Missed Foster Wheeler (FWLT) again, caught Autodesk (ADSK)

Sold front month Autodesk (ADSK) Mar 22.5 puts after the earning disappointment.

Foster Wheeler (FWLT) down on further 'capitulation' type weakness (from Cramerica?). Tried to sell Apr 60 puts for 3.00, but didn't work. Will keep trying.

Gainskeeper working now in TD Ameritrade Izone. Spent all day playing with it. It gives a great view of how my trades have been going. It is not just for taxes; it is great for fine tuning trading strategy.

Shifted HD hedges to XHB

Yesterday, my GTC order to buy to close +HDCZ (HD Mar 32.5 call option) for 0.05 hit. This was a covered call I sold on some HD stock I was assigned from previous put selling at the 32.5-37.5 levels. At 0.05, it was not a good hedge and wasn't earning me much time premium. Given that HD reported today, I figured I'd want to get the upside if there was any. There wasn't and the reason I was able to close the options yesterdays was because other people already knew that and the implied volatility had fallen. Either way, I am just following my risk management plan.

I have been wanting to short some XHB for a while now but they are hard to borrow. So yesterday, I tried to sell some XHB Mar 21 call options naked at the ask but that didn't work. And for the first time in a while, luck was on my side. Despite more nasty economic numbers, we get another 6.4% gain in XHB lead by gains in HOV and LEN. So I sold a few front month call options naked at the 22 strike for around 1.50. This should give me a short position at 23.50 which is a little below the 200 day moving average. I haven't done much shorting before so I am just playing around. I figured that with my housing heavy portfolio (CBG, HD, BBBY), having a bit of a hedge on XHB couldn't be that bad.

I also tried to sell some April 65 FWLT puts (idea stolen from here) for 3.90 but it didn't execute. I like going long after a big drop but I have learned from experience. Stocks that fall hard tend to fall slowly afterwards. Often, you'll get another chance at the current price some time later or at a better price. So, I wasn't too eager to buy on an up day. But I will try again tomorrow, if it keeps dropping. 61.10 is an ok breakeven price for FWLT but not the sort of value I am looking for. For example, it is not as good of a value as AEO at 15.

I am practicing market discipline right now and keeping buying power high while hedging any of my positions that hit near term highs. I want to get out of as much stock as I can while maintaining positive delta. If EMC keeps going up, I am going to sell calls on my stock and start closing the puts I recently put on.

Adding to EMC and GE amidst pullback

As some readers may be aware, I own some EMC with a cost of around 16.50 and have sold several naked front month puts (+EMCOC / EMC Mar 15 Put).

Today as EMC hit lows around 14.90, I sold some more naked puts in EMC. In particular, I sold some +EMCPP (EMC Apr 14 Put) for 0.50 and +EMCSO (EMC Jul 13 Put) for 0.70.

The time to show conviction in your ideas is when the market moves against you.

GE is trading near 52 week lows so I also sold some +GEPU (GE Apr 33 Put) for around 1.15. I was going to do this a few days ago but I wanted it to go ex-dividend first.

GE is a core holding for international exposure (hedge against dollar weakness), infrastructure (e.g. the new GE industrial investments in Malaysia), and credit (solid AAA in a market of questionable commercial paper). It is also a part of my money management strategy (which I hope to elaborate more on someday).

Bought back put options in SiRF Technologies (SIRF), swayed by emotions or smart trading?

I closed out my Mar 7.5 naked puts in SiRF Technologies (SIRF) today at 1.10 right before the end of day market rebound. I have been trying to close it on the ask for two days (chased it at 0.85 to 0.95 to 1.10) and finally decided to hit a small 10 lot that was splitting the bid/ask. I still managed a small gain. I lost money on the 1.00 of intrinsic value (delta) but that was more than canceled out by the money I made on vega (i.e. the decrease in implied volatility). The small gain came from theta (i.e. time decay).

For reference, I first sold Feb and Mar puts in SIRF when it dropped 50%+ (Added delta to SIRF and WB amid market freefall). I closed the Feb puts on expiration day for a small gain (Last minute juggling of SIRF and BBBY).

I am not sure whether this was an emotional trade or a smart trade. So I will give both view points.

Emotional:
I thought this was a great business with a large cash reserve with a market leading position in GPS chips. I don't doubt the cash on the books but the recent Garmin conference call has led me to doubt myself on the second point. There was a small hint that Garmin is shifting away from SIRF chips.

