boilermaker75

I've done my best to keep this struggling company alive. I have no idea how many AAPL computers/laptops I have bought. Probably more than a dozen going back to my first one a MAC/SE. Same with iPhones. I have also bought two original iPads and two iPad Pros. Mother-in-Law had a PC. About 4 months ago gave her one of our original iPads, which is all she uses now. So will probably get her an iPad Pro for Xmas.

Wrote some AAPL 177.50-strike Friday expiration puts.

Glad you find that idea useful. I wrote some BRKB 210-strike Friday expiration puts for $1.05-$1.07 per share today. I like to write slightly OTM puts on Wednesday before Thanksgiving that expire on Friday after Thanksgiving. They usually expire worthless. Friday is usually a quiet day with a slightly positive bias.

Yep, I access through my university's library.

Wrote some BRKB 205 strike, Dec 14 expiration puts for $2.20 per share.

I speculate Mike's more or less constantly selling Berkshire puts is a side gig closely related to Mike's primary occupation: . [ : - ) ] Charlies' sit on your ass investing Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. B.(1970). Attention in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 329–337

I sure hope so! My four largest holdings are 1. BRKB 2. WFC 3. BAC 4. BK How funny. These are my top 4 holdings too, and at the same order. There only difference is these four are also my Only holdings. They essentially are my only holdings also. Just a few other rather small positions. BRKB is about 50% of my holdings.

I sure hope so! My four largest holdings are 1. BRKB 2. WFC 3. BAC 4. BK

His cameo appearances in all those Marvel movies were great.

globalfinancepartners, I know you have been writing puts for a while, maybe as long as I have. Those BRKB and RHT plays should work out well for you! Geaux Saints! As long as you're picking up pennies in front of the steam roller, why not just sell $190 strike puts against RHT (2020 expiration)? Surely the deal won't fall apart. Seems like less work. Yes if you think the deal goes through and does so in a reasonable time frame. The reason I like options is that I set the date when the play is over. And if I get put to then I can decide whether to hold to conclusion of the acquisition, or write covered calls.

As long as you're picking up pennies in front of the steam roller, why not just sell $190 strike puts against RHT (2020 expiration)? Surely the deal won't fall apart. Seems like less work. Yes if you think the deal goes through and does so in a reasonable time frame. The reason I like options is that I set the date when the play is over. And if I get put to then I can decide whether to hold to conclusion of the acquisition, or write covered calls.

John, Nothing profound about what I am doing. I am a LTBH investor. First, I use writing puts to enter positions. All my current positions were entered that way. It gives me the discipline to wait for my price. I don’t have that patience with just limit orders. Besides I get paid while waiting to be exercised, probably why I am more patient, and it lowers my basis by the put premium. A criticism would be not acquiring a position because you don’t get put to. This has only happened to me once. I wanted to acquire some MCD at $50 and was never put to. So, I missed out on a three-bagger so far. Secondly, I use puts to do some trading. Usually stocks I already own and at prices I would not mind if I were put to. 80% of my positions are written when the expiration is a few days to about a month out. For the other 20% the expiration is 1-2 months out when I write the put. I am selling insurance and collecting very nice premiums, but unlike insurance, if I have to pay a claim I end up with a stock I don’t mind owning at the price I am put to. Third, it is also a way to be margined in the sense if I would be exercised on all my outstanding puts I would be on margin. From 2008-2016, if I were put to on all my outstanding puts, I would have been around 25% on margin. I only ended up slightly on margin a couple times and by writing covered calls (equivalent to writing a put) I was quickly off of margin. Since about January, I have been writing puts where I would be just slightly on margin if put to on everything. Currently I am short puts on BRKB with strike prices of 200, 205, 207.50, and 210; BK with strike prices of 50; WFC with strike prices of 54; BAC with strike prices of 29, 29.50, and 30; and GILD with strike prices of 70. Fourth, I also like to write puts to play risk arbitrage. For instance, when BRK was acquiring BNI I was writing at-the-money puts on BNI. If I outright bought BNI, I would have to wait till the acquisition closed to know my return. By writing puts I was setting the date when my play would be completed and what my return would be. I then followed an expiration with writing more puts. I did this till BRK closed on BNI. Mike If I did not already have too many open put positions, I would use writing puts to play the IBM all-cash acquisition of RHT. (I probably will after some of my open puts get past expiration.) For instance, this morning you could have written RHT 170-strike puts with expiration this Friday for $1.50 per share. Then on Friday you can decide what your play is for the next week.

Way to go Bizaro!

Not only how well you remember, but how well you comprehend. Scullin, M., McDaniel, M., Howard, D., & Kudelka, C. (2011, June). Sleep and testing promote conceptual learning of classroom materials. Presented at the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC, Minneapolis, MN. Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen, et. al., “Human relational memory requires time and sleep,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007. Ulrich Wagner, Steffen Gais, Hide Haider, Rolf Verleger, & Jan Born, “Sleep Inspires Insight, Nature volume 427, 352-355, Jan 22, 2004. Mednick, Nakayama, and Stickgold, “Sleep-dependent learning: a nap is as good as a night,” Nature Neuroscience, 2003 At the 5:40 point in this video the role of sleep on learning is discussed,

Me too! From what I have heard he and his family love the community and he is only three hours from his hometown of Louisville. Plus he should be able to dominate the B1G West and get into the B1G title game every year. Winning the B1G title game should get you in the playoffs most years. The game before the OSU game was Illinois. We had the game won, so you could see he was running plays in the fourth quarter to give OSU things they would have to work on in practice. His play calling against OSU was perfection.

dcollon, I said teared up, but I really was crying.

