Kingston Trader

Trade log and musings as I wade through Options trading. I'm a Crap Trader, learning as I go... hopefully not losing much money, and maybe making some along the way.

[kingstontrader]

Kingston Trader has moved.

I moved Kingston Trader over to Blogger.  The URL is: kingston-trader.blogspot.com

[kingstontrader]

AAPL LEAPs Diagonal (Poor Man's Covered Call)

Opened a Poor Man's Covered Call position on AAPL today, as part of a longer term position.  

Long 1x Jan 2016 450 LEAPs at 92.50

Short 1x OCT 505 call at 1.82

Total cost of the position is $9090 on open.  If I am able to make a 10-20% profit of the position early on I may close the position.  I plan on letting the short calls expire worthless or rolling them for a profit, most likely monthly. If the short call goes in the money, I will try to trade around it to generate some more premium if possible (such as by selling a put against it).  

[kingstontrader]

Trade near end of yesterday. STO BIDU Calls

Sep 5 trade: STO 8x OCT BIDU 165 naked calls at 0.36. Total premium of $268. Position uses $6600 in margin room. ROR of 4% if position expires at OPEX in 43 days.  

[kingstontrader]

Open Trade Sep 4: AMZN Naked Puts.

September 4: STO 10x NOV AMZN 195 naked puts for 0.51. Total premium collected 487.50. 73 Days til expiry means 5% ROR on 9750 margin used. 

[kingstontrader]

Trade Sep 3: STO XOP naked puts

STO 17x $XOP DEC 43 Naked puts at 0.20 (note that I tweeted 0.21, I got 0.20, not 0.21) for a total collected premium of 308.76.   109 days til expiry.  Position uses $3655 margin.  ROR on margin is 8.4% if held to expiry.  

[kingstontrader]

First day back after taking the summer off trading.

Wow! What a great and busy summer! After doing some renos at our new house, we moved in at the end of June and I decided (on short notice) to take the rest of the summer off til Labour Day weekend and hang out with our two boys.  We did all sorts of cool things but now its time to get back to business since they are back at school today.  I havent been paying much attention over the summer so I will be easing in. My goal is to make about 2% a month on the margin I put up. I will try and make that 2% monthly over 1-3 months but may go out a bit further from time to time.  I have a total of 200k of margin that I have allocated for trading, but I probably wont use all of it.. but you never know.. 

[kingstontrader]

Positions Update June OPEX.  I have a few remaining June expiries that will be wiped out over the weekend. I finished the month with a profit of $1308 which I'm happy with after a rocky few weeks... In contrast July Expiries are looking bad. I'm down about $1500 on the positions I have closed and there is still a month left tile July expiries.  We're moving into a new house and I'm taking the summer off active trading to be with my boys while they are off school so I wont be posting/tweeting very much for the next few months... Given the turmoil in the market the last few sessions, this might be a good time to step back and re-evaluate some strategy. 

Update: All remaining July positions expired at full profit. $728.79 profit.

[kingstontrader]

Positions Update June 3: I've been busy finishing up renovations on our new house during the day so havent been at my desk much, and when I have been at my desk I havent been very diligent in posting my trades on either twitter or here.  This is an update that shows my current positions as of today.  You can see a few trades went negative on me and I got out of them at a loss.  A few more I got out of at a profit. June looking like a mediocre or possibly nil month if I have to close any more positions in the next few weeks.  On the bright side, my house is looking shiny and updated!.

[kingstontrader]

Current Positions May OPEX. Not the best month, but there was some turbulence and a lot of talking head chatter around earnings that kept me from taking a lot of positions.. Either way, a profit is a profit. $1727.50 now moved over to my investment account to buy some dividend stocks (if they ever go on sale).  Looking to June Expiries, my netflix short strangle was a bust as I got punted out of it as the call hit my stop.  I'm trying to close the put leg to free up some margin for other trades.... 

[kingstontrader]

Current Position with 1 week til May OPEX. All looking pretty good. Starting to look for some July positions or some rich June premiums out there (if there are any).

[kingstontrader]

Current positions as of May 3 at 10:00am.  Going forward, planning on holding all May positions to expiry unless margin requirement spikes.

[kingstontrader]

What I'm watching... Looking for buy and hold positions in KMP and LW.  Currently have LW and FCR

[kingstontrader]

OpEx April 19.  All of my remaining April positions should finish OTM today. Final profit this month is $2386.50. Not bad considering all the red the last week. May isnt looking quite as good right now.  I'm feeling bearish so I expect I will be light on writing any put on some of my usual favourites.  

[kingstontrader]

Current positions mid-day April 15.  buggered an AMZN short call sale last week and close May AMZN short puts today since they got 80% of max profit with still a month left to go... no need to tempt fate.  Will be watching earnings closely the next few weeks, looking for June positions.

[kingstontrader]

Current Positions BOD April 8.  Currently no plans to open anything new til earnings give some guidance. All existing positions looking good for now. May close some May positions early if the earnings start looking weak/poor. Happy trading this week.

[kingstontrader]

Current Posiitions March 28, 1pm.  Update from this week, I opened some APR 26 BIDU naked puts at 77.50 that look safe as of right now.... I may turn the position into a spread by buying the 75s if the stock pops a bit.   I have an order in place to close the APC puts at 0.09 but so far they havent gone through.  I might open up new positions next week if I can close the APC puts out.  I am in no rush as I just want to wait out a few more days and let some time decay before forcing a trade.... so for now I wait.  Have a great Easter Weekend!  As usual, if you want to follow my trades in real-time you can follow me on Twitter at @Kingston_Trader.

[kingstontrader]

Current Positions March 22: The spreadsheet above mostly speaks for itself.  I opened a few positions this week (APC and CRM) and closed a few because of increased margin requirement (BIIB and CSTR).  I had to call up TDW to see why the margin requirements were so high.  The explanation was that the margin calc is based on the "loan value" of the particular equity... In the case of BIIB and CSTR the margin was approximately 6 times what I thought it should have been, so I closed the positions as soon as they were break-even.  I will probably close the APC position soon because it too has an increased margin requirement.  All positions look in good shape going into the weekend.