I am also becoming of the similarity between SIRF and NLS. I sold some NLS puts a while back at the 10 level and now the stock is around 4. I believe in NLS and I am buying more at these levels but it taught me the market can take a long time to recognize value. SIRF can go a lot lower before it bounces back. I don't want to get caught in a downtrend. I need to save buying power to add delta to the rest of my positions on the way down. (Can't decide whether this is fear talking or risk management.)

Smart:
As outlined in my trading plan (A naked put selling focused options trading strategy explained), I generally try to sell time premium. When SIRF hit 6.50 today, most of the value of the option was intrinsic value and I had earned all the time value I could. Therefore, there was no reason for me to be in the option. I should either take delivery (artificially by buying the stock and the put at the same time) or just close out the position (by buying back the put).

I shouldn't go against the trend. It was relatively stable at the 7.25 level while buyers added more positions to average down their costs. However, capitulation hasn't occurred and SIRF can go much lower (although it is supported by its cash position).

Going Forward:
I am going to keep a close eye on SIRF. I was interested in selling the Apr 5 puts at 0.20. That would give me a cost basis of 4.80 which is much closer to the cash value of the company. However, if I assume I am a smart trader and my pseudo-technical sentiment analysis is correct, it should go lower and I should be able to sell it for more premium.

The other reservation is also from my experience with NLS. Selling puts with tiny time premiums are a bad idea. It is the equivalent of selling super-catastrophe insurance. And if you believe in the black swan theory, markets have catastrophic swings more often than the options models would predict.

I am going to sleep on it and then we'll see what happens next week.

A naked put selling focused options trading strategy explained

Selling puts naked is a money making machine. You make money on most trades due to the positive theta and life is good. However, sometimes you bet wrong and you lose big. Winning in this game means we have to avoid the big losses while preserving the opportunity to profit. That requires risk management.

First, I want to say that I have no official system for this. No quantitative models, no portfolio insurances, nada. Just some gut feel. This is just my system. You could have a completely different system, and that would be fine. However, let me point out a couple pros and cons about this system.

Pro: Quantitative models and portfolio insurance give you a false sense of security. Equity issues are more correlated than ever and hedging correctly (without paying too much) is very difficult. Think LTCM.

Con: Basing large $$ decisions on gut feel makes it prone to emotions and mood swings.

Pro: This is how many traders operate. They make lots of money so they must be right, right?

Con: This is how many traders operate. They play with other people's money so it is easier to isolate emotions. Even then, we get an Amaranth Advisors once in a while.

My put selling focused options trading strategy is as follows:
1. Identify a good quality stock that I would want to own forever (or at least 5 years).
2. Identify a price at which I would buy right now. I usually do this by looking at fundamentals. I assume future earnings are either at or below the trailing twelve month (TTM) earnings. Given that, I low ball a P/E ratio based on historical lows of the stock or industry.
3. Take a quick look at technical support levels.
4. Try to pick a stock that satisfies the above and has high implied volatility relative to historical volatility (IV/HV).
5. Check that there is no news shocks coming up. This may include earnings reports, acquisitions, law suits, economic indicators, etc. Obviously you can't avoid all such outside factors but avoid the big ones. For example, do not trade RIMM on the day of earnings (at least in this strategy).

Take either track a or track b depending on how badly you want to own the stock now. Track a is good for a stock that I really want to own now since it maximizes theta. Track b is good for a stock that I want for the long term but not necessarily right now. I generally use track a for bottom fishing / knife catching and track b for long term Buffett style portfolio building.


6a. Write a near term at the money (usually front month ATM) put above a technical support but higher than my would buy right now price. The idea is to make money either from time decay or a drop in volatility. The front month ATM has the most theta and thus the most time decay. Since we picked something that had high IV, we benefit from a drop in IV.
7a. If I get assigned, I tried to sell a covered call on it such that the if the covered call is assigned, I would at least break even.

6b. Write a long term out of the money put such that if assigned, the cost basis is at or below than my would buy right now price.
7b. Sell a covered call if the stock becomes overvalued or is nearing near term resistance.

8. Repeat step 7 until stock is gone or if fundamentals shift greatly. Nothing says I can't change my mind and dump the stock. The above is the options trading strategy given that I like the stock.

Risk Management:

• Only sell options with enough time premium such that if I buy it back at 0.05, I can make a good return. Failing that, it must be close enough to expiration (I usually only do close to a week).


• Since I would not sell options for small time premiums unless they are close to expiration, I buy back options with small time premiums unless they are close to expiration. This is not a hard rule. Some times it does not make sense to only buy back an option that has huge unrealized losses. In that case, I usually either: give up and buy back the option (reduce my delta), roll the options down and/or out (maintain delta), write additional options (increase delta). That really depends on my outlook for the underlying.


