How is it the end of January already?
This was a good week for options - including my fastest ever profit made in Microsoft and locking in profits from yet another Walgreens position from 3 weeks ago.
This week:
$90 in Walgreens
$67 in Microsoft
January wrap up
$90 in WBA
Last week I shared my initial trade in WBA, selling 2x 17 Feb $32.50 puts for $68 each. This means I was promising to buy 200 shares of WBA at $32.50, if the price of WBA dropped to or below that level. Thankfully, that never happened and I ended up taking off one trade at 50% of max profit, and the second at about 72%.
The total realised profit across both trades was $90 - not bad for a trade that was only on for about 3 weeks and taken off well before expiration.
Longtime readers will know I almost always have a WBA trade on in my ongoing quest to lower my cost basis.
In 2020 I made $646 in WBA. In 2021, $574 and in 2022, $1,013.
You can see how one can basically own shares for free after selling options against their favourite stocks long enough.
Check out last week's post for more details about the initial WBA position.
$67 in MSFT
Earnings season is again delivering lots of opportunities. The WBA trade above was put on post earnings, so was this MSFT trade. MSFT reported earnings this week and the market sent the stock down something like 4% when it opened. I took the opportunity to sell a $210 put expiring 24 Feb for $131 and put in an order to close it at 50% profit. When the market closed, I was surprised to find that the position had closed during the day, netting $67 in realised profits.
I always get misinformed comments about how you need to keep a close eye on your options positions lest they get into trouble. Those statements are made by people who don't know what they're doing. My system is designed so that we are free to live our lives and let our capital work for us - not so that we can stare at a screen all day! In any case, this was the first full trade for people in the Bread Crumb subscription to take a look at - this one trade would have more than covered the price of their subscription for the month.
Speaking of the month, this is how January went: WBA - $34 profit AAPL - $41 profit MSFT - $67 profit Total realised profit = $142. Not bad for a slow start to January. There's still a PG and JNJ trade outstanding. If we hit our profit target levels that will be another $80 in the bag. Anyone signed up for the Bread Crumb subscription could have made nearly 3x their money this month - more if they entered more than 1 contract at a time.
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.