SteadyOptions Trading Blog

In a year of uncertainty that included a recalcitrant North Korea, Britain’s continued exit from the European Union, multiple terrorist attacks, and global populist uprisings, to say 2017 was a turbulent year is a bit of an understatement—except, that is, in stock markets.

Trading is exciting. Trading is hard. Trading is extremely hard. Some say that it takes more than 10,000 hours to master. Others believe that trading is the way to quick riches. They might be both wrong. What is important to know that no matter how experienced you are, mistakes will be part of the trading process.

We've looked at a lot of momentum trades, but for now, we will continue to look at non-directional trades. This is a slightly advanced option trade that starts two calendar days after FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) earnings and lasts for the 19 calendar days to follow, that has been a winner for the last 2 years. 

When taking an options position, there will be risk and potential reward. Options Greeks measure the different factors that affect the risk and the reward of the option position. The following infographic provided a brief explanation of the most important Greeks: theta, delta, gamma vega and rho and their impact on prices.

The mysterious volatility trader known as "50 Cent" has lost $197 million in 2017 betting on a spike in the VIX, which would accompany a stock market shock. 50 Cent is starting to slow down, deploying roughly 20% of the contracts he had outstanding over the summer. This story has been published in Business Insider.

"Investors should be indifferent to $1 in the form of a dividend (causing the stock’s price to drop by $1) or $1 received by selling shares. This must be true, unless you believe that $1 is not worth $1. This theorem has not been challenged since—except by those bitten by the “dividend bug.”

Here’s a fun thought experiment. Suppose you had $15,000 to invest evenly in fifteen different companies back before the Great Recession. Then you let it ride through the market’s downturn, holding your investment instead of selling anything. How much would you have today?

One of the most common criticisms of any kind of investing is that it can be viewed as being akin to gambling. There’s nothing wrong with this given that investing in various forms is a perfectly legal and regular activity. 

One of the interesting features about options is that there is a relationship between calls, puts, and the underlying stock. And because of that relationship, some option positions are equivalent – that means identical profit/loss profiles – to others.

For those not familiar with the long straddle option strategy, it is a neutral strategy in options trading that involves the simultaneously buying of a put and a call on the same underlying, strike and expiration. The trade has a limited risk (which is the debit paid for the trade) and unlimited profit potential. 

We last wrote about Oracle on 2017-09-03 with this same back-test -- a 3-day momentum swing trade ahead of earnings and it has followed through for 8 consecutive pre-earnings cycles with a 290% total return during that historical period. Oracle's next earnings date is 12-14-2017, but this not is not yet confirmed. 

Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) has earnings due out Monday, October 16th, after the market closes. Seven calendar days before then would be 10-9-2017. It is time to look at the company's remarkable history of momentum into earnings events and how we can use it with options trade.