What are you buying today?

[This2ShallPass]

Built position in TSMC over past 2 weeks. Incremental buys of Fairfax India and Prosus. Doubled position in NE, still small. Small add to Eurobank.

 

Some of my positions I also have calls. During this volatility, I was able to reduce strike price for most for an incremental 20-25% premium. 

[Hsmpanl]

Small adds to JOE, AMZN, FIH, and OGN. Still plenty of cash so just continuing to nibble as opportunities present themselves.

[moneyball]

Deployed some cash today into Meta, Google, ABNB and PAX. Recycled some of my VOO index losses into VT. Started a very modest short in Apple. Think this will remain choppy and hope to take a big swing. In the position of needing to deploy cash.

[Parsad]

Interesting!  If we are triggering these types of outlier events in ETF's, what else are we missing?  Cheers!

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/576-billion-stock-etf-juggernaut-190841653.html

[sleepydragon]

There have been some discussions here previously about using selling puts to buy stocks at lower costs.

Apparently, one could also use another option strategy called “buy-write” to the same result. The strategy is you buy the stock and then sell an ITM calls. If the stocks goes up, your stock gets called away. If the stocks goes down below your strike, you keep the stocks. It’s same as writing OTM puts, except currently selling calls have more premiums because interest rate is high — it compensates for lost interest of the cash you will spend to buy the stock in the “buy write” strategy.

 

anyone considering this strategy?

one thing i am not certain is the tax treatment.  I think in both cases, when options expires, u pay income tax on the premiums. But if your stock get called away/you be put the stock, ur cost basis is adjusted by the premium.  So it seems selling puts have more tax advantages than doing selling ITM calls..

[sleepydragon]

Anyone considering SLV?

gold is surging yet gold/silver ratio is now at 100.  The ratio’s highest point is 130, i think, reached during covid.

 

Silver is also interesting that it has industrial use, especially in solar energy , and anything related to electricity. And there’s not many, if any silver mines. It can only be mined as a by product of other metals. So it can be in shortage.

 

i’m thinking to sell some SLV puts but the option premiums is very low  it’s like 30% implied vol.

 

[Martian]

1 hour ago, sleepydragon said:

There have been some discussions here previously about using selling puts to buy stocks at lower costs.

Apparently, one could also use another option strategy called “buy-write” to the same result. The strategy is you buy the stock and then sell an ITM calls. If the stocks goes up, your stock gets called away. If the stocks goes down below your strike, you keep the stocks. It’s same as writing OTM puts, except currently selling calls have more premiums because interest rate is high — it compensates for lost interest of the cash you will spend to buy the stock in the “buy write” strategy.

 

anyone considering this strategy?

one thing i am not certain is the tax treatment.  I think in both cases, when options expires, u pay income tax on the premiums. But if your stock get called away/you be put the stock, ur cost basis is adjusted by the premium.  So it seems selling puts have more tax advantages than doing selling ITM calls..

Selling ITM calls will suspend the holding period that will affect the long-term capital gain status.

 

Let’s say you bought a stock in January and in March you wrote an ITM call 6 months out. Let’s also say that the call expired worthless and you kept the shares.

 

By next January your shares will not get the long-term status even though you held them for a year. The 6-month ITM call period will be suspended.

 

If you sold the calls too deep ITM, then the LTCG status will be totally eliminated and you have to start afresh.

 

So, from the tax perspective, selling OTM covered calls is better than selling ITM "qualified" covered calls.

[Lollapalooza]

4 hours ago, sleepydragon said:

There have been some discussions here previously about using selling puts to buy stocks at lower costs.

Apparently, one could also use another option strategy called “buy-write” to the same result. The strategy is you buy the stock and then sell an ITM calls. If the stocks goes up, your stock gets called away. If the stocks goes down below your strike, you keep the stocks. It’s same as writing OTM puts, except currently selling calls have more premiums because interest rate is high — it compensates for lost interest of the cash you will spend to buy the stock in the “buy write” strategy.

 

anyone considering this strategy?

one thing i am not certain is the tax treatment.  I think in both cases, when options expires, u pay income tax on the premiums. But if your stock get called away/you be put the stock, ur cost basis is adjusted by the premium.  So it seems selling puts have more tax advantages than doing selling ITM calls..

Regarding options trading i prefer to keep it simple and not be too fancy on these options strategies.

I sell puts on stocks that "I dont mind holding" and once assigned sell calls OTM to get out.

This doesnt work well with compounders / stocks that i really want to hold, nor with stocks that i actually dislike, despite optically cheap.

So far i find cyclicals an excellent target for this strategy. IV tends to be high thus fat premiums and you just have to wait out for the cycle to turn.

