Trading Short-Term Options

September 30, 2004

The Smart Profits Report: Issue #147
Thursday, September 30, 2004

Trading Short Term Options - A System for Reading the “Market Weather”
By Mt. Vernon Research Team
Former Options Specialist of Mt. Vernon Research

When it comes to trading short-term options, maybe the smartest thing you could do is follow a dope around. Watch how he loses money, then vow to do the opposite.

While there are dozens of workable systems for trading options, losers all make the same handful of mistakes.

One that is epidemic among losers is not paying attention to the here and now. Every successful trader has learned better. The short-term option traders who crack up spend too much time scanning the skies for rainbows leading to gold and not enough time looking at their feet.

As a group, we traders tend to be an ambitious lot. We’re always looking for the next 100%-er, and we know they’re out there. But sometimes the market is only offering 30% conditions and the traders who read it right and take 30% when that’s what’s on offer are the ones who live to trade a long time.

Bulls, Bears and Mud Holes

To start with, are you in the either/or habit? Always thinking bullish or bearish? If you want to be a trader, you’ll have to take your market reading farther.

It’s identifying a sideways, or “nontrending,” market versus a trending (clearly bullish or bearish) market that is more important to you now.

A bear market is just as good as a bull market for us because we can simply choose whether to buy puts or calls and take either direction. In fact, bear markets can be especially kind because stocks often fall farther and more quickly than they run up. A nontrending market, however, is much more difficult to trade than either a bull or a bear. It’s likely to bring you more 40% returns than lots of 100% returns. But that’s just one kind of market distinction.

For instance, when small-cap stocks are hot and larger stocks are idling, that’s a special market. You’re not going to find great short-term options trades easily. Small caps don’t tend to have options and the big-cap stocks that do are behaving lamely.

Another special condition is that when the market is very volatile, you’ll get lots of trades, but they’ll cost you more. High volatility equals higher options prices. And heaven forbid you buy your option when the market or stock is extra volatile, then hold it as it calms down.

If that happens, you’ll start losing money unless the stock moves very steadily in the right direction. When volatility is high, your trades need to reach targets very fast, before the volatility drops, which means extra caution about which strike prices you choose…

And for the worst conditions, a real mud hole with low volatility, well, just look at the current market.

Get a System and Tweak It for the Weather

For most of this summer, a lot of savvy traders were sitting it out. I told my people to trade lightly, at most. Why? Because there was no trend for starters, always a damper.

The S&P had been trapped in a 7% range for months, and most stocks meandered in similar ranges. But this time, to pour more water on that mud, you have a very nervous and reactionary market with lots of wide swings both ways during earnings season.

Officially, volatility is low. In truth, when it comes to optionable stocks, we aren’t seeing lots of calm 15% moves over a period of a few weeks, but we are seeing lots of wild 2-4% daily moves in the more active stocks.

Worse, they are going up 4% one day and down 4% the next. That’s enough to really knock the money off an option on the wrong side of the swing. And it adds up to a lot of time-wasting sideways movement without getting where you want to go.

Every system needs weatherproofing. You have to adjust. In some markets, I won’t even touch profits until I’m up 70-100%. In weaker markets I start taking profits as soon as possible.

As I adjust for current conditions, I keep 95% of my system intact. The idea is to make tactical, not strategic, adjustments if you have a good system.

For instance, I have lots of ways for searching for ideas. One of my favorite plays is the earnings-season gambit. I’ll follow stocks in the few days before they are due to report and look at fundamentals, then technical charts. If I spot a pattern of quiet buying and probable corporate strength, chances are the earnings are going to come out well and the stock will shoot up. Or vice versa. I’ve done this for years with great success. In this current earnings season, that tactic has been a disaster, and I quickly put it back on ice.

How to Be a Market Weatherperson - An Accurate One

So how do you develop this market sensitivity?

