January 2012
31 posts
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AMZN Earnings Iron Condor
Our Members received my AMZN earnings trade around 2:30pm EST today. In the spirit of education, I wanted to share the email with our tumblr readers. The Iron Condor is the trade we made, the others were simply me thinking out loud and sharing more trade ideas.
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We’re still in earnings season, so...
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Earnings Thoughts: BIDU
BIDU reports earnings after the bell. The expected move is 4.17. Feb Weekly IV 60.9%, Feb IV 52.90%, Mar IV 52.8%.
There was a bullish symmetrical triangle break (above) Friday, giving BIDU a bullish technical view into earnings. Technicals don’t mean much going into earnings, but it’s worth noting.
If I were forcing myself to play this I’d go with the weeklies and...
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'The Bible of Options Strategies'
I don’t recommend books often, but I have received a ton of requests for recommendations recently. Due to these requests, I am going send a recommendation via email every once in a while.
There are a few that I feel no Trader or aspiring Trader should be without. One that falls under this category is ‘The Bible of Options Strategies” by Guy Cohen.
This book is...
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I'll Take My Profits Black
We’re in the black on our SBUX earnings trade. We told you about the SBUX trade here, which was our way of profiting off a earnings reaction within the expected move of 2.55.
Sure enough, the reaction in SBUX stayed well within the expected move range. Better yet, the stock is trading right on the 47 strike we chose!
Our long 47 Put Calendar is +34.52% at the moment. We bought the...
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Our SBUX Earnings Trade
Here’s an email I sent to members at 3:00pm EST. Now that the market is closed and SBUX has reported, I am going to share it here…similar to our AAPL earnings trade. It’s a nice educational piece. Please feel free to leave questions in the comments section.
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This is not an official...
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AAPL Earnings Trade: What's The Next Move?
We shared our AAPL earnings trade analysis with you yesterday in this article. As noted towards the end of the article, we played a small position in the AAPL Feb 385/390/450/455 Iron Condor. Here’s how this trade went…
We sold the Iron Condor @ 1.86 credit; sold 385/390 put spread @ 0.90 credit & sold 450/455 call spread @ 0.96 credit
As you know, AAPL gapped significantly...
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$AAPL Earnings Analysis
Here’s an email we sent to TickerTank Premier Members before the bell. Now that the market has closed, we are sharing it on the blog since there plenty of educational value here.
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Now that implied volatility levels have pulled back significantly,...
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Look into the Future(s)
Indice futures as well as futures like Gold, Silver, 30-year Bonds, Crude Oil, US Dollar Index are very important to follow. I base all indice ETF trades on their corresponding futures charts. I also place other ETF Options trades based on their corresponding futures chart. Reason being, the futures market is huge. BIG money plays in those waters, making most of the futures markets (not all)...
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$GOOG Earnings, to trade or not to trade
The Options market has priced the expected earnings move in GOOG at 31.55. Given current price of 636.95, this translates to an expected move range of 605.40 to 668.50.
When we trade Options into an earnings event, our preference is to stay outside of the expected move range. That means we would be interested in spread that have breakevens below 605.40 and/or above 668.50.
Problem is, now...
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Compliment Reward to Risk with High Probability of...
We recently posted about the importance of liquidity, as well as using the right strategy in any given volatility environment. Those are two key elements to trading Options successfully, but there’s another element we have not dedicated a post to that is very important as well.
Let’s start this off with the assumption that trading is a zero sum game. Any given stock or futures...
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Naked Puts Criteria
I just received a question about Naked Puts via email. After replying with my criteria, I thought why no share it on the blog.
My optimal scenario with Naked Puts is as follows…
the underlying and options market for the underlying are very liquid (5 cent or less bid/ask spread on the front month closest to the money strike)
the underlying is trading at or near a defined support...
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The Big Four
In the following blogs, we are going to take a quick glance at the most important Futures charts. We will analyze the S&P 500, Dow 30, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 in an effort to establish what the pot odds favor from a directional perspective in the second half od January.
Let’s do it!
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Another Profit Almost in the Bank!
On September 9, 2011 we sent a trade alert to members who bought BAC @ 6.99 and sold the Oct11 8 Calls @ 0.37, initiating a Covered Calls position @ 6.62 cost basis using 50% of intended capital. From that point we did a variety of Call and Put selling against the BAC long position.
After several months of reducing the cost basis, we had the Dec 6 short Puts put to us. This utilized the...
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Liquidity Parameters
There are a few key pieces of information that you must know in order to be successful as an Options Trader. In my opinion, the very first thing you should train yourself to do is focus on liquidity.
What do I mean by “focus on liquidity?” Simple, there are three things I must see when considering an Options position on any given underlying.
Ensure the underlying is liquid: I...
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Apple opening mini-stores inside select Target... →
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Get our Free Day Trade Alerts on Twitter
I know you are primarily Options Strategists at TickerTank, but do you ever day trade?
Yes, we day trade. We mostly use liquid Futures when trading intraday, and occasionally day trade liquid stocks. We NEVER day trade Options.
How often do you day trade?
Typically no more than five day trades per week. We keep our focus on providing high quality Options strategies to our members, but when...
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