Happy Sunday!
Before getting to this week's option trades, just a reminder that the link to indicate your interest for my upcoming options course in January 2025 is still live and you can find it here. (please read the instructions carefully before filling up the form).
If you missed last week's email, the details can be found here.
This week:
$83 profit in Apple (AAPL)
$65 profit in JM Smucker (SJM)
$83 profit in AAPL
So right on the 1st of November, AAPL provided a nice opportunity to initiate a position.
I sold the $205 cash-secured put expiring Dec 6, and received $163 in premium for the trade.
Just 4 trading days later, AAPL and the entire market rallied (aided by the results of the election), which allowed me to pay $80 to close the position.
Total realized profit on the trade = $83 (51% of max profit).
I've been in and out of AAPL nearly monthly in 2024, with 10 wins from 10 trades so far and a total realized profit of $1,067.
All these trades are shared as updates to my private community just to share my own strategy and approach to managing my portfolio, if you'd like to check out my private community for updates within my real options portfolio (not trade recommendations), check out the link below.
$65 profit in SJM
This SJM position was placed in October, but it took a while for the trade to come off at the profit target I wanted.
I sold the $110 cash-secured put for $125 in premium in the SJM option expiring Nov 15.
You can see from the chart below that basically since late July, SJM hasn't traded below $110, which means that the position was profitable throughout.
Except the one time it did dip below $110, was on Nov 15, the expiry date for the position.
This means if I had held the position until expiry, I would have had to roll or otherwise manage this trade in one way or another to avoid getting assigned 100 shares of SJM at $110 each.
This is why I prefer to take profits early within 50%-75% range if I can. I don't like the feeling of a winning trade turning into a loser on the last day and all the chaos of having to manage that losing trade - so I'd rather just take the profits and move on.
Again, if getting an insight into how I think about managing a portfolio appeals to you, feel free to check out the Bread Crumb subscription shared above.
I haven't been as actively trading SJM, with only 3 winning trades out of 3 in 2024 bringing in $177 total. But hey, profit is profit!
You can read about a $45 trade in SJM from earlier in the year at the link below.
Closing thoughts & useful links
The rally from the election shows no signs of slowing down which simultaneously is great for the portfolio, but also can be challenging for placing new trades because no one wants to enter trades at a high.
As always, where the market goes next is anyone's guess. The important thing is to always have a plan (and a backup plan if that first plan goes wrong).
Have a good weekend!
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This article is for educational purposes only. This is my own portfolio which is being managed according to my goals and risk tolerance. Your situation is likely different and you should do your own due diligence before investing in stocks or options.