The only positions I managed to get this week were a $4 CC and 2x $3.5 CSPs on NEGG. Judging by the closing price today at $4.09, it looks like I will be called away on the 100 shares I have.
Breaking that play down, I have collected $110 in premiums, bringing my cost basis down to $2.90/share. When sold at $4/share, that’s a +38% gain!
Checking my spreadsheet, the original CSP position was opened at the end of June, so let’s say this cycle of the wheel was completed over 1.5 months.
I am now 100% cash on the account, and so it’s a good time to benchmark overall gain. The total account balance since I started is +19.12%. That’s phenomenal considering the YTD performance of the market overall.
Looking forward to next week where I’ll be looking to put my balance to good use.
As for my 2%/Challenge account, I am still trying to not really touch that and build up the account balance but I did do some plays this week.
I played FOMC for a 30% gain, I did a SPY scalp today for 7% or so, and then I took the OXY play in the late afternoon today.
The OXY call was a $74 expiring on the 26th. I was at one point up over 30% but I had conviction to hold over the weekend, so I held on. Towards the end of the day I didn’t like the price action on OXY so I got cold feet and sold for a still-respectable 3% gain and I can go into the weekend without stress.
Fully positioned for the week. Here’s what I took:
PTON 1x $9P
NEGG 1x $3.5P
BBBY 2x $6P
I have faith in the apes to keep BBBY above $6 this week, and that PTON’s upcoming bad ER isn’t worse than expected. $3.5 at NEGG has always felt pretty safe and I took this to fill the remainder of my cash balance and not just have it sit unused.
I am feeling a bit more safe on the $6 BBBY strike as BBBY seemed stuck around the $5.5-$6 level before the recent pump. I feel that it stays slightly above this level for a while with all the new bagholders.
I only have about $60 in buying power left for the week, which means I am fully positioned and will monitor how this week plays out.
Looks like I will be taking 100% of the premium from the above and can start all over again Monday. Very good CSP positions that took advantage of high IV this time around.
Next week, I’ll be all cash again to begin a new round of CSPs.
I tried to get fills for BRCC and NEGG, but they didn’t hit my ask price. I have about $1k still to put in to the wheel tomorrow so I will potentially run my algo again to find opportunities tomorrow.
Took a BBBY $9.5 CSP for this week. With 3 more days to expiry, I still have a couple dollars worth of buffer before the expected catalyst tomorrow. The premiums were good and I think I could wheel this one pretty successfully if assigned given the increased IV not going away in the short term. Wheel account is now fully positioned for the week with only about $100 in cash left over.
Cash account:
Took a $390 spy put when I saw SPY break beneath $399. Gained 50% before my trail limit saved me from the bounce around $365.40. Really nice use of the trail order there as I rode SPY all the way down. This makes up for my bad SPY play on Friday after the Jackson Hole meeting fucked me.
Looks like NTNX was the right call. My CSP didn’t even come close to being under threat. However, my BBBY gamble didn’t pay off. With the $9.5 CSP, my cost basis will be around $9 now. On Tuesday, I should hopefully be able to sell a covered call at the $9 level and come out profitable if I’m called away, and the IV should still be high enough to have some decent premiums to bring the cost basis down even lower.
I preferably do not want to have this $950 locked up for very long on BBBY and want to exit as quickly as possible, so I’m just going to target whichever lowest strike I still come out even a dollar green on.
Cash account:
Took an HPQ put yesterday afternoon that I selfishly held and made 10% on today. Definitely got lucky as this could have been (and actually was earlier in the day) worthless. I’ll take this as a lotto win and will have to do better next time to not make such an impulse decision. It worked this time, but I could have been out $50 easily.
Took a DWAC $15 CSP. With a current price above $21, and with premiums over $1, I felt the risk/reward is pretty good. DWAC certainly has a lot of negative attention and recently failed to get approval for their apps on the official app stores, so there’s definitely downward pressure. My bet is it doesn’t drop below $15 in 3 more trading days.
Sold a $9 BBBY CC. Unfortunately not for as much as I would’ve liked. Considering the extra bad news over the long weekend, it looks like I’ll be holding this one for a while
More or less fully positioned for the week. I have like $150 cash but I’m not gonna throw that at a cheap $1 stock
Bought my DWAC $15 CSP back at $0.10. This might’ve been the best snipe of the wheel strategy thus far, and I wanted to block the risk of any surprise implosion of DWAC from the upcoming catalyst today and avoid getting assigned. That’s a clean $100 exactly in my pocket and I only held the CSP for two and a half days. Super pleased with how that worked out and I don’t think the $10 left on the table was worth holding through a catalyst that a lot of people think will result in the liquidation of DWAC.
Sold a $10 BBBY Covered Call for just above $50 this morning. I’d be thrilled of that gets called away this week, as it’s a strike above my original assigned strike.
I also sold a $17 LYFT CSP, which fully positions me for the week really. A bit of a quiet week. So far LYFT is up on the day and I just have to hope there’s not a ton of negative action on it the rest of the week.
Looks like that $17p LYFT CSP will get assigned. I blame FedEx tanking the market and Uber getting hacked as the culprits, although LYFT had been fighting at the $17 level all week.
This means I don’t have enough cash next week to open any more CSPs. There’s about $130 in cash that I’m not willing to put into wheeling a penny stock.