I can't watch that without tearing up.

Thanks, amazing coaching staff doing. For anyone who missed it, here are the highlights in three minutes. Freshman WR Rondale Moore is amazing. He is 175 pounds and can squat 600 pounds. So he can stop instantly and change directions and he is hard to bring down.

The wait part is the same for writing puts or buying positions outright. It is always better waiting for lower prices! What about the premiums that you collected while you wait versus the lower prices that you would've got?? I would not have gotten lower prices. Once I determine where I want to buy a stock it doesn't matter if I write a put at that strike price or put a limit order to buy the stock at that strike price. I own the stock either way at about the same basis. Edit: I didn't know the market was going lower. I was getting put to at prices that I thought were good values, which they eventually were. So if I was going to buy the stock through a limit order I would have done it at the same price as I was being put to. There was a fund that blew up around the 2008/2009 time frame. I think the key difference between you and that fund is that you viewed your position size as the amount that you would be put to as the total margin was only 25% at its peak. He had written puts that were 2-3x his fund's exposure. When he got put to in 2008/2009 and the positions subsequently decline, he was basically carried out on a stretcher. Even though my exposure was 25%, I was never more than about 5% on margin and by writing covered calls I was able to get off of margin.

The wait part is the same for writing puts or buying positions outright. It is always better waiting for lower prices! What about the premiums that you collected while you wait versus the lower prices that you would've got?? I would not have gotten lower prices. Once I determine where I want to buy a stock it doesn't matter if I write a put at that strike price or put a limit order to buy the stock at that strike price. I own the stock either way at about the same basis. Edit: I didn't know the market was going lower. I was getting put to at prices that I thought were good values, which they eventually were. So if I was going to buy the stock through a limit order I would have done it at the same price as I was being put to.

The wait part is the same for writing puts or buying positions outright. It is always better waiting for lower prices!

I was. I had positions in BRKB, BA, WFC, BAC, ADP, JNJ, SBUX, PG, MMM, ITW, BDK, and NKE that were below the prices at which I was put to. I held till they came back. I never went on margin in the 2008/2009 time frame. It was after the market started coming back that I got aggressive writing puts and I got slightly on margin a couple of times. The only ones I still own are BRKB, WFC, and BAC, which are my three largest holdings with BRKB being about 40% of my portfolio.

You are welcome John!

Not boiler, but in early 2009, I tried to get into FDX when it was at $39 for a long term buy and hold, but I decided to get into it by selling a weekly put to try to pick up $1 extra or something. The stock ended up bouncing to $45 before the put expired, so I didn't get assigned the shares. I never actually purchased any of it, so that decision turned out poorly. Yes that will happen. But for me I more than make up for that occasional miss, which for me so far has only been once in 20 years, by the put premiums I collect from expired positions and the lower basis on stock purchases from the decipline writing puts gives me to wait for a better price.

John, Nothing profound about what I am doing. I am a LTBH investor. First, I use writing puts to enter positions. All my current positions were entered that way. It gives me the discipline to wait for my price. I don’t have that patience with just limit orders. Besides I get paid while waiting to be exercised, probably why I am more patient, and it lowers my basis by the put premium. A criticism would be not acquiring a position because you don’t get put to. This has only happened to me once. I wanted to acquire some MCD at $50 and was never put to. So, I missed out on a three-bagger so far. Secondly, I use puts to do some trading. Usually stocks I already own and at prices I would not mind if I were put to. 80% of my positions are written when the expiration is a few days to about a month out. For the other 20% the expiration is 1-2 months out when I write the put. I am selling insurance and collecting very nice premiums, but unlike insurance, if I have to pay a claim I end up with a stock I don’t mind owning at the price I am put to. Third, it is also a way to be margined in the sense if I would be exercised on all my outstanding puts I would be on margin. From 2008-2016, if I were put to on all my outstanding puts, I would have been around 25% on margin. I only ended up slightly on margin a couple times and by writing covered calls (equivalent to writing a put) I was quickly off of margin. Since about January, I have been writing puts where I would be just slightly on margin if put to on everything. Currently I am short puts on BRKB with strike prices of 200, 205, 207.50, and 210; BK with strike prices of 50; WFC with strike prices of 54; BAC with strike prices of 29, 29.50, and 30; and GILD with strike prices of 70. Fourth, I also like to write puts to play risk arbitrage. For instance, when BRK was acquiring BNI I was writing at-the-money puts on BNI. If I outright bought BNI, I would have to wait till the acquisition closed to know my return. By writing puts I was setting the date when my play would be completed and what my return would be. I then followed an expiration with writing more puts. I did this till BRK closed on BNI. Mike How long have you been following this approach? Are there any other circumstances where it was detrimental? I have been doing this for 20 years. The only other thing detrimental is making a mistake in valuing a stock, no different than if you were valuing the stock to outright purchase. Actually, writing a put is a little more conservative than outright purchase at the strike price because your basis is lowered by the option premium.