• This requires a large amount of capital and is very high risk. The drawdowns will kill you. A more sane person would probably utilize stops. One of the obvious risks is that during a market downturn, you take assignment on a lot of stock and need to be able to carry that stock (either with cash or margin). To make things worse, when you are carrying stock during a down turn, you cannot make money by selling more options since you run out of buying power.


• This is just a strategy that I sometimes may follow. This is not a recommendation for you to use this strategy. In fact, it is a warning to those who choose similar strategies. It's feast and famine. When volatility is high and markets are range bound, it is all profit. In most other cases, it's not so happy.

This is the recipe for making my secret sauce. In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not. Making money requires stock picking skill and trading ability. The key to this whole house of cards is step 1 which I gloss over.

TD Ameritrade Izone finally has GainsKeeper

In case you didn't know, Izone is TD Ameritrade's super secret, uber discount brokerage. If you are willing to give up phone/office support (and live with email only support), use electronic statements, and give up the streamer suite (free with Apex), you get lower commissions. Stocks are $5 per trade and options are $5 a trade and $0.75 per contract.

One of the things Apex had but Izone did not was GainsKeeper (GainsKeeper is a tax lot tracking package). This made Izone incredibly painful to use. You tend to do more trade when they are cheaper and it is a pain to sort out option trades at the end of the year since they don't come on the 1099 like stock trades do.

After my complaining about the lack of good options functionality, they listen and gave all Izone users GainsKeeper (just kidding, I wish I had that sort of clout...). So now there is pretty much no reason to use Apex over Izone. That doesn't mean I am recommendation Ameritrade but if you are going to use Ameritrade anyways, Izone is a better deal than Apex.

Ameritrade's real-time streaming tools do not yet support streaming options data. The options trading features are incredibly limited (it is difficult to do complex spreads and whatnot). And most importantly, their margin calculation is horrible. The margin calculations are not real-time and update at the end of the day. They also miscalculate margin requirements for certain transactions. See Last minute juggling of SIRF and BBBY for an example.

Ameritrade is a decent brokerage for most people starting out, but you'll soon outgrow it if you get fancy with your derivatives.

Last minute juggling of SIRF and BBBY

It's finally here; February options expiration is today (technically tomorrow).

NVIDIA (NVDA) is down again and my Mar 22.5 puts are now in the money. I am not adding more delta until either I can write a lower strike for enough time premium. Through no fault of my own, I sold the puts near the maximum time premium. The option contracts are quoted 1.90/2.00 right now. NVDA is around 22.15 so they have 0.35 intrinsic value and 1.55/1.65 time value.

I tried to close out my AEO/+AEOBD covered call but TD Ameritrade is dumb and won't let me. It says I don't have enough margin sell short AEO and buy +AEOBD. Little does it understand that I am simply trying to close the position. No big deal though, was trying to save a couple of cents on commissions.

As I suspected, BBBY would be interesting. It's down 0.84 to 29.07 so it appears my Feb 30 calls are going to go worthless. In a stupid move (to save a couple dollars), I am selling Mar 30 calls without buying back the Feb 30. Essentially, rolling out a month and then shorting the near month option. If you look at the transaction as two parts, the first part is smart (another 1.05 a share of time premium) and the second part is a little dumb (0.05 on a bet that BBBY won't rally this afternoon above 30). I would be ok if it did because I have naked puts for the May and Aug expirations so I have enough delta that I would be net long this position no matter what (for reasonable rallies).

I closed some Feb 7.5 puts on SIRF for a small 20% gain (Added delta to SIRF and WB amid market freefall). I am leaving the Mar 7.5 position on for now. I am currently in the black on that position due to reduction in implied volatility. There is a lot more calls than puts at the Feb 7.5 strike. I think this is contributing selling pressure to keep the price below the 7.5 strike (SIRF touched 7.5 a few days ago). So there is a chance that after the expiration, the stock could drift higher once the selling pressure is removed. So I am going to spin the wheel on the Mar 7.5. I will probably try to close it when the time premium goes down some more.

Senate hijinks on a Thursday of expiration week

I am not sure why politicians want to create havoc for options traders but apparently that's the thing to do. There is a banking committee hearing where Bernacke and Paulson testified. Bernacke some how mentioned that there are more write downs to come. As a result, the market is down across the board.

Also interesting is the NY investigation into the monoline bond insurers. There's a lot of stick waving to convince them to merge or sell assets to Buffett. Somewhere in the conversation, there was threats to strip the muni assets forcibly. All the bond insurers have to say is: Blame it on the shorts. Interesting situation to watch.

