Today the Dow crossed 10,000 as I assumed it had a very good chance of doing so in yesterday’s afternoon blog post. The top ten most active stock option contracts traded today were:
- Citigroup (NYSE:C) October 5 Call Options
- Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLF) November 16 Call Options
- Financial Select Sector SPDR October 16 Call Options
- Financial Select Sector SPDR October 15 Call Options
- PowerShares QQQ (NASDAQ:QQQQ) October 43 Call Options
- Citigroup November 5 Call Options
- S&P 500 SPDR (NYSE:SPY) October 110 Call Options
- S&P 500 SPDR October 108 Call Options
- Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) October 18 Call Options
- S&P 500 SPDR October 109 Call Options
It is very rare that all ten contracts I list are all call options. JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) certainly set the tone and must be many turned even more bullish on financials as they surged and strategists looked ahead to the November expiration. I didn’t trade too much today. I closed my Intel 19 put options for a penny a share at open, and waited for Google to pull back a bit before I purchased several October 550 strike call options to sell on increased levels of implied volatility tomorrow before earnings. I would like to see Google trade higher tomorrow and cross the 540 strike. I would look to close at least 75% of my open call contracts and write the remaining out for either the 560 or 570 strike, hoping to be profitable overall before earnings are even released. I believe Google will have a very good quarter and they should move higher in anticipation. I also closed my Bank of America 18 strike put options which were opened yesterday for near the highs of the contract and closed at the contract low today (realizing 74% in one day).