If you take an options newsletter or advisory for ideas, that’s a start. It gets you in the market and you have to be there in real time to get your training in. But you should also choose some favorite and unfavorite stocks to watch.

Make a list of bull and bear ideas. Look at them every day. Pay attention to the difference in the way they trade in the morning versus afternoon. See how they handle up and down market days.

You don’t have to trade those stocks, just plan trades to follow then watch and see what’s happening to them. I guarantee you’ll get a better feel for the market this way than all the index numbers in the world can give you.

Even if you are relying on someone like Karim or me for trades, this will make you a better trader. Over the years I have found that traders who take a more active role outperform the group even though everyone gets the same bulletins at the same time.

And if you learn to read the market weather and adjust, at least you won’t be the dope someone else is watching for pointers.

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Good trading,

Mt. Vernon Research

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Timing Your Trades

September 28, 2004

The Smart Profits Report: Issue #146
Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Timing Your Trades: Two Ways to Expand Your Thinking And Your Profits
By Karim Rahemtulla
Investment Director, Mt. Vernon Research

Travelzoo (NASDAQ: TZOO) is a disaster waiting to happen. If you can, you should short it. Problem is, it is an expensive short at $70 per share. And there are NO put options available on TZOO at all, so a short option play isn’t even possible.

But the Travelzoo conundrum does offer something: two ideas that are critical to profiting from options:

  • Going with the market instead of emotions when timing your trades
  • Applying good theoretical ideas like shorting TZOO with puts to another trade that could generate even more money.

Let’s take a closer look at these two concepts, and how we can turn them into big money.

Hot Stock, But Where Are the Market Makers?

Travelzoo is just another discount website offering last-minute specials for hotels and airfare. So what’s new? Nothing, except that a few market morons have decided that this company, trading at over 1,000 times 2003 earnings, is the second coming of Google.

So why doesn’t it have options?

The reasons are plentiful. TZOO has…

  • Little to no history of trading
  • Poor fundamentals
  • Too much short-term volatility…

The shares have gone from $4 to $70 in the past year, and the options market makers have been too slow to react in this situation. After all, didn’t Google just get options after a week of trading? You can be sure that TZOO will have options soon if it keeps behaving like this. In fact, one of the reasons that it is behaving like this is because it has NO options.

Options Help Regulate the Primary Market

Options allow investors to leverage up and down. If TZOO had options, you can bet investors like me would be buying puts. That in turn would create pressure on the sell side, mitigating some of the move - not all of the move, but enough to make others think.

TZOO has just 15 million shares outstanding - so it doesn’t take much activity to move the shares up or down.

What are we to make of this phenomenon?

We’ve seen it before with all those small dot-com companies in the ’90s. (During the heyday of the dot.com era, hundreds of stocks behaved like TZOO and they all had a similar share structure - not many shares out, easily manipulated and moved, and no options. We saw the results of the bubble: Many investors are still living the nightmares of decimated portfolios.)

Travelzoo now trades with a market cap of $1 billion - on sales of only $17 million last year. That’s absurd. Even if sales double this year, it’s not worth a P/E of 1,000 or 700 or even 200.

For one thing, Travelzoo is in a business that has almost no barriers to entry - in fact, quite the opposite, and the competitors are all around. And the more people hear about the company, the less they’re going to like it, I suspect. (I have tried to use TZOO myself, and guess what… I still ended up buying nothing several times.)

So I’m frustrated. But what does that teach us about options?

Travelzoo and You: Applying the Timing Lessons In Other Trades

It’s worth watching a stock like Travelzoo to remind yourself that fundamentals aren’t everything in options trading. Eventually, they will win out… but in the meantime, stocks can go to ridiculous highs or lows and become totally disconnected to reality.

The first thing Travelzoo teaches you is the importance of timing over emotional responses. Whatever you think of the company - and I don’t think much of it - if there were a put available today, I probably wouldn’t take it immediately, at least not a short-term one. Not while this kind of momentum was at work favoring the bulls.

