Today I closed the Bear Call spread on XLB because the trade was at 90% of the profit of $30. I effectively closed it by buying back the short DEC 31 Put for $5.00. Yes, I took a $2 hit by not selling the Long Call, but TOS would have charged me $1.25 – so I ate the $.75. At TOS, if your short option is a nickel or less, they won’t charge any commission to buy it back.
Yesterday I entered a DEC Bear Put Credit spread on GS and paid $353 for it and I’ll make $146 max if it stays below 164.42 next week. I will have to close this one early if it’s ITM so my profit won’t be the maximum, but it would be very close – around $100 or so – to make the trade worth it. So now the stock is up 2.80! Like I said before, they just wait for me to get in and then reverse on me! 
I have been struggling with the posting of my In Play page. I don’t want to double enter everything, and I don’t want to place the information as an image because it would not be visible for search purposes. Long time readers know that the format has changed about 4-5 times. Well, this time I think I have it. What I am doing now is putting my open trades in the thinklog on the TOS thinkdesktop trading platform. What this gives me is internet access to my trade detail and a copy/paste capability for my blog. I hope it’s understandable for all of you.
This post is short because my wife and I are preparing to head back to the Wisconsin for a holiday celebration this weekend. I won’t be posting anything more until expiration week.
- Jeff