Positions:
BBBY with cost basis around $8.40
LYFT with cost basis around $16.70
Challenge account:
Had a good week playing momentum on SPY but then I fucked up. I took a $400 lotto call at end of day yesterday and it ended up worthless at open. It was really a reckless decision and not usually like me at all. I really need to control myself better when I get bored or stuff like this happens. Overall on the week I’m up, but that stupid decision ended up costing me some of my good gains from the week.
Boring update today. Only got covered calls on my two positions and only for about $50. Hoping one or both of them get called away this week so I can pick more CSPs.
My two positions got really beaten up last week. Premiums this week aren’t looking super great for strikes that would result in profit, so I am going to wait until there’s more green. Still not enough cash to open new positions, so the account is just stuck for now. BBBY has earnings this week and IV is insanely high for it, but still I’d only collect about $10 or less from the $9 strike.
Challenge account:
Held a COST call over the weekend following the ER thread/JB’s callouts. Got out today for around 10% profit. Can’t complain!
Bit of a break from updates here as my wheel positions have been fully positioned into covered calls now, so I’m just selling those weekly.
Unfortunately, the price for BBBY and LYFT has fallen a bit far and the premium on the strikes that put me in the green are not very juicy. I’m making about $10/week on each play.
This week I took a riskier position on both of these covered calls, with strikes lower than my profitable level, to take advantage of better premiums. Hoping that I don’t get called away, but I also wouldn’t mind that much and would like to free up some cash for new CSP positions.
Saw some green on LYFT and BBBY so I sold some CC’s on them for next week. Current breakdown:
LYFT cost basis: $16.18. Position is currently quite red and can only collect about $10-15 on premiums that aren’t too risky, yet if my strike gets hit I’d be taking a bit of a loss.
BBBY cost basis: $7.99. Position is also quite red and I’m selling CC’s for strikes that if called away would be for a loss.
I’m betting we make it through next week without much upward pressure but I’m ready to roll these positions if I have to to stay OTM.
Small account update:
Played FOMC pretty heavily. I believe I screwed up by starting my position too early and SPY dipped down a couple times between around noon when I bought and the FOMC release at 2pm. I averaged down a couple times but the best entry turned out to be right before 2pm. I managed to come out positive on most of my calls, but due to my bad initial entry I definitely didn’t come out very much above breakeven. I think I managed to come out only $3 green or something insignificant. Lessons learned for next time!
Both CC’s stayed out of the money and expired today. Looking forward to next week, especially with LYFT as it’s seen a push up this week. Premiums for next week should be better for strikes closer to my breakeven.
BBBY is flat and not exciting so I can only hope to collect another $10-$15 next week from it I think.
Small account:
Thought I got a good put entry this afternoon which ended up being the wrong play. Averaged down on it one time, then cut when SPY just kept breaking resistances. Lost $40 on the account overall. Not a big amount, but still hurts either way.
LYFT had a pretty solid day today so I sold a $16.50 covered call for NEXT week. Premiums bring my cost basis below $16 now, so I’m happy of I get called away. Pretty dumb of me to lock up most of my buying power in one play so I’ll try not to make that mistake again.
Reminder that my original entry on LYFT was with a $17 strike, so I’d be selling the shares at a $50 loss but the premiums I’ve made along the way would bring me to a $50 net gain.
No action with BBBY today because it was pretty red. Premiums are garbage, even for next week. I want to see a bit of green before opening a position there.
Small account:
Wanted to get a longer dated put position on the $380 rejection today, but didn’t get a fill. How I don’t kick myself over that one if we don’t see $380 again for a while. I was looking at around the $352p for Nov 18. It’s pretty much what I can safely afford without using too much of the balance on that account.
LYFT has earnings today so I took advantage of the very good premiums. I’m targeting the original price I got assigned at - $17. My cost basis for LYFT is now about $15.50.
BBBY sucks so I’m taking a $5 CC for next week to harvest SOME premium. I don’t think this ticker is going to move at all. I’ve got my cost basis down now to about $7.90 for this current round, so I’ll be red if this gets called away, however if I take ALL my BBBY earnings from previous wheel attempts, my overall cost basis is below $5, so there’s that silver lining at least.
For my small account, I’ve gotten WAVD and EOSE. I’ve just sold a Covered Call on EOSE to bring my cost basis down another 10%. I feel that with my small account I’ve started to just wheel it since I’m enjoying that so much lol. I’ve gravitated away from trying to scalp SPY because it turns out I’m not very good at it.
Double dipped on LYFT this week. After the horrible earnings, I bought back my Covered Call for $1, then today I sold another Covered Call for $16. Strike is very aggressive, but I don’t see LYFT rebounding too much. Will monitor closely to see if I need to roll it for next week.
But that’s about $50 from LYFT in premiums alone this week, which is pretty good if you ignore the havoc LYFT and BBBY bagholding is doing to my account balance lol. The cash balance is getting healthier every week and I hope I can enter a cheaper ticker soon.
I have about $300 cash, which is not enough for anything in my weekly CSP threads yet, but there are options like NEGG I could look at that are below $5/share.
Well LYFT really surprised me the last two days and I was forced to roll to next week. I still have the same $11.50 strike though, so hopefully things cool off or I’ll have to roll again. I can keep rolling as long as necessary to ensure profitability here.
