Well, this doesn't look to be shaping up like any kind of momentous day in bear history. For bull history, however, it should be a doozy. Especially for the lucky ducks with GOOG calls.
JakeGint pointed out, just for laughs, some of the ungodly percentage gains some people are going to enjoy with April GOOG calls. One example has a particular call going from 50 cents to probably around $34 or so. In other words, $1,000 becomes $78,000 overnight. Yeesh. Of course, there's some other poor s.o.b. on the other side of that transaction. In any case, fortunes will be made and lost today! GOOG is trading pre-market where the red circle is drawn:
My, errr, single put on GOOG (May 480 puts) will not enjoy a 78-fold increase in value. You probably figured that much out already. But, as always, my commitment on any one position is small. To help compensate, I at least have two puts on ISRG (May 350 puts) which will ease the pain quite a bit. ISRG is trading where the red circle shows. I imagine I'll sell one straightaway and just keep the other one to see what happens.
Another bright spot – and God knows these days I need 'em – is that gold and oil seem to be headed for a weak opening. Most of my positions are short gold or oil in some way. Here's where GLD is trading, for instance, prior to the open (red circle):
The overarching concern I have is whether our hopes for a bear market have been a fantasy this whole time. A deluge of bad economic news seems to have been shaken off. So we had first quarter earnings as a possible catalyst. Well, with the exception of GE, that hasn't worked out at all. Earnings seem to be perfectly fine to investors. So with the IWM trading at the upper reaches of its 2008 range (see red circle below, pre-market indication) we are at a high-risk level. A breakout above 2008's range would be a wreck for the ursine types.
