Straddle No Longer

I closed out my call side of the straddle position today. I got in at $1.90 and got out at $2.95. The QQQQ's are currently trading above the 5, 20 and 50 day moving average, however I am a bit leery going into options Friday, which is why I locked in some profit. A downturn will allow me to benefit from my put position, thus increasing my overall trade profit.

Straddle the QQQQ's

I'm trying a new strategy, which I have never used before to try and take advantage of these volatile swings within the QQQQ's. I'm using the buy straddle strategy, so yesterday I purchased 1 April 27 call/put and we will see what happens from here.

Weakness in NASDAQ

I sold my Jun 53 put contract in the qqqq's on Friday. I actually picked up this contract back in mid-Jan and set a limit order for $10.00 and it actually got filled at $10.08. The qqqq's are actually trading sub-$43.00 in after hours. I still feel there is going to be continued weakness and could very well trade sub-$40.00's. I will still be on the lookout to buy additional puts on the qqqq's with some deep in the money puts.

Options Expiration

Options expiration is this week, so I am expecting at least a few days of increased volatility as people scramble to get in/out of their respective short and long positions. I am looking to sit on the sidelines unless something falls directly into my wheelhouse. I still have my Jun 53 put position in the qqqq's and feel there is some more downward pricing to follow. The Feb 30 calls on the VIX have large volume, so why buck the trend that seems to be presenting itself.

Put on the QQQQ's

I got short the QQQQ's again. Bought 1 Jun 53 put @ $6.65

Sold QQQQ's

Sold my QQQQ Feb 52 puts @ $3.09. Nice little pop.

QQQQ Put

Picked up 1 QQQQ Feb 52 put at $2.57. It traded as low as $2.30, but climbed back up a bit and I think will increase in value during tomorrow's trading day.

Santa Claus Comes to Town

The foreign market has done its job and is up pretty much across the board with the Nikkei and Hang Seng up 1.66% and 4.09% respectively, so you may be asking yourself "Is Santa Claus coming to town?" Well according to the bean counters and retail analysts retail sales were up 7.2% to 16.2 billion for Friday and Saturday, when compared with last year. Speaking of strong, oil is up again, so will we see $100 oil by the end of the year? In my opinion, this would be a psychological blow to the market if we do see oil reach and sustain these levels.

Enough of my rambling on macro issues. A couple of stocks I'm going to keep my eye on this week are: RIO, CMED, TNE, and SSRX, just to name a few. As a reminder I still have puts on the QQQQ's and CSCO. As a final thought, I have come across a cool site, Contrary Canary which details out his picks and provides charts and insight to specific trades, so check it out.