Quick 19.84% profit on OXY

Started the year off with a nice week :-). My account ended the week up 9.4% overall (realized and unrealized gain). My quick 2-day play on OXY was a nice little profit that helped out. That was a good example of why I "leg in" when opening a long strangle. See my (Long) Strangle Details post for how this is done. Sometimes you can catch a trade like this one that ends up just being a single long option play and make some quick cash. The better you can pick and time your strangle entries, the better your chances are of picking up a 1-sided trade.

Recent Activity

1/7

Opened OXY May 55P long strangle - 1 contract for $6.70
Legged out of GS long strangle May 80C - 1 contract for $16.45
1/9
Closed OXY long strangle (single side) - 1 contract for $8.10, a net profit of $134.10 (19.84%)

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Updates

GS - The trigger that I discussed in my last post was hit and I legged out of the call. I now have an OCO order to either sell the put when the whole trade reaches 10% net profit ($6.95) or re-buy the call if the stock moves above 88.75.



SPX - So far so good on my first Iron Condor :-). I still only have the top half (bear call spread - Jan 975/980) of the trade opened. I am waiting to see what happens at the 850 area before locking in a bottom end. There seems to be a reasonable support there, but if that's broken we have a little support around 800. Beyond that we only have the November low (bear market lows) to look at.