But there’s another lesson you can take from Travelzoo: the secret of broadening your thinking.

Either one thing or the other is happening to Travelzoo’s competitors.

Number one: They are on the same path and you could take an options trade on one of them instead of Travelzoo.

A quick chart of Orbitz (Nasdaq: ORBZ), the closest publicly traded competitor, and Travelzoo shows that Orbitz has fallen over the past six months while Travelzoo has soared.

Number two: Travelzoo’s popularity is drawing investment dollars away from companies like Orbitz, and they may be good shorts. (Think of it. Every time Intel makes an announcement, Altera, Infineon and a host of other semiconductor stocks respond.)

This is by no means a recommendation to short Orbitz or any other Travelzoo rival, but it does remind us that options ideas come from everywhere and a little what-if thinking will definitely expand your opportunities to profit.

Good Trading,

Karim Rahemtulla

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  • For more on options trading terms, like “fundamentals” or “volatility,” check out our Smart Profits Glossary.

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Market Volume & Liquidity

September 22, 2004

The Smart Profits Report: Issue #145
Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Market Volume & Liquidity: When to Buy the Stock And NOT the Option
By Karim Rahemtulla
Investment Director, Mt. Vernon Research

Sometimes even a diehard options trader has to buy the stock instead of the option.

In some cases having an option that trades on a stock is just worthless baggage for the investor. But for every trade you want to check on the market volume and liquidity.

Let me give you an example… (Rest assured, this is NOT a buy recommendation…)

Stocks With Market Volume Are A Trader’s Delight

There is a little company out there called Immersion. It trades about 200,000 shares a day and is in the midst of a major trial with Sony. If the trial goes Immersion’s way, investors in Immersion will profit handsomely. If not, they will lose their shirts in the short-term. It is that big of a deal. Immersion stock is a trader’s delight. But it also has options… and they aren’t.

The problem is that the market for Immersion’s options is very thin. How thin? The options rarely bid or offer more than 10 contracts a day… and that’s when there is some volume. And each time there is a trade, the option price moves. That’s what you can expect in a supply and demand world. With short supplies, every demand gets jerked around.

As a result of its thin trading, the options are expensive and have very wide spreads. These are further indicators that the options market makers will make you pay to play the long and short side.

Immersion’s options have limited value to anyone. If you are a small investor, you might be able to trade a few options here or there and come out OK… as long as you timed your entry perfectly and the shares moved so much that the option had to pay off even after the spread, the market maker’s shenanigans and commissions. That’s a very long shot.

In fact, it’s too long a shot… In a case like this, options do not matter… the investor is better off buying the shares.

When Buying an Option, Check the Liquidity

So the lesson here is pretty straightforward: When you are considering buying an option, always look at the liquidity.

If the option only trades on one or two exchanges, or has fewer than 50 contracts on the bid or offer across the chain (that is: all the months and strike prices available) for the day, then you are looking at a situation with low liquidity, and you may want to consider avoiding the option altogether.

If the stock moved opposite to the direction you were counting on, the options market maker may make you pay dearly to get out of the position.

In a thinly traded option, the market maker has a lot of room to finagle prices… and worse, he needs to make a lot of money on us since he has so few birds to pick.

Check Your Hot Ideas for Market Volume Before Investing

If you subscribe to an options service, it is very unlikely your advisor will put you into a trade like Immersion options. But it is exactly the kind of trade people make when they’ve traded a few options with someone else and gained a bit of confidence - enough to try out their own “hot idea.”

You’ll come across a stock that interests you, usually one of your own “penny stocks” or micro-caps, and see a way to turn a would-be 25% price explosion into a 200% options gain.

In fact, these kinds of hot ideas can be especially lucrative if you know the stock well. But usually, the option volume is too thin.

If you want to start trading some of your own ideas, it’s still better to stay with heavily traded stocks at the beginning. You may not win, but at least you will have a fair chance. With thinly traded options, your chances are thin, indeed.

