Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Options -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SecularBull who wrote (6132)	4/6/2000 4:05:00 PM
From: Poet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8096

Loffy: I only had a small amount of shares, but wanted to free up some cash, so I sold. I didn't do much trading today, as I'm still not feeling well. I bought CRA calls (CKADJ, the April 155's) and THOO puts (YUUPM, the April 165's). What did you do?

To: SecularBull who wrote (6132)	4/6/2000 4:09:00 PM
From: Jill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8096

Just read all the posts on our thread today. Agree w/ all that nobody should ever be fully leveraged (i.e. margined); agree that there's a time and place for selling puts and for buying calls, I do both, I've profited from both. Everybody seems to have their own favorite strategy they're good at. Personally, I like leaps calls on a good stock (for instance, EMC, SEBL, QCOM). They can really profit nicely. I also feel comfortable with short term calls (not short term like Poet, but a few months out) when an issue is really going up. Think of the psychology of QCOM last year. There is a time to just ride the psychology when a stock is on a tear. Or NTAP until recently, and unfortunatley the calls I had that had profited wildly, I did not take profits before the split, and I really should have, and then waited to buy them back way cheap. So I learn some lessons a bunch of times before they sink in. Otherwise, selling puts in an oversold condition is a really nice way to use margin capacity, if that's what you want to use it for. And ed's right, repair is almost always possible. I've heard of people who've been put but I've never known somebody personally who was put ahead of expiry. And besides, you're not supposed to sell puts unless you have capacity and willingness to be put at that price. In other words, you mainly want to capture the premium, but you wouldn't be so unhappy to get the stock for that price. I will note that many of do use discount brokers and during crazy market times they are screwy. Fidelity wasn't working at all on Tuesday, and the phone lines put you on hold as well. Still, you aren't going to get put in those fifteen minutes. What is good about this thread is to see how all of us make $. And today, I did nothin'! It looks like a good play on MRVC though. Smart timing. ANd franlky if I wasn't so stung by the biotech experience I'd even have wanted to buy some CRA and AFFX but I'm staying away from that sector for a long time!