Since it's a crazy day, here's a quick take of the positions I am working on:

Wachovia (WB): Looking to add additional delta in the form of March / April 30 puts on the pullback. I think the banks have been kitchen sinking it and we might even get write ups.

Nautilus (NLS): Down after earnings as I expected. They reported total kitchen sink quarter. Tried to pick up some more (I already have a huge position put on from 10 to 5 with an average cost of 8) on the way down at 3.75 but missed it. Not going to chase it on a day like this. Got orders in place for 3.75 and 3.50.

NVIDIA (NVDA): Saw it on the newsfeed and reflexively trying to add March 22.50 puts for 1.50.

EMC (EMC): Trying to buy to close the Feb 17 puts I have for even (take a hit on the commissions). Already have some Mar 15 in place, will sell more naked puts on movements down.

Not so surprising results from Darden (DRI)

Today, Darden (DRI) is up 8% after management gave some upbeat numbers and guidance. The same stock that was near 20 is now near 30. Yes, I regret selling my Jul 30 options for 2.95 when I could have sold them for 4 today. But what I regret more is not picking up more when they were at 0.60.

Investing (in the long term sense) is all about the numbers and valuation. Trading (in the short term sense) is much more about emotions. It's about having the confidence to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. I have this problem of picking a stock near its 52 week low, holding it while it gets killed some more, and then selling it for a small profit. That's better than some alternatives but still sucks. The problem is that this works most of the time but some times, they don't come back up. You need a couple large gains (10-baggers) to achieve abnormal returns.

Darden is a perfect example of this. It would have been an easy 50% gain had I put more money in at the bottom. I had the conviction (I wouldn't have in the past but I am getting better) but I lacked the margin. The thing I tend to forget is that when the markets are down, the maintenance requirements go up. I tend to run out of buying power and get margin calls near the bottom. So instead of adding delta, I am reducing delta at the worst time.

In an attempt to learn from my mistake, I didn't trade today. There are so many opportunities out there (EMC, SIRF, CDNS, BHI, JNJ, GE, etc.) but I figured the smart thing to do is to build up buying power and wait for a retest of the bottom. Usually volatility is pretty high during expiration week but today was rather tame. I am hoping the rest of the week is as quiet. Quiet days make for easy money from decaying time premium.

Amazon (AMZN) buyback is noise

Amazon is up 3% after announcing a $1B buyback. That's just ridiculous. Either it's all talk and no action (and thus the pop is silly) or it's a stupid move. Amazon should be using its cash to expand its operations and keep up its growth. We have seen plenty of examples of what happens to your stock price if you miss expectations. Amazon can use its cash to: a) decrease the probability of missing estimates, b) more aggressive acquisitions and technology development, c) buyback its stock. A is a good thing for medium term stock price. B is good for long term stock price. C is good for short term stock price.

Guess which one helps Amazon insiders who want to sell soon before it dips further? The best Amazon shareholders can hope for is that this is solely for insiders to unload some shares and will not actually be executed.

Despite what some market mavens say, Amazon does not actually have the cash to do this. Sure, they have a couple billion in short term assets but they need much of it to cover the $2B in accounts payable. Yes, Amazon can use future earnings to do this but that is hardly 'cash in the bank'. Given Amazon's razor thin margins, it can easily swing from profit to loss. Combine its heavy investment in web services (an unknown sector) and the consumer led recession and I can imagine Amazon posting negative earnings growth.

The best scenario I can come up with: Amazon wants to buyback its shares at the absolute minimum price. It knows that announcing a buyback will boost its stock price which will cause it to pay more for the shares it buys back. So announce it down, before the drop. Wait for it to drop to 15 and then execute the buyback. That's great for owners of the company, probably not so good for management stock options or careers.

In other news: I am currently looking to sell medium term naked puts on high dividend Dow components. I am already heavy on HD so I am going to look to write some puts on JNJ and GE. Probably looking at Jun/Jul puts that are 10% OTM.

Added delta to SIRF and WB amid market freefall

Another day with blood in the streets. Institute for Supply Management (ISM) non-manufacturing survey results are out early and they don't look good. Survey says: Recession. Panic ensues and we get another 3% drop across the board.



Keep in mind that this is a survey and if everyone is flooded with recession news, they will believe that a recession is coming. This is also known as anchoring bias.

The hedges that I put on a week ago seemed dumb at the time (and a bit early) but they drastically cut my losses today. Without hedges, I am about ~4x leveraged and with them, I am about ~2x leveraged. However, some of my hedges are running out of premium (probably a good time to buy the calls back). In general, my portfolio has a naked put / covered call profile where I am long delta with negative gamma. So as the prices decrease, I am getting more delta. This fits well with my value based strategy. As prices decrease relative to value, there is a better risk/reward tradeoff and I am willing to take on more delta.

