Not much going on today as I spend much of it working on this site and some longer term opportunities that require lots of research. I just finished reading Trading on Target by Adrienne Toghraie. Great book about dealing with the mental aspects of trading. Worth getting and keeping a copy to read more than once.

Shorted PANL during the first afternoon spike. I was busy trying to get some work done so I shorted $60 calls and kept the size micro sized. I didn't want enough of a position to start focusing on it. I closed it out about half an hour later for a .30 gain per option.

I am still long GA puts and GA fell a little bit today. Closed very close to the strike price. A couple more down days and this may turn out ok. Friday is coming fast though. Speaking of Friday, my Intel puts I wrote are worth a penny and a half now. I am liking that. I see COCO managed to make it back to around $2 today. At some point COCO stock is going to jump to $4 and everyone will wonder why they didn't load up the truck with shares.

DSW continues to be a good trade and Thursday I will find out if I get exercised early or not.

Any insight on PANL? Specifically why has PANL doubled since mid August while GLW is dropping big time?

GEE wrote:Any insight on PANL? Specifically why has PANL doubled since mid August while GLW is dropping big time?

Hello GEE,

I am not sure but I have traded PANL this week. I am going to research both tomorrow and I will report back my findings

Thanks

Robert

My sleep over with RIMM worked out well. I added in premarket and at the open I sold $24 strike calls expiring today. I had an average of under $24 by this point and believed the stock would pin that price. As it turns out that is what happened. Nice when a plan works. I covered before the close though so I ended up buying back the calls at a net loss but the stock was up enough to close out the whole trade with a gain.

DSW option dividend capture plan worked out ok. I ended up with just a little more than I would have received if I would have been exercised. The annualized yield is great and so no complaints. I will roll over the capital into another dividend capture next week.

GA gave me problems today. Actually not GA but rather Interactive brokers. In one of my accounts that does not have a lot of money in I bought GA puts and instead of selling I bought GA stock to use to exercise with. With about a minute to go in the trading day, Interactive brokers decides its a good idea to close out the puts and sends me an email after closing to let me know. After being on hold for over 10 minutes I am told that there was not enough margin in the account to cover the short position if the options are exercised. I had to explain to the support person that no short would be created as that account had enough stock to fully cover it. After several times of being put on hold "to check into it" I was told that there was nothing he could do, but he would put a ticket in to the risk department to see if it was a valid liquidation. I asked to speak with the risk department and was told I could not. I asked to speak with a supervisor and was told I could not. He did tell me he would take down my number and a supervisor would call me back. I did not receive a call back. I advised him that the account now has 900 shares left that are not going to be put as a result of the liquidation. At this point it was after hours and about an hour after the close so the bid ask was huge. I advised the rep that I understood nothing can be done about the options but the account holder is not going to take a loss because of a wrong liquidation and my goal was to simply get it made whole. I then said I was willing to close out the position but the price would not be as favorable as if the stock was put to the writer of the option. He said I should talk to the risk department on Monday. I asked who was going to take the weekend risk of the stock falling in price. Of course he didn't have an answer for that anymore than he had an answer for anything else.
To me it was obvious that there was a computer error due to the special dividend that was paid out last week and the programmers didn't figure it out. Pretty much par for the course from my years with IB. I have seen countless bugs and problems as well as heard about others with TWS. I hate calling up IB and have never had a phone call end where I thought they give a damn about customers. As a result I have generally gone to the chat. Not any better customer service (except at night when you get someone from Hong Kong as they actually do seem to know whats going on and care), but at least I do not have to devote exclusive attention to a phone call and can do other things while waiting for the chat. I have already been doing more trading at Tradestation and I think its time to make a move from IB if they screw this up. I have also looked at hold brothers and they seem to have a good program and prices but no options so that's a tough call.

For my other accounts with GA the trade was pretty much a wash. I consider that a win as the bet was really about if the company would pay the dividend or not.

The INTC puts I wrote expired today out of the money. I always like that.

I am still short Oct COCO puts that have dropped in value about 50% so far from time decay and coco moving higher in price. As long as COCO can stay above $2 it will work out well.