[brobro777]

Bought some S&P 500 futures cuz I sat there like a moron and didn't buy at 4900 

 

[Spekulatius]

I continue  mostly to add to existing positions (GOOGL, PAX, CX, REGN, ADM, NVO, ARE, 4368.T ,etc) on large down days. A new one I bought a couple of days is a new IPO in Australia - CCL (Cuscal). It does payment processing in Australia and has a high market share there. Their first report looked pretty good, imo. It’s sort of a busted IPO and looks pretty cheap on many metrics. I don’t know much about it, but the cheapness and the low Australian dollar make it an attractive bet.

[tnathan]

8 hours ago, sleepydragon said:

Anyone considering SLV?

gold is surging yet gold/silver ratio is now at 100.  The ratio’s highest point is 130, i think, reached during covid.

 

Silver is also interesting that it has industrial use, especially in solar energy , and anything related to electricity. And there’s not many, if any silver mines. It can only be mined as a by product of other metals. So it can be in shortage.

 

i’m thinking to sell some SLV puts but the option premiums is very low  it’s like 30% implied vol.

 

Yeah I've noticed this too ... why not just buy the calls if the implied vol is low? Or set up a pairs trade long SLV short GLD

[tnathan]

I'm going to buy Huntsman leaps today NTM pe is over 100 seems like as good of a time as any

[sleepydragon]

8 hours ago, Martian said:

Selling ITM calls will suspend the holding period that will affect the long-term capital gain status.

 

 

 

Let’s say you bought a stock in January and in March you wrote an ITM call 6 months out. Let’s also say that the call expired worthless and you kept the shares.

 

 

 

By next January your shares will not get the long-term status even though you held them for a year. The 6-month ITM call period will be suspended.

 

 

 

If you sold the calls too deep ITM, then the LTCG status will be totally eliminated and you have to start afresh.

 

 

 

So, from the tax perspective, selling OTM covered calls is better than selling ITM "qualified" covered calls.

 

thanks! I didn’t know about this

[sleepydragon]

4 hours ago, Lollapalooza said:

Regarding options trading i prefer to keep it simple and not be too fancy on these options strategies.

I sell puts on stocks that "I dont mind holding" and once assigned sell calls OTM to get out.

This doesnt work well with compounders / stocks that i really want to hold, nor with stocks that i actually dislike, despite optically cheap.

So far i find cyclicals an excellent target for this strategy. IV tends to be high thus fat premiums and you just have to wait out for the cycle to turn.

yeah, this idea of selling OTM put is appealing to me, but then when I realize it’s  economically equivalent to buy a stock and simultaneously sell a ITM calls, it feels less appealing to me ..  Might as well just DCA a stock over time then keep buying and sell ITM calls

[sleepydragon]

Bought bunch of SLV (silver etf)

 

[Red Lion]

2 hours ago, sleepydragon said:

yeah, this idea of selling OTM put is appealing to me, but then when I realize it’s  economically equivalent to buy a stock and simultaneously sell a ITM calls, it feels less appealing to me ..  Might as well just DCA a stock over time then keep buying and sell ITM calls

 

You can sell the puts and then buy them back close to expiration and roll to the next strike price out, or wait until assigned and then sell a covered call. I just started this experiment right before the big selloff and rolled them once or twice before the markets plunged and I ended up getting assigned. I'm not really interested in selling calls on my subject stocks (APO/KKR/GOOG/AMZN) at these lower prices so now I'm just holding onto the stocks. I outperformed the underlying stocks by mid single digits, so I'll take it. 

 

But this strategy is actually pretty attractive just on index options right now, especially because you can use uber short duration options (as short as daily options) to maximize the time decay on the OTM puts.

 

One note, in a vacuum it's better to sell the OTM puts than ITM calls because 100% of the option premium is going to be subject to time decay, if you want to sell OTM calls then you're looking at a higher breakeven. 

 

One strategy that another poster brought up a couple years ago, and I dabbled with, could be really effective in this market. You buy an ATM LEAP CALL and PUT on SPY for example. Then sell daily or weekly CALLS and PUTS and roll the one that's moving against you. This way you get to scalp these insane short term options premiums while being hedged against a big market move one way or the other. Although you could definitely lose money if volatility comes way down since you'd lose money on your leaps. You could mitigate this somewhat by buying ITM leaps, but then you need to put up more capital to start the trade, and still stand to lose money if volatility comes down significantly. 