I have been reluctant to buy after the rally last week since I've turned more bearish while the market sentiment turned more bullish. I also could not understand why prices should go up given the constant stream of bad news. The rationale that bad news => fed cut => financial recovery is silly. It's like saying mortgages are good cause the government gives you a tax break on the interest. Rate cuts are weakening the dollar and causing a rise in commodity prices which are increasing costs for businesses. On the other hand, rate cuts are not increasing consumer spending due to constrained credit (i.e. banks are do not want to lend at these lower rates since they would rather use it themselves as capital). The 'consumer led recession' is leading to demand destruction. When supply decreases (due to higher inputs) and demand decreases (due to lower income), equilibrium output decreases (i.e. GDP decreases). And GDP decreases define recession. So, recession, here we come. But the word doesn't really mean much to me per se. I see it as an opportunity to pick up more assets at a lower cost. Capitalism at its best. I actually hate bull markets because it is hard to make a living as a put seller since I try to have enough discipline not to chase stocks. On the other hand, I love to sell insurance for quality companies at low prices and high premium (thanks volatility).

SIRF gave really bad 2008 guidance. 6+ brokerages smacked it with downgrades. Stock is down 55%. GPS technologies are good, but consumer electronics are bad. Niche analog semiconductor companies are good, but semiconductors are bad. Basically, I see SIRF as a good growth company hit with bad macro trends. However, I think they will do ok in the coming slow down. GPS devices are so competitive that the price reductions will be hitting the device manufacturers hardest. Sure things are bad but not 7 a share bad. SIRF has never traded at this level before. Although they have been issuing shares and diluting shareholders, it isn't that bad. Take a look at the past annual reports. I checked the current ratio and did a few quick solvency tests and they seem to be able to whether the storm. I doubt they will continue to issue shares at these prices (if they do, the management need to be replaced). We might even see a share buyback. The 1.4 a share in cash also doesn't hurt.

I sold a bunch of Feb 7.5 puts at around 0.5 and a bunch of Mar 7.5 puts at around 1.25. That would give me an average cost basis of approximately 6.75. Backing out the cash, that means I'd be paying 5.35 a share for a growing business in a great segment. That's me rationalizing my purchase; it could turn out to be stupid but analyst downgrades always make me over confident.



I also sold some Mar 30 WB puts as I have been doing for the last couple of months.

And here comes the crash, well maybe.

I am all excited because the markets are down and I don't feel so bad about putting on hedges. I really wished I had been able to short XHB. Instant 8% right there. Oh well, all my consumer discretionary are tanking (AEO, BBBY, HD) as well as many of my financials (WB).

I am short a bunch of the near month in the money calls so today is not bad. I am still losing a 5% on my portfolio but given the leverage I am using, that's a good day.

EMC and VMW revisited

For those of you who are really hardcore, here's a paper that describes the sort of things that cause mispricing. To summarize, it's because VMW is/was hard to short. This supports my theory that once EMC can sell its shares of VMW, we are gonna see a price correction. Either EMC up or VMW down but probably VMW down.

Microsoft (MSFT) bids for Yahoo (YHOO), Short XHB?

I missed the boat. The 31 a share offer from Microsoft for Yahoo has pushed the price to the 29 level. I got a bit greedy with how much premium I was trying to sell the put options. I could have made instant bank but now I got nothing.

On another note, this rally makes me want to short the S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB). The market seems to be on looking at the good news and ignoring the stream of consistently bad economic indicators. Even though the government is bailing everyone out, the homebuilders are pretty low on the list. I tried to short a small position (just to see what it's like since I've never actually shorted stocks before) but couldn't borrow any shares. So I guess I have to just sell calls on it.

I also got out of some DRI options. There's a good chance it is going back to 20. Casual dining is a tough business right now.

Analyst downgrades on Cadence (CDNS)

Analysts were out with a bunch of downgrades on Cadence after the bad guidance yesterday. See Cadence (CDNS) - Decision making in the face of uncertainty for more details.

* Tim Fox, Deutsche Bank: Cut to Hold from Buy
* Sterling Autry, J.P. Morgan: Cut to Underweight from Neutral
* Harlan Sur, Morgan Stanley: Cut to Equal Weight from Overweight
* Jay Vleeschhouwer, Merrill Lynch: Cut to Neutral from Buy
* S&P: Cut to 3-star from 4-star

Today, CDNS is up almost 5%. Is it just me or are analysts usually behind the curve?