Author: Bryan Halliday

In addition to a variety of changes sent yesterday, here are a few more to be prepared for expiration Friday. We own a 1×2 put spread in Target (TGT) and we sold the higher strike put, this is aggressive in leaving the lower strike puts “naked” but think it makes the most sense. Sold to close: TGT July 21st (monthly) 130.00 strike put Credit:  0.60 Assuming the lower strike puts expire OTM, the profit will be +0.77 or +$77.00 overall. We own a 1×3 call spread in CVS against our stock. We sold the lower strike call, this is aggressive in leaving the higher strike calls “naked” but think it makes the most sense. Sold to close: CVS July 21st (monthly) 75.00 strike call Credit:  0.15 – this is still a pending order Assuming the higher strike calls expire OTM, the profit will be +0.42 or +$42.00 overall. Rolled the following covered calls: Buy to close: BAC July 21st (monthly) 31.00 strike calls Sell to open: BAC Aug 18th (monthly) 33.00 strike calls Debit: 0.17 Buy to close: DKNG July 21st (monthly) 30.00 strike call Sell to open: DKNG Aug 18th (monthly) 35.00 strike call Debit: 0.35

We are going to make quite a few changes today to the portfolio. The details are shown below: Rolling out the following covered calls: Buy to close: Dell July 21st (monthly) 50.00 strike call Sell to open: Dell August 18th (monthly) 52.50 strike call Debit: 1.50 – Rolling both contracts Buy to close: Z July 21st (monthly) 50.00 strike call Sell to open: Z August 18th (monthly) 55.00 strike call Debit: 1.10 – 1 contract Buy to close: Z July 21st (monthly) 50.00 strike call Sell to open: Z Sep 15th (monthly) 60.00 strike call Debit: 2.05 – 1 contract Buy to close: GM July 21st (monthly) 37.00 strike call Sell to open: GM August 18th (monthly) 37.00 strike call Credit: 0.85 We are going to get “called out” of 100 shares of our MTCH stock. We are selling a put to re-enter at lower prices. Sell to open: MTCH Aug 18th (monthly) 42.50 strike put Credit: 0.75

We already have covered calls on the stocks listed below. However, we are selling another covered call early against those stocks as follows: Sell to open:  SNOW Aug 18th (monthly) 200.00 strike call Credit:  2.88 – this order has been filled This will leave our July covered call “naked” for the next 1.5 weeks but we feel quite confident it should expire OTM Sell to open:  OXY Aug 18th (monthly) 65.00 strike call Credit:  1.01 – this order has been filled This will leave our July covered call “naked” for the next 1.5 weeks but we feel quite confident it should expire OTM Sell to open:  CVS Sep 15th (monthly) 77.50 strike call Credit:  0.61 – this order is still pending This will leave our July covered call “naked” for the next 1.5 weeks but we feel quite confident it should expire OTM We own LEAPS calls on Verizon (VZ). We are selling a covered call against those leaps as follows: Sell to open:  VZ Aug 18th (monthly) 37.00 strike call Credit:  0.32 – this order has been filled

We have added put butterfly spreads to offset the shares we own in BRK-B. These could act as a trade or an offsetting hedge in some ways if the market were to decline. This is our largest stock position and thus we are protecting it a bit with this trade. Buy to open:  BRKB Aug 18th (monthly) 335.00 strike put (ratio of 1) Sell to open:  BRKB Aug 18th (monthly) 325.00 strike put (ratio of 2) Buy to open:  BRKB Aug 18th (monthly) 315.00 strike put (ratio of 1) Debit: 0.80 – this order has been filled Max risk = 0.80 or $80.00 per spread Max reward = 9.20 or $920.00 per spread In addition, we have a pending order to roll-up our DELL covered calls. Buy to close:  DELL July 21st (monthly) 50.00 strike calls Sell to open:  DELL July 21st (monthly) 52.50 strike calls Debit: 2.10 – still a pending order This will cost us money but allow us to move up our potential exit price/next roll

Last week on the market declines, we exited a few of our bearish positions SPY long put, MSFT put butterfly, XLV long puts and a few other