Morning Moves

I bought RKUS March 15 calls today, as well as weekly options in TWTR and HLF. I missed my spot in MPEL.

I’m going to start off managing positions like they were little children until I feel like I can let them run all over the place again, in reckless fashion.

Speaking of which, our next trading crash course will be on portfolio/position/risk management. I know we discussed trading for a living as a topic, but I cannot find a tax professional to hire for an hour long presentation.

If I can get myself prepared, we’ll start the course today. I will let you know for sure later this afternoon.

OA

February expiration is almost in the books and it can’t come soon enough. For the love of time decay, this has been my worst monthly expiration cycle since 2011.

I started off the year on pace to set personal records. By mid Jan I was up nearly 25%, with positions on in stocks that were going to rip out the gates this year. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the market sells off. Normally this does not concern me, as we seem to ride out the dips trading stocks with low correlations to the market. We seem to always have a handful of big wins each cycle too, which help pay for the 3-5 (on average) positions that expire worthless each month. This month, no monster winners, just a handful of positions expiring worthless.

This month, I have 9.

I can’t exactly recall the last time this has happened. Not in the last two years anyway. And what’s interesting, several of these were profitable. The others I was right on the price movement. But in EVERY situation, I was wrong about time.

Today I will watch several worthless positions leave my screen, no longer serving as a constant reminder of good risk gone bad. This will help me to move on, mentally, without an account full of static reminders of what I could have, should have, or would have done differently.

Needless to say the big gains I worked hard for this year have nearly all diminished. The last week and a half has helped me to get back into the green for the year. I’m in a state now where I am hungry. I have a tendency to make up for drawdowns quickly and am done fucking around for 2014. Time to get things rolling again.

Here’s where I am at right now:

Calls: KBH, JASO, TSL, LULU, TWTR (March Options)

Last night in After Hours with Option Addict, we discussed CACQ, NOW, Z, PHM, BX and a few others that are trading well. Let’s move forward in putting February behind us.

OA

Since I clearly top ticked GRPN with my last blog post, I am in a hurry to remove it, as computer algorithms have clearly aimed scud missiles at my account, and have detected a giddy asshole blogger in their midst. Annihilation complete.

Here’s my run down of earnings hits and misses…

I opted to hold a portion of my ANGI trade into earnings. Splat.

I held my TRLA position into earnings. PUKE.

I decided to sell my investment in ZNGA. Sch-wing!

I chickened out of GLUU as well. Rrrr-iiippp!

Holding GRPN shares from $9.18, getting a little perky over a move to $12 After Hours. CRUSH!

FML

If you recall the APOL earnings trade we took late last year, start comparing the similarities to GRPN here.

Compelling.

“GRPN to $16” – OA

Love the location in this stock here, picked up some shares here at the lows. Looking for $15 again.

More later,

OA

The TAN is one of few non-leveraged ETFs up more than 20% YTD. Solars have been pretty active over the last two weeks, and have beat the SPY to new relative highs.

FSLR and YGE are still my top two equity positions, roughly 15% a piece, and both up over 40% since purchase. I have added March 10 calls in JASO here, to match other long RSOL and TSL positions.

Any other solar ideas you like here?