Tag: NKE

Weekly Options Trading Review: October 12 through October 16, 2020

Rather than listing out every trade I made last week, going forward I am most likely going to highlight a couple trades only. Like my options trading skill level at this point, this is all still a work-in-progress and hope to settle into a posting routine that is regular, sustainable and still achieves a level of transparency.

First, the basic numbers: Closed 18 trades for $23.63 profit (78% win rate). Opened 17 trades.

This week I plan to highlight two of my biggest losers to date: a trade in Nike and Tesla. One of which I would probably make again, the other I hopefully have learned something from and won’t make the same mistake in the future.

First is my trade in NKE.

NKE Call Credit Spread (October 16, 2020 $125/126 @ +$.22 Credit)

  • NKE Call Credit Spread (October 16, 2020 $125/126 @ +$.22 Credit)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $22
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $78
    • Opened: September 22, 2020
    • Closed: October 13, 2020
    • P/L: -$73

I opened this trade the day before earnings were to be announced. I made a guess that, due to COVID-19, the earnings report would not merit the recent rise in the stock. I guessed wrong, as Nike’s online presence appears to be taking off. In addition to the stock price immediately blowing past both my short and long strike prices, implied volatility had increased as well. So not only did I pick the wrong direction of the move, I also was on the wrong side of volatility. On top of all this, the liquidity in NKE options trading isn’t all that great. If I was set on making a trade, I should have either waited until after the earnings to see what happens, or I really wanted to make a speculative play, buy either a long put or call so that I still have defined risk and I don’t lose to the increased volatility, as well. I’m curious how a basic calendar spread would have done here.

Next is my trade on TSLA.

  • TSLA Call Credit Spread (October 16, 2020 $423/425 @ +$.75 Credit)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $75
    • Collateral: $200
    • Max Loss: $125
    • Opened: September 25, 2020
    • Closed: October 13, 2020
    • P/L: -$97

This one is my biggest loser to date. It is my first time trading a spread with more than a $1 spread, with this one being $2. I took in a decent premium thanks to the high implied volatility, limiting my possible loss to $125. One thing I also was able to do was sell some put spreads below the market, effectively making an iron condor. I rolled those up a bit as I approached expiration, picking up a credit each time to help decrease my total loss. Tesla goes all over the place, often for no apparent reason, which is why we see such high premiums in the option contracts. For that reason, I will chalk this one up as just a loser and nothing more, rather than a bad trade like the Nike one above.

My biggest winner from the week? Not surprisingly: TSLA. I made $25 on a Put credit spread at $388/387 with the same expiration as the previously mentioned Call credit spread. I was actually able to roll this one up closer to the money for an extra $6, putting me at $31 on the put side for TSLA. Not enough to cancel out my loser, but certainly is better than just taking the full $125 loss I would have had if I didn’t react at all.

Weekly Options Trading Review: September 28 through October 2, 2020

This week kicked off my first full week diving into the world of options trading. I’ve been interested in stock market investing since I graduated high school in 2006. At one point in college I thought I could be a day trader, but then had a short series of losses that made me reconsider the viability of that. If this goes well, perhaps I will go into further detail on how I ended up on options trading. But for now, I’m looking to post weekly trading reviews (and perhaps a monthly review as well) to hold myself accountable and to have a history to look back on. Let’s get started…

Closing Previous Weeks’ Trades (Positions closed that were opened previous to this week)

  • GPRO Naked Put (October 16, 2020 $4.50 @ +$.55 Credit)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $55
    • Collateral: $450
    • Max Loss: $395
    • Opened: September 24, 2020
    • Closed: September 29, 2020
    • P/L: $26.66 (After commissions)
    • Return on Capital: 5.9% (360% Annualized)
    • This trade was in my regular brokerage account that hasn’t been approved for Level 3 Option trading yet. So silly that they will let me trade naked puts (so long as they are “cash secured”), but not risk-defined spreads. Anyway, sold this put just above the money, giving me a solid premium. My goal on this stock (and this account in general, at the moment), is to sell aggressively priced puts (at the money or even just above), knowing that I will likely be assigned. Then, I will sell calls if/when I am long the stock with 100 positions. I closed this one based on a GTC limit order at roughly 50% max profit. Actively looking to get into another one of these.
  • JNPR Put Calendar Spread (October 16-November 20, 2020 $21 @ -$.60)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Collateral: $60
    • Max Loss: $60
    • Opened: September 25, 2020
    • Closed: October 2, 2020
    • P/L: $7 ($0 commissions with Robinhood)
    • Return on Capital: 11.7% (532% Annualized)
    • This was my first calendar spread. I found this using the Option Alpha scanner ($47 for a lifetime access). Since I’m just getting my feet wet here, I wanted to take the early profit. Looking to get into another one of these in the future.
  • AFL Naked Put (October 16, 2020 $35 @ +$.70)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $69.33
    • Collateral: $3500
    • Max Loss: $3430
    • Opened: September 17, 2020
    • Closed: October 2, 2020
    • P/L: $38.67 (After commissions)
    • Return on Capital: 1.1% (25.2% Annualized)
    • I’m bullish on most insurance companies, generally speaking, and am looking to add some to me and my wife’s retirement portfolio. We have some cash in there thanks to a rollover from a pension that my wife had from a previous employer she worked a couple years with. I’m going to put that cash to work with naked puts. The plan is to sell puts on companies I want to have in our portfolio (ideally ones with a solid dividend — Aflac currently yields 3.1% and they have grown their dividend for 38 consecutive years! A true dividend aristocrat.). If the stock expires out of the money, then I keep the premium and purchase one or two shares of the stock. If it expires in the money, I will sell some covered calls to guarantee a return on that capital. When doing this on strong companies (like big insurance companies!), this really feels like a win-win. Ultimately I closed the contract early since I was able to guarantee the premium necessary to purchase one share. Rinse and repeat!
  • AAL Put Credit Spread (October 16, 2020 $11.50/10.50 @ +$.31)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $31
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $69
    • Opened: September 21, 2020
    • Closed: October 2, 2020
    • P/L: $11 ($0 commissions with Robinhood)
    • Return on Capital: 11% (335% Annualized)
    • I jumped into AAL after COVID-19 hit and it started spiraling downward. I was just a simple stock investor then and hadn’t wised up to options trading yet. I am currently long 68 shares at an average price of $14.69. This stock has been trading in a range between about $11 to $14 and I think I have a good feeling for its price movement. With some good news eventually, I expect this to actually pop and I will get out of my long position. I decided to close out of this position on Friday since it shot up from $12.26 to $13.33 on news that they would be furloughing 32,000 workers. Hardly seems like good news to me… so decided to take the opportunity to snag a profit.

