Hey Guys,
I picked up a full slate of new positions. My approach is that in my main account and my low-priced account, I take up to two stock trades per day. In my extra options account, I take up to four options trades in a day. Also, in my main account, I take up to one options trade per day (I typically reserve it for double down trade opportunities). For today, I already filled up every possible slot I have open across all accounts.
In my main account, I bought stock for UPS (double down) and SNY and grabbed options for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (also a double down). In my extra options account I took on positions for FDX, IWM, KSU (double down), and GSK. And in my low-priced account, I bought stock positions for KNX and EQH (double down). You'll notice I bought EQH yesterday and then again today. To my mind, those are two completely independent trades that are treated separately. I'm not averaging them together or anything like that. I have two distinct exit criteria there, so even though the two trades are on the same ticker, they are not commingled in any way from a trade administration standpoint.
In my low-priced account, I had two positions that reached time limits. CLVT got closed for nearly a full profit. APO squeezed out a profit too (just above breakeven) after accounting for the dividend. Anyone who owned that position overnight last night got a dividend of 50 cents per share. No action is needed to get the dividend; most brokerages will automatically credit it to your account within the coming weeks.
I have a lot of exposure on my options positions, and over the last 48 hours that took a toll. My unrealized account balance was up at exciting levels back on Tuesday, but as of now the tide has turned and many positions are really dragging me down. This is just like the AAPL commentary I've been sharing throughout the week (where a position does really well only to reverse course dramatically). Sometimes things just don't go my way, and as terrible as it might seem in the moment, the reality is that cases like this are baked into back tests all throughout history. It's particularly tough when an entire array of positions switches course like this, but that's the risk involved and this is what we all signed up for. Back tests suggest that over time the odds might be in our favor, so our task might be mainly to find a way to live with the emotions associated with these shifts in account value along the way. The growth of the unrealized account balance early in the week gave us a taste of the potential for what can happen when things do go our way.
I have a bunch of options positions that reached their time limits today. I'm going to close all of those at the end of normal trading hours today unless they hit their profit targets first.
Also, for the options trades I posted that are for the November 26 expiration date, I initially had a "Closing By" date of November 25. I forgot that was Thanksgiving. I went in and edited those to all say November 24. I will close all of those the day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday of next week).
If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you.