silverspring

Options Trader: Thursday Thumping (for Exxon)

Hi Philip, Could you let us know what kind of daily info are the must or necessary to you to review throughout a day, and why? Thanks.

High Yield Spreads Down 20% from St. Patrick's Day High

What do you mean as long as the spread can continue to come in? The spread of the HY comes down? Thanks.

Options Perspective on How To Play Google Post Earnings, Plus C, BAC, XLF

Hi Philip, I really have difficult to understand what you said about "taking a 20% loss to stay in position against our callers. We ended up with 60 Jan $420s covered with 30 Apr $450s which were themselves topped off with 50 Apr $500s," My understanding there is that the position is to short the call against the caller, and as the google stock price goes up these days, we have negaive MTM on the call. 60 shares of jan call contract sold are covered by 30 shares of call bought for Apr? Could you pleae explain me the terminology here? And also the mechanism of roll over the call options. I do have very good understanding of equity options. But never before touch on practical descriptions about those trades. Thanks a lot in advance!

A Warning in the Bond Market

Yes, it is a worrisome sign, however this could be natually solved after you see many bad earnings report in near future, commodity negative effect... All these forces will bring equity market down, volatility up which will bring the yield down. Any comments?

Is Rising Inflation Creating a Headwind for Long Bonds?

Commodity price pressure is the one which will cause inflation anyway in medium term, therefore affects bond yield to go up in the similiar term (fight inflation!). Shorting 5yr bond and at the same time buying 2yr bond should give us positive MTM provided current credit crunch will continue for another year which forces Fed to ease overnight rate more. In short, play with the balancing process of inner force of Fed's rate easing and outter greater force of international commodity market.

The Impact of the Beijing Olympics on Commodities Prices

If this article predicts fairly accurate, placing a long strangle option trades with higher strike on call on underlying coal short term futures could have some profit in horizon. Or simply play this via commodity ETF could do the job with less risk.

Options Trader: Tuesday Outlook

Please watch out how much more dollar is going to drop. 2% more? If this could give us the hint how far the overheated commodity could hike before taking a dive despite some temporary event (i.e. capline disrupted, Russia oil output reduced) , we at some of our best interest should start to long put now. Overall, its preferred to observe the trend, not the scattered, distorted events unless you want to play really short term market, but better not to do so since current volatile market could throw most smart guys out of their positions.

Bond ETFs: Time to Stock Up, As Munis Yield More Than Treasuries

Nice article, long long term muni, short short term treasury might be a good bet.