Good Trading,

Karim Rahemtulla

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  • Check out our Smart Options Glossary for more on options trading terms like “liquidity” and “volume.”

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Exit Strategies

September 20, 2004

The Smart Profits Report: Issue #144
Monday, September 20, 2004

Exit Strategies: Prenuptial Agreements for Options
By Mt. Vernon Research Team

The ultra-rich and famous treat getting married like a business problem. They work out prenuptial agreements to assure clean exit strategies even if the lovebirds turn into combatants later on.

These deals always sound more like an arrangement to lease a spouse than a true communion. I’d probably respond with a couple of choice words if I were ever offered one - those words being, “Stuff it, wimp.”

But when it comes to options, my attitude is wholly different. You should borrow trouble before counting on bliss. You should imagine the worst and prepare ahead. In short, you should be leasing, not committing, if you know what’s good for you. You need a prenuptial for your options trades. It’s called an exit strategy.

Using stop losses - either mental ones, or formal ones with your broker - are part of it, as Karim Rahemtulla has discussed in this space before. That’s one technique, but it’s not an exit plan all by itself.

You need an exit strategy for all options trades, and for short-term trading it’s life and death.

Know When to Say Goodbye Before You Say Hello

Actually, there are two parts to a whole exit strategy: taking profits when you are successful and getting out when you’re not, or when the trade turns around.

With options, this “exit discipline” can be even trickier than with stocks: You only own a right that becomes more or less profitable as time passes and is always speeding toward worthlessness - which it will achieve the day after expiration, if not sooner.

So how do you decide where to exit and when?

You decide before you ever buy your option. Don’t buy unless you already know when you’ll sell.

Profiting With Mathematical Certainty

There are two approaches to setting an exit point for options: mathematics and events. Both have their pros and cons. If you are just starting out, the mathematical choice will probably serve you best. But let’s look at the two alternatives…

Mathematically, you simply choose how far you’ll let an option drop - 10%… 25%… 50%… etc. - and sell automatically if you reach that place. The advantage is that it is easy to use this system. Extremely clear and very disciplined.

The other great advantage to a mathematical stop loss is that it definitely curbs your natural inclination to hang on too long. You don’t question. Say you decide to get out if the option falls 30%, for instance… If it does, you leave.

But with a good plan, following preset stops faithfully and without fail will work to your favor far more often than letting emotions rule and overlooking them. A good plan will work out.

Technically, You Have Lots of Choices

I’ve tried a number of mathematical stop positions with options, and for short-term options, here’s what I’ve found. A tight stop will jerk you out too often. If you set your stop at 10%, which could work with stock trading, you will be stopped out of more trades than you’ll ever manage to follow to profits.

Even a 25% stop loss is a bit tight for short-term options, as this is in the range that an option on an active stock can move erratically in a day, especially after factoring in the spread. The spread between the ask (where you get in) and the bid (where you’ll get out) is normally at least 5%, usually 10%, and quite often more than that.

Instead of a tight stop, 33-35% is more reasonable. Fifty percent is best for me, but I also have a system that gives more winners than losers and the average wins tend to be larger than the average losses.

But there’s another choice if you seek meaning in your life and your trading: an event-based stop.

Options Trading Based On Current Events

These are based on technical analysis. By looking at chart patterns, trends and various indicators, the technical trader will choose a stop point based on a change in direction for the underlying stock. An event, in other words.

For instance, if you have a $30 call on Aeropostale, a stock that’s on a long bull run and is currently at $32, you have a good chance of catching more of that trend. But it may be topping. So the question for setting the stop is: What’s a normal setback - an acceptable zig or zag - and what’s the place where the trend is in real trouble? What event triggers my warning to bail?

I might use a traditional point-and-figure chart and set the stop on Aeropostale at $26, where the chart would give a sell signal. Or using a “trading chart” with different parameters, I’d more likely set the stop closer, at $28 - a short-term sell signal.