[Junior R]

43 minutes ago, Red Lion said:

 

You can sell the puts and then buy them back close to expiration and roll to the next strike price out, or wait until assigned and then sell a covered call. I just started this experiment right before the big selloff and rolled them once or twice before the markets plunged and I ended up getting assigned. I'm not really interested in selling calls on my subject stocks (APO/KKR/GOOG/AMZN) at these lower prices so now I'm just holding onto the stocks. I outperformed the underlying stocks by mid single digits, so I'll take it. 

 

But this strategy is actually pretty attractive just on index options right now, especially because you can use uber short duration options (as short as daily options) to maximize the time decay on the OTM puts.

 

One note, in a vacuum it's better to sell the OTM puts than ITM calls because 100% of the option premium is going to be subject to time decay, if you want to sell OTM calls then you're looking at a higher breakeven. 

 

One strategy that another poster brought up a couple years ago, and I dabbled with, could be really effective in this market. You buy an ATM LEAP CALL and PUT on SPY for example. Then sell daily or weekly CALLS and PUTS and roll the one that's moving against you. This way you get to scalp these insane short term options premiums while being hedged against a big market move one way or the other. Although you could definitely lose money if volatility comes way down since you'd lose money on your leaps. You could mitigate this somewhat by buying ITM leaps, but then you need to put up more capital to start the trade, and still stand to lose money if volatility comes down significantly. 

 

 

the bold part you could get the naked puts assigned so its a good option when you want to buy cheap shares

 

 

Another good strategy to make yield ..Is buy the index like SPY JAN 1 and sell a 12 month covered call strike close to your purchase price collect 10% including dividend...risk is that ETF in Dec is under your strike price..but you can still collect 4% 12 months out on a strike 5% out...but this is a risk ..or write a naked put 12 months out on index collect 6%..you could split the % collected into 2/3 so this way you can weather the storm for 3 years..for this to work you would look to do this on the margin side and have other stocks like FFH/APO/BRK for the growth of portfolio

 

not for everyone though lol 

[73 Reds]

1 hour ago, Red Lion said:

 

You can sell the puts and then buy them back close to expiration and roll to the next strike price out, or wait until assigned and then sell a covered call. I just started this experiment right before the big selloff and rolled them once or twice before the markets plunged and I ended up getting assigned. I'm not really interested in selling calls on my subject stocks (APO/KKR/GOOG/AMZN) at these lower prices so now I'm just holding onto the stocks. I outperformed the underlying stocks by mid single digits, so I'll take it. 

 

But this strategy is actually pretty attractive just on index options right now, especially because you can use uber short duration options (as short as daily options) to maximize the time decay on the OTM puts.

 

One note, in a vacuum it's better to sell the OTM puts than ITM calls because 100% of the option premium is going to be subject to time decay, if you want to sell OTM calls then you're looking at a higher breakeven. 

 

One strategy that another poster brought up a couple years ago, and I dabbled with, could be really effective in this market. You buy an ATM LEAP CALL and PUT on SPY for example. Then sell daily or weekly CALLS and PUTS and roll the one that's moving against you. This way you get to scalp these insane short term options premiums while being hedged against a big market move one way or the other. Although you could definitely lose money if volatility comes way down since you'd lose money on your leaps. You could mitigate this somewhat by buying ITM leaps, but then you need to put up more capital to start the trade, and still stand to lose money if volatility comes down significantly. 

@Red Lion My favorite options strategy during volatile times was to sell puts and buy LEAPs calls on a stock I liked (basically a futures position) and then sell short dated calls against the LEAPs position.

[Paarslaars]

Some OWL and KKR

[Red Lion]

8 minutes ago, 73 Reds said:

@Red Lion My favorite options strategy during volatile times was to sell puts and buy LEAPs calls on a stock I liked (basically a futures position) and then sell short dated calls against the LEAPs position.

I love these, this is actually the strategy I used to get into options trading 15 years ago. There was someone on a message board who always posted good trades like this with AAPL and he must have made a killing. 

[73 Reds]

6 minutes ago, Red Lion said:

I love these, this is actually the strategy I used to get into options trading 15 years ago. There was someone on a message board who always posted good trades like this with AAPL and he must have made a killing. 

All depends on the stock and implied volatility.  You need some degree of volatility in the stock for the premiums to justify the trades.  When macro volatility is high, that helps a lot.  It also works best when you can enter the entire trade for a sizable net credit and repeat writing short-dated calls and/or puts as frequently as possible.

Edited April 11, 2025 by 73 Reds
word

[Ross812]

DFIN this morning.

[ourkid8]

More Macy calls +common 

[Parsad]

4 hours ago, ourkid8 said:

More Macy calls +common 

 

Moi aussi!  Cheers!

[ourkid8]

3 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

Moi aussi!  Cheers!

 

I am in good company!