Happy profitable October! It's strange how the market changes from week to week. Just last week I was saying the market was looking quiet and lamenting the lack of positions in my portfolio, and bam - this week we're fully back in action. In fact there isn't even space for me to update all my trades, there's one more in Abbvie (ABBV) that I'll try to squeeze in next week if there's space. This week:
$168 profit in Nike
$92 profit in SCHD
New jade lizard in Microsoft
Let's go!
$168 profit in Nike
On Monday, Nike (NKE) was showing some weakness, and was setting up nicely for a trade - so I sold a put at the $80 strike expiring on 18 Nov for $1.33 and shared my trade to my private community on Circle (for people attending my course).
Because I trade my real portfolio as part of my course (gotta have skin in the game), I actually entered 2 identical positions, 1 to take off at 50% together with the people in my course, and a 2nd to close at 75% of max profit. Both positions were closed by Friday for an overall profit of $168 out of $266 or about 61% of max profit overall. Not too bad for a position that was on for effectively 4 days.
Nike has been an interesting underlying to trade ever since it reported earnings. It was just 2 weeks ago that we made $56 in profit in a similar trade, the link is in the box below if you'd like to read about that trade.
$92 profit in SCHD
This is a trade I put on about a month ago as a way of trying to dollar cost average into a 2nd position in SCHD. I initially sold a put at the $65 strike expiring 18 November for $1.22
I put in an order to close the trade at 75% of max profit, which was hit on Monday as well.
This means I captured $92 in realised profits and my capital is freed up to initiate a new position in SCHD at a later date to attempt to lower my cost basis even further.
As I mentioned last week as part of getting assigned 100 shares of VOO, there's no reason to pay market prices for stocks when you can set your own entry price, and that's what I'm trying to do here in SCHD.
You can read the original trade entry via the link below.
New jade lizard in Microsoft
I've been itching to put on a jade lizard for months, but have been holding back because I hadn't covered it with the participants in my course yet. Now that we've finally covered it, Microsoft (MSFT) presented the perfect opportunity this week when the market didn't like what it had to say after earnings - I sold a $215 | $250/252.20 jade lizard for a $324 credit expiring 18 November.
It's currently trading at $2.57, which is an unrealised profit of $67, but we'll be targeting 50% of max profit on this trade, or $162. As always, I'll be sharing how this trade progresses each week here in this newsletter. If you're unfamiliar with a jade lizard, you can read more about the strategy here. It's one of my favourite strategies to use because you collect more premium than usual, which provides a lot more flexibility in managing the trade later on.
That's it for this week, hope you didn't mind the longer-than-usual update. I'm hoping we continue to have a few volatile months leading up to 2023 to put on a few more trades and lock in profits before the year is up.
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.