That’s just one choice. Drawing a bull support line, I’d get an even closer stop, at $30, and still have a technically defensible reason to give up my optimism and cut the trade short.

With stochastics, I’d get out when the line turned from overbought and started falling. With Parabolic SAR, the stop would come at $27.70. Or you could get out when the price fell below the 20-day moving average at $27.85.

If that’s confusing, it’s because technical analysis is complex. For the beginning trader, a trend line is easiest to use. But the point here is not which technical system is most useful right now. The point for today is: If you are not using a mechanical stop, either your advisor or you needs to know enough technical analysis to set a stop where your bull trend turns bearish, or vice versa.

Here’s My Private “Plan C” Exit Strategy

In the long run, I’ve come to prefer using the “event” plan, with technically based stops. The pros are clear. You are exiting with reason - the reason being that your bullish stock stopped being a bull (or your bearish stock stopped being a bear).

The cons are that these stops take more expertise to set, and there are a number of ways to choose. On top of this, stocks on strong trends often do not have clear exit points nearby. That’s the reason a mathematical stop is best for most beginning traders.

What do I do? Plan C…

I have a technical stop backed up with a mathematical stop. I’ll get out when the trend changes or the option falls 50%, whichever comes first. That allows me to stay with trends that are working, without going overboard.

Of course, if you are using an advisory like Karim’s LEAPS Trader, your advisor will make a choice that fits his or her system and guide you right to it. So here’s one immediate take-away lesson for today: If you are using any advisor or considering any service, it should include telling you when to get out.

Good Trading,

Mt. Vernon Research Team

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  • Here is the key to having a successful exit strategy: Limiting your losses and letting your winners run. Sounds simple, I know. But you’d be surprised how many people let fear and greed control their decision-making process. But after doubling your money in a particular investment, there is a simple investment strategy that allows you to take risk out of the equation and let your winners run to some spectacular gains. Find out more in Smart Profits #484, Investment Strategy: The Exit Strategy That Nets Big Winners And Reduces Risk.

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Google Stock Options

September 14, 2004

The Smart Profits Report: Issue #142
Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Google Stock Options: What Happens When A High Volume Stock Has Half An Ounce Of Credibility
By Karim Rahemtulla
Investment Director, Mt. Vernon Research

OK, Google me this…

A few weeks ago Google came public in very loud fashion. Concurrent with the announcement of the first day’s trading action of the shares, I spied an announcement that CBOE (the Chicago Board Options Exchange) would list Google stock options within a few days… pending certification by the Options Clearing Corp (OCC).

A few years ago it could have taken weeks or even months before even a popular stock could have an options market! That’s because options are created by the options exchanges, not individual public companies. In fact many companies hate the fact that their shares even have options - makes it too easy for traders to short their shares!

Nonetheless, regulatory hurdles, sloth and plain mismanagement of the process would bog down many applications to create an option. That’s certainly changed…

Red Tape? What Red Tape?

I don’t know what the new certification process is…yet. But I’m guessing with Google it went something like this:

OCC Options Certifier - “Can you make money off the spread on Google?”

Options Exchange - “Sure.”

OCC Options Certifier - “OK - you’re approved.”

I mean what else could there be? Look at the press release:

“CHICAGO, Aug 19 (Reuters) - The Chicago Board Options Exchange said on Thursday it will list options on the shares of Google Inc. on Aug. 27 following certification to the Options Clearing Corp.

Shares of Google , the popular Internet search engine, made their Nasdaq stock market debut on Thursday.”

Google began trading on a Thursday, and by Friday of the next week its options were sailing. On the first day 69,000 Google options contracts (representing 6.9 million shares!) traded hands.

A High Volume Stock With Half An Ounce Of Credibility

Obviously, everyone knew that Google would emerge as a very active stock for 2004 and that means volume. Whenever you have a high volume stock that has even half an ounce of credibility, you will usually find an options market for the shares. But this time, even I was amazed at how quickly the market makers and options exchanges worked to get on Google stock options. It’s almost like they could smell the profits emanating from legions of savvy investor’ willing to Google their money away!

