Week of Jan 18, 2010

My STP Jan 15 Put turned out well. Not too good for my AIG Jan 35 Put. I ended up with a lost of $31. I rolled over to AIG May 33 Put which was traded at $7.15. An approximate 4%/month not factoring in  compounding interest.

I need to watch my STP Feb 16 Put cautiously now that earning season is here. STP result is due March 4.

All in all my Jan trade ended with ~2.9% gain. As long as I could maintain this and not overly ambitious, I am happy.

One thing that is hurting my overall portfolio is the long positions that I have. It has been dropping quite a lot late. All my AIG, BAC and C are in reds... :(

Jan 6, 2010

I have been looking at opportunity at the financial sector. Should the economy pick up, I believe some of the beaten down stock could post good potential for high return. I have some Citigroup shares but I would not add more of that to my portfolio. I decided to buy a long term call. I bought Jan 5 Call (expiring Jan 2012) at $0.63. I am quite optimistic on this but will see how it goes.

Any comments?

Week of Dec 7, 2009

A couple of trades since my last blog. I know I had been out for a while.

I closed my STP Nov 16 Put at $1.59, which I opened at $1.7. Minus trading fees, I made a small lost. At the same time,  I sold STP Jan 15 Put at $1.86, which is at $0.65 now.

Yesterday, I closed my STP Dec 14 Put at $0.15, which I opened at $1.25. All in, a 7% gain.

I am hoping to close my STP Dec 16 Put soon if the trend is favourable.

Ciao for now and may you all have a prosperous week.

Week of Oct 19, 2009

Exactly a week ago, I sold an AIG Nov 45 Call @ $4.85. AIG was traded at high $43 then. Thanks to recent drop, I closed this call today at $2.87. A net gain of ~4% in a week. I am quite happy with this trade even though I am fully aware that potentially AIG could drop further from here. I am trying to lock in on the profit for my Nov target. 

On a separate note, I sold STP Dec 16 Put @ $2.05. This is a potential 5.5%/month gain. Hope my choice is right.

Oct 16, 09

Back in end of Aug, I wrote a AIG Nov 33 Put @ $5.50. It was the first trade I made that is longer than one month. I decided to close this today @ $0.82. All in all a net of 13.53% in a month and a half. I am quite happy with this. If I hold my other Nov trades even, I would have basically achieved my Nov target. Additional gain would be the icing on the cake. I have a AIG Nov 45 Call and STP Nov 16 Put. My AIG is in green where as STP is in red. Let's see what happens.

In the mean time, I just wrote STP Dec 14 Put @ $1.25.

Week of Oct 12, 2009

This week is the last week for Oct expiration. I have two open trades. C Oct 5 Put @ $0.63 and STP Oct 16 Put @ $1.63. Unfortunately both are in the money, but fortunately, if both stocks could hold at their current level, I would still be in the green. I am looking forward to Nov as I have an AIG Nov 33 Put @ $5.50. Also, I wrote AIG Jan 35 Put @ $5.95. As you can see, I am rather conservative if you may say, or "chicken". I tend to write quite far out of the money. I am trying to minimize my risk to hope to achieve average of 3% or more return monthly through option writing. So far, I made loss in July -2%; +5% in Aug; +6% in Sept; +1% in Oct. Will see how Nov goes.

Also, I have been sitting on 100 shares of AIG and have not had a chance to utilize it, till today. I decided to write AIG Nov 45 Call @ $4.85. It is kind of risky as we are in the midst earning season. But, it could go either way as I see the outlook is still uncertain. Should AIG goes up, I will need to see if I want to give up my shares or roll forward.

10/15/09:
It is too unfortunate that market has given in on the recent up trend just a couple of days before the Oct expiration. I just closed my C Oct 5 Put @ $0.25, which I opened @ $0.63. About 6% net. I also closed my STP Oct 16 Put @ $1.00 (~2.5% net).
For STP, I did a spread to roll over to Nov @$1.7.

Week of Sept 21, 2009

What a day for AIG. No trade for today, but I would like to mention that both my AIG Sept 15 and 19 Put had yielded 5.5% and 6.5% respectively. My initial target is have and average of 3% to 4% return monthly. So far I am still there on my monthly target.

Week of Sept 14, 2009

Oh well...I been out for a few weeks...

Lets see what's new. Well, I closed C Sept 4 Put @$0.04 (bought at $0.34), resulted a net of 5.88%, based on my calculation (minus fees etc)

Also, I wrote AIG Nov 33 Put @ $5.50 back when AIG was at $45, premium is now at $6.70. Now that didn't go well. :(

Today, I did a spread. Bought to close my STP Sept 16 Put @ $0.92 (sold at $1.10). Still a loss but minimal. I wrote STP Oct 16 Put @ $1.63.

Hope I am back for more as been really busy with work and was really not able to focus...

Week of Aug 24, 2009

Not much has happened for the pass week. I had basically held on to my trades. I had AIG Sept 15 and 19 Put but it seems that even this is deep out of the money, the time premium is still there so I guess I will sit on these till expire.

As for my C Sept 4 Put, I will consider to close and free up my fund for next trade sometime next week of so.

One trade I made this week was selling C Oct 5 Put @ $0.63. Again, after I sold, Citi traded south. It would have been better if I were to waited a couple of days but, hey, who knows.

Anyway, Citigroup has trade up and I am in green now. I hope the momentum of financial stocks would continue for a while but it is still quite uncertain at this point of time.

Have a nice weekend.

Week of Aug 17, 2009

On early Aug, I sold AIG Sept 11 Put @ $1.01. It is now at $0.17. Since I need some fund to write new puts, I decided to close this, thus a 6.59% net gain in about 2 weeks. Not too shabby.

I am trying to explore on LEAPS. If the price is right, I may buy some LEAP calls. Will see if there is any attractive potentials.

Week of Aug 10, 2009

I closed AIG Aug 14 Put @ $0.1, which I wrote on Aug 5th for $0.69. Net 3.39%.

Follow with writing AIG Sept 19 Put @ $1.45. A bit risky i know but...

Week of Aug 3, 2009

I sold AIG Aug 9 Put @ $0.79 on 7/17. I just closed this today at $0.17. A rough 5% net gain in slightly more than two weeks. I followed by selling AIG Sept 11 Put @ $1.01. I am trying to take advantage of the time value on the premium. I hope AIG would stay above $11 in weeks to come.

Week of July27, 2009

Market had a huge run last week. I am expecting a softer trend this week. One of my targeted trade was writing a call for STP, which I own as well. Solar stock has regain strength partly due to the recent news on the Chinese government subsidizing the deployment on solar energy.

I decided to go ahead and wrote an STP Aug 22 Call at $1.00. Will see how it goes.

Week of July 20, 2009

Well another week is here and with so may corporate earnings lining up. This is going to be an interesting week.

A couple of weeks ago, I sold ABX Aug 30 PUT at $1.40. Now that ABX has risen, the same PUT has dropped to $0.15bid and $0.25ask. I managed to close this at $0.22. Not too shabby for a two weeks return. Even though % wise may not be that high but I felt ABX was stable and worth the trade.

I was tempted to roll up but the premium is not very attractive at this point of time. Will sit on this.

Week of July13, 2009

Hi, I welcome any comments on your view and strategy for this week. Feel free.