The top ten most active option contracts today were:
- Home Depot (HD) January 20 Call Options
- PowerShares QQQ (QQQQ) December 44 Call Options
- PowerShares QQQ January 44 Call Options
- S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) December 105 Put Options
- Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF) January 12 Put Options
- S&P 500 SPDR December 109 Put Options
- S&P 500 SPDR December 110 Call Options
- Financial Select Sector SPDR January 13 Put Options
- PowerShares QQQ December 41 Put Options
- Financial Select Sector SPDR January 14 Put Options
We can see there is some unusual bearish activity in the January XLF options. I have considered hedging with a 13/12 vertical put spread for January in the XLF, but have not opened it yet. Today I sold several December 19 strike put options on the Direxion Daily Financial 3X Bear (FAZ), traded Google December 590 & 600 strike calls back and forth multiple times, and I'm currently short the GOOG 600's. I also sold some call options on Suntech Power (
STP), and tried getting some premium for the December 15 strike put options on A-Power (APWR), but did not get filled. I believe today would have been a great day to get short some puts on APWR but I will try again tomorrow. As stated in a previous blog post APWR reports Thursday so I want to be short some puts going into the number as I don't mind holding the shares if it sells off below 15. I purchased back my 85 strike call options on Visa (
V) as I believe it could hit 85 before expiration with the help of the market. I missed out on buying back my American Express (AXP) 43 strike calls at $40 per contract, which could have been written for $70 at close, so I'll definitely be looking to buy those back on weakness in the underlying. I did sell some premium on the Dell (
DELL) December 14 put options at the day high, which I left open but could have closed for a 20% gain at close. I continued to lighten up on my position in RINO, but may leave the rest to expire as I think my 30/35 vertical call spreads have a good chance of expiring at maximum profitability. Happy trading and hope December can be as profitable if not more profitable than November was
