CAT

The last couple of weeks I have been tracking the path of a handful of stocks and watching them develop and make some size-able gains. Today we’ll update the chart of 5 stocks.

Here are a couple charts from some of the stocks I’ve mentioned over the past couple of weeks. Especially in this market, remember to keep your stops tight, as all it takes is a bad sentence to bring the market down.

For the past week or so, I haven’t paid much attention to stock charts since the market was in a funk, but I decided to take another look at them today and see where some of my favorites stand.

In a previous OptionMaestro.com post, I outlined 30 stocks which I wouldn't mind going long at these levels. I wrote about getting long the stocks by using the buy-write option strategy. This is an updated post to that one, adjusting the strikes and prices accordingly for options expiration today.

How can the stock market hit new highs at the same time unemployment is hitting new highs? Simple. The market is up because corporate earnings are up. Corporate earnings are up because companies are cutting costs. And the biggest single cost they’re cutting is their payrolls. So they let people go and, presto, their balance sheets look better and their stock prices rise.

With the November options expiration approaching us Friday, I thought I would outline some trade ideas on stocks I wouldn't mind going long on, that would return good percentages by Friday (as of market close Friday November 13, 2009). When using the buy/write option strategy, it is important that you are willing to hold the security in case it is below the strike price at options expiration.

As of today the top ten most active stock option contracts were:

1. PowerShares QQQ (NASDAQ:QQQQ) December 40 Put Options
2. S&P 500 SPDR (NYSE:SPY) November 108 Put Options
3. S&P 500 SPDR November 107 Put Options
4. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) November 30 Call Options

Continue reading at: http://optionmaestro.blogspot.com/2009/10/most-active-stock-options-octo...

Here is a list of 21 stocks which traded higher Thursday on unusually higher volume. I have added all 21 of these stocks to my watch list (and invite you to as well), but chose only one to write about in detail in this post. This post requires the knowledge of stock options.

Here is a list of 21 stocks which traded higher Thursday on unusually higher volume. I have added all 21 of these stocks to my watch list (and invite you to as well), but chose only one to write about in detail in this post. This post requires the knowledge of stock options.

Here is a list of 21 stocks which traded higher Thursday on unusually higher volume. I have added all 21 of these stocks to my watch list (and invite you to as well), but chose only one to write about in detail in this post. This post requires the knowledge of stock options.

In my blog post Monday I listed a few stocks which I would be willing to go long by selling the puts right before the stock reported earnings. If you missed it you can view the details here. As indicated I took positions on Apple (AAPL), Caterpillar (CAT), Texas Instruments (TXN), SanDisk (SNDK), Walter Energy (WLT), and Yahoo!

Last time we looked at a simple pullback play off support. This time we are going to look at a great wedge breakout, which resulted in 10% returns in just 3 trading days.

In my blog post Monday I listed a few stocks which I would be willing to go long by selling the puts right before the stock reported earnings. If you missed it you can view the details here. As indicated I took positions on Apple (AAPL), Caterpillar (CAT), Texas Instruments (TXN), SanDisk (SNDK), Walter Energy (WLT), and Yahoo!

In my blog post Monday I listed a few stocks which I would be willing to go long by selling the puts right before the stock reported earnings. If you missed it you can view the details here. As indicated I took positions on Apple (AAPL), Caterpillar (CAT), Texas Instruments (TXN), SanDisk (SNDK), Walter Energy (WLT), and Yahoo!

Do you feel that you've missed out on a stock that has moved up greatly in this market?