Bottom line is this: I’m happy as a clam-that-escaped-New England-chowder that the OCC could get their act together that fast. It is yet another indication that the options markets are heading to the mainstream in both their internal and external efficiency. That’s good news for investors like you and me - it allows for more variety and better options (pardon the pun) to manage our investments.

Good trading,

Karim Rahemtulla

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Today’s Smart Profits Cribsheet

  • Why would anyone want to pay $2,446 for something they could get for $1,270? That’s a great question, and for the life of me I still can’t figure out why people are doing it every day. I usually decline when asked to recommend a stock for someone, but I know I can get more bang for my buck by purchasing stock options instead of buying the stock outright. Find out more in Smart Profits #202, Stock Options: How to Buy $2,446 Worth of MSFT for $1,270.
  • Any conversation about taking profits, is sure to prick up everyone’s ears. But did you know that there’s a difference in profit-taking methods when holding options positions? It arises when you hold a “short” option position versus a long option position. When I say a “short” position, I don’t necessarily mean you’re bearish - I’m actually referring to selling stock options, as opposed to buying them. Check out Smart Profits #337, Selling Stock Options: Know This Key Selling Method To Profit With Options.

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Damage Control

September 3, 2004

The Smart Profits Report: Issue #140
Friday, September 3, 2004

Damage Control: The Perfect Put Option Play for Any Season
By Karim Rahemtulla
Investment Director, Mt. Vernon Research

Hurricanes are named after people. There is no correlation between how tough the name is versus how tough the storm may be. Consider Charley - not a threatening name at all, yet it left the state of Florida with more than $12 billion in damage.

And now, potentially the mother of all hurricanes of this generation, Hurricane Frances, will be knocking on my door (hopefully not through my door) any time now. (Frances - sounds like the name of a sweet nun. I mean, at least call the storm Thor or Vlad if you really want to strike fear in the hearts of people!) Anyway, Frances is coming and I am preparing.

I am also taking an additional step to defray the possible damage control expenses that I may face from a damaging hit to my home. I figure that if I sustain damage in a solid house, located inland, then there will be a lot of others who are not as fortunate.

How I Stand to Recoup Some of That Deductible

Since Hurricane Andrew tore through South Florida a few years back, insurance companies have tacked on a large deductible to all hurricane policies issued in the state.

That deductible is anywhere from 2 to 5% of the home’s value. Still, Allstate just reported that its insurable losses from Charley will exceed $400 million… and it’s still early.

If Frances, a much larger storm, makes landfall in the Southeast, Allstate will be on the hook for more than a billion dollars in insurance reimbursements. This got me thinking.

Short-Term Put Options To The Rescue

A couple of days ago I bought put options on Allstate. It is a rare occasion when I buy a short-term option, but in this case I am going to make sure I get some of my deductible back!

This type of option trade takes place all the time. It is called hedging. The option buyer or seller, in this case me, is taking out an insurance policy to mitigate any losses from another position. It is a hedge that I hope DOES NOT work out.

I wanted to point out to you that options are a multi-faceted investment, one that can have real value when it comes to diversification. I will let you know the results of my trade next week… hopefully.

Good trading,

Karim Rahemtulla

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  • As far as I know, there are three ways to use options: hedging, speculating, generating cash flow income. I would guess that most investors associate options mostly with speculating. For more on hedging, swing over to Smart Profits #226, Hedging & Speculating: How to Enjoy Guaranteed Monthly Income With Options.
  • Everybody gets the urge to speculate once in awhile. Some people do it all the time. Unfortunately, investors who fall into the category of investment speculation generally don’t last very long. Unless they are using a system… for more info check out Smart Profits #120, Investment Speculation: 6 Secrets to Creating a ‘300%-Return System’ Using Stock Options.

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