Weekly Roundtrip Trades (Positions opened and closed within the week)

  • NKLA Put Credit Spread (October 16, 2020 $15/14 @ $.30 Credit)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit:  $30
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $70
    • Opened: September 29, 2020
    • Closed: September 30, 2020
    • P/L: +$5 ($0 commissions with Robinhood)
    • Return on Capital: 5% (913% Annualized)
    • I have made a number of trades in TSLA because I like the option premiums there (implied volatility is high). NKLA sneaks into some of the headlines since it’s a recent IPO competitor. I took a look at the premiums on offer, and I liked what I saw. The stock jumped up the next morning, and since this is a pretty speculative play on a stock with a 52-week range of $10.20-93.99, I figured I’d take my quick profit. Will consider trading this one again.
  • NKE Put Credit Spread (October 16, 2020 $125/124 @ $.40 Credit)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $40
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $60
    • Opened: September 30, 2020
    • Closed: September 30, 2020
    • P/L: +$5 ($0 commissions with Robinhood)
    • Return on Capital: 5% (1,825% Annualized)
    • This is a trade I immediately regretted once I hit send. I got into it because I have a Call Credit Spread at $125/126 which was a pure, bearish speculative trade before earnings last week. That position is currently at a loss with the stocking sitting around $126. My original thinking here was to reduce my loss on the initial Call Credit Spread, but then I immediately realized that we have three weeks for the stock to come back in my profitable range. Happy to get out of this one for a small $5 profit. I think this might be a viable strategy, but only as we get closer to expiration.
  • SPY Call Credit Spread (October 5, 2020 $338/339 @ +$.35)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $35
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $65
    • Opened: September 28, 2020
    • Closed: October 2, 2020
    • P/L: $12 ($0 commissions with Robinhood)
    • Return on Capital: 12% (876% Annualized)
    • You are going to see plenty of SPY trades in my trading journal. A critical component to success in high probability options trading is that you need to be making a high volume of trades, ideally in very liquid stocks. With three expiration dates per week (Mon/Wed/Fri), SPY appears to be the perfect candidate. I am working out my strategy still, but on this trade specifically I wanted to take a bearish position when the market jumped up on Monday morning this week. In hindsight, I think I should be looking beyond a one-week contract as there is more time “to be right”, but this one worked out. I did, however, get tested with the market climbing up just past my break even point in the middle of the week. Luckily I stuck it out (though I added a put position that I’m probably going to regret on expiration next week), and thanks to President Trump’s timely COVID-19 diagnosis, the market opened down on Friday morning. I took the profit on a silver platter. Thanks Donald!
  • SPY Call Credit Spread (October 7, 2020 $341/342 @ +$.34)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $34
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $66
    • Opened: September 30, 2020
    • Closed: October 2, 2020
    • P/L: $12 ($0 commissions with Robinhood)
    • Return on Capital: 12% (1460% Annualized)
    • More or less, see above. I opened this one on Wednesday, but for the same reason as the market had opened up more than 1%.

