Two Interesting Drops: Whole Foods Market (WFMI) and Otter Tail (OTTR)

During the day, Otter Tail (OTTR), a wind energy play, is down 20% and back to reasonable valuations after an earnings miss. Possible slow down trend in days to come as the Cramerica crowd get nervous. After that, it's a good put selling stock. High dividend payout means that there is some pricing support (and it's great to carry the stock while selling calls against it). I am looking at selling some longer term options.

Don't know much about OTTR. Did a rush read through the annual report during the day. They are a bunch of diversified businesses. So I am going to add some delta and then see where it heads. I like dividend stocks in interesting industries.

With the new lower multiple, it might be interesting to pair trade OTTR and FPL (i.e. short FPL and long OTTR).

Whole Foods Market (WFMI) misses and guides down. WFMI is down 20% after hours. I am short some Aug 24 calls against some naked Nov 25 puts. Looking to increase delta at these levels through a combination of events. Let the Aug 24 calls expire. Buy back the puts and the stock (artificial assignment). Then sell some more out of the money puts.

It wasn't hard to guess that WFMI would miss and guide down. High end groceries in a consumer led downturn. It's a matter of whether the news is priced in. On a huge rally day, the news seems particularly bad.

So, the interim plan is: Sell covered calls on banks (WB, BAC, BCS); sell front month naked calls (as a way of initiating a short position) on credit risk plays (COF, FNM, FRE); sell long term out of the money naked puts on commodities (CHK, FCX, VLO, TSO, FTO).