picked. Make the best of it, right? A different experience. </p>
<p>I would love to be on Jury duty again. I wouldn’t be sorry.</p>
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<p>@DocT - you need to be aware that IRS has some complex rules about hedging transactions, even when one is in a taxable account and the other is an IRA. I can’t really give you details – when I read about them, I just realized that it was not a good plan for me to do the sort of thing you suggest. I have no idea how IRS would be alerted to that sort of stuff or be able to track it – so it might be one of those rules that depends on the honesty of the taxpayer in reporting – but I’m just giving you a heads up.</p>
<p>Also, when I really gave it a lot of thought, I realized that hedging efforts weren’t really such a good idea. Here is th problem: You are losing money on AAPL puts. The temptation is to get into some other AAPL trade that “saves” you – so you are no longer losing on AAPL. Emotionally that is appealing – I know because that was my first impulse on other stocks. </p>
<p>But think about it this way: It’s just money. If you lose $1000 on one stock and make it back on another, you are still breaking even. When you hedge on a particular stock with an offsetting position --you might just be putting yourself in a delta neutral position, where no matter what happens to that stock, up or down, you make nothing. Rather than putting your money in an offsetting transaction on stock that is giving you trouble, you could put the same dollars in a better stock or option deal – one that has better potential to yield big results. Admittedly you can’t predict other stocks either – but at least diversifying works in our favor. </p>
<p>In other words: hedge on AAPL and the best you can hope for is getting closer to 0 (no loss, no gain). And you are still tied up with AAPL. </p>
<p>If you think AAPL is going to go up again long term - then you might just roll out those puts to wait and see. [NOTE (edit): I see now from your other post that you’ve already done that -leaving my other comments in because I think they can be generalized to other situations]</p>
<p>I think this is a bad month for AAPL speculators because of the new iPhone launch on Sept 9. Things will smooth out and probably be more predictable, post-launch. I’m bullish. But I’ve also got a trailing stop on my shares and if AAPL drops much more, it’ll be gone from my portfolio. </p>
<p>One more thing to keep in mind, given that the AAPL puts are in your taxable account. You do better tax wise if all your losses are in the taxable account and all your gains are in the IRA. I can’t seem to get things to work that way… but I do make a point of realizing losses by the end of the year in my taxable account. I never leave a loss situation to carry over to the new year – because if I can do nothing else, I can at least get a little bit of a tax benefit. Because I’m in California, I pay 9.3% on all gains over and above the federal rate. </p>
<p>@DocT:
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<p>It’s not irrational – the stock could bottom out tomorrow at 97 which would increase the cost of the puts were holding - if you saw a chance to profit with a rollout it makes sense to grab it while it’s there. It could evaporate completely tomorrow. There’s a point at which the greeks start working against you on time value when you are deep in the money. </p>
<p>Calmom, I am not sure where you are going with your post.</p>
<p>What hedge are you referring to?</p>
<p>@dstark
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<p>A guy on Seeking Alpha had a different idea:
See: <a href=“http://seekingalpha.com/article/2469425-apple-finally-a-buyable-dip”>Apple: Finally A Buyable Dip (NASDAQ:AAPL) | Seeking Alpha;
<p>The analysts I pay attention to still see AAPL as a strong buy, and the dip as a buying opportunity. </p>
<p>I used to think the analysts were all full of b.s. and I wouldn’t pay attention to anything they said.</p>
<p>Then it occurred to me that the fact that half of the analysts are wrong half of the time doesn’t mean that I know any better than they do. </p>
<p>So now I picked my favorites and I check to see what they recommend. </p>
<p>I don’t always do what they say, but at least I pay attention. </p>
<p>Of course people have other ideas. </p>
<p>I’ve never been on a jury and I doubt I ever well. I get called but I’ve figured out how to pretty much beat the system locally. Around here they let you defer to a time and day of your choosing, so I always defer as far out as possible and pick a Thursday. Trial assignment are always on Monday. If they haven’t started picking a jury by Wednesday, it’s not going to happen. Not a -0- chance, but it’s just like figuring out those option trades – by picking Thursday I’ve probably reduced my probability to less than 10%. The local system is to have telephone standby for the day you are called – and if you don’t get called that one day, even that is enough to excuse you for a year. </p>