Opening Trades

  • AAL Call Credit Spread (October 16, 2020 $14/14.50 @ +$.13)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $13
    • Collateral: $50
    • Max Loss: $37
    • Opened: September 28, 2020
    • As I said in my AAL trade above, I feel comfortable about the range of AAL. Implied volatility is pretty high for AAL right now and there are plenty of trades that look good from a risk/reward/probability standpoint. Since I am long this stock, this gives my portfolio some bearish upside, as well. Looking for about 50% of max profit. 
  • SQQQ Put Credit Spread (October 16, 2020 $22.50/22 @ +$.20)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $20
    • Collateral: $50
    • Max Loss: $30
    • Opened: September 28, 2020
    • SQQQ is a 3x leveraged ETF of the Nasdaq. This is effectively a bearish position on the market. I personally think It will make a move down, which will make SQQQ go up and I should be able to close this one for a profit if and when we see a jump up in price of the stock. Risk-reward was really good on this trade, as well, thanks to very high implied volatility and only $.50 spread.
  • QQQ Call Credit Spread (November 20, 2020 $296/297 @ +$.32)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $32
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $68
    • Opened: September 28, 2020
    • Basically the same justification as above, but with a longer timeframe. 
  • ANF Put Credit Spread (November 20, 2020 $13/12 @ +$.35)
    • Contracts: 1
    • Max Profit: $35
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $65
    • Opened: September 29, 2020
    • This might sound crazy, but my wife says she has seen lots of “influencers” on social media sporting Abercrombie lately. She thinks it’s going to be a “cool” brand again. I took a look at the premiums available, and they make sense from a risk-reward-probability  perspective, so I pulled the trigger. That’s one of the things I love about options trading is that for a small amount of capital, you can make speculative trades that are still high probability of success regardless of whether the stock moves much at all AND have defined risk.
  • XLV
    • Call Credit Spread (November 20, 2020 $110/111 @ +$.30)
    • Max Profit: $30
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $65
    • Opened: September 30, 2020
    • In the past few weeks I’ve really dove head-first into options trading, and I have Option Alpha to thank (blame?). On their most recent podcast, this trade in XLV was featured on their “Closing Bell” segment, though they took a much bigger spread at 108/113, I believe. I checked the chart and options available, and the trade still made sense to me. 
  • SPY
    • Call Credit Spread (October 30, 2020 $348/349 @ +$.33)
    • Max Profit: $33
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $67
    • Opened: September 30, 2020
    • The market moved up on Wednesday, so I’m challenging it with this position. Similar to the closing trades for SPY that I mentioned above. This one didn’t close on Friday like the other two due to the Trump COVID-19 induced pullback..
  • VIX
    • Put Credit Spread (November 18, 2020 $27/26 @ +$.41)
    • Max Profit: $41
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $59
    • Opened: September 30, 2020
    • This is a speculative trade. The probability was a lot lower than the other trades I’ve been making (56% vs ~70%), but the payoff is decent and I think as we continue to move toward the election that we will see an increase in volatility, pushing the VIX higher. I actually sold this position in the money (trading at ~$25.50 when I placed the trade), hence the larger premium and lower chance of profit. 
  • SPY Put Credit Spread (October 5, 2020 $335/334 @ +$.28)
    • Max Profit: $28
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $78
    • Opened: October 1, 2020
    • This is my second attempt at reducing a potential loss by selling the opposite trade, effectively making an iron condor. Option Alpha recommends this rather than cutting losses by selling the initial, losing trade (in this case the $341/342 Calls that ended up being profitable thanks again to the dip from the president’s COVID-19 results).
  • SPY Call Credit Spread (November 2, 2020 $349/350 @ +$.34)
    • Max Profit: $34
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $66
    • Opened: October 1, 2020
    • Same same as the October 30 SPY Calls above, but entered one day later.
  • XLV Call Credit Spread (November 20, 2020 $111/112 @ +$.27)
    • Max Profit: $27
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $73
    • Opened: October 1, 2020
    • Same XLV trade as listed above, but decided to add essentially the same position in another portfolio.
  • GPRO Naked Put (October 9, 2020 $5 @ +$.50)
    • Max Profit: $50
    • Collateral: $500
    • Max Loss: $450
    • Opened: October 1, 2020
    • After successfully closing last week’s short put on GPRO, decided to do another one. If I get assigned, I will sell calls at probably $5. If I don’t, I will probably buy a few shares of GPRO essentially “for free.”
  • QQQ Put Credit Spread (November 6, 2020 $264/263 @ $.32)
    • Max Profit: $32
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $68
    • Opened: October 2, 2020
    • Tech was down quite a bit on Friday, so taking a similar strategy that I have going right now in SPY now in QQQ.
  • PMT Naked Put (October 16, 2020 $15 @ $.20)
    • Max Profit: $20
    • Collateral: $1,500
    • Max Loss: $1,380
    • Opened: October 2, 2020
    • PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust is a stock I came across recently that is obviously invested in real estate. It caught my eye because it is local to me and its dividend currently yields over 9%. I’m planning to continually sell some out of the money puts on PMT and then invest premiums into buying the stock.
  • TSLA Put Credit Spread (October 16, 2020 $388/387 @ $.32)
    • Max Profit: $32
    • Collateral: $100
    • Max Loss: $68
    • Opened: October 2, 2020
    • TSLA had a bit of a sell-off. I think this stock is way overpriced, but was able to get a ~70% probability trade at nearly $40 below current market price.