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For my portfolios, I normally short-sell securities. Of my 30 positions, 27 of them are shorts, but three of them are options positions.
They have several things in common: (i) they are all puts (ii) they have a ton of time left on them, none of them expiring until 2027 or 2028 (iii) they are all in the money. Suffice it to say I am going to try my best to be very patient with these, which is why I’ve given them so much time:
As most of you know, my largest options position is the China ETF symbol FXI. I have quite deliberately chosen March 2027 $37 puts to give me gobs of time to be right (there are presently 219 days left on these, and let’s face it, in the world we live in today, that’s about two centuries from today).
The FXI is a plodding price mover, but in my estimation, we have hammered out the sixth top in this long-term chart and are heading lower. All five preceding tops produced excellent results. It also helps that a certain someone on Pennsylvania Avenue doesn’t have a vested interest in propping this market up.
My options portfolio is somewhat different now, but all five positions have these things in common:
(1) they all have at least 162 days until expiration (2) they are all in the money (3) they are simple directional plays, based on the supposition that between now and early next year their prices will be substantially lower. Here are the underlying securities:
On Friday, I did something I never thought I’d do in my life, which is go long Seagate (STX) puts.
This is loony because the stock was almost $1,000 and the options were incredibly expensive. I gave it a whirl, though (red arrow) and was pleased to close Friday with a small profit on them. I was even happier yesterday, Monday, when STX took a tumble, so I sold the position (green arrow) and patted myself firmly on the back for being such a clever lad.
I wanted to expand on an anecdote I mentioned in the video from the last post. I stated that I bought a put on STX a couple of days ago, and I sold it for a profit today. STX is something I wouldn’t had dared short a couple of months ago, but in recent weeks I’ve traded it with some success, and last Thursday I went totally unhinged and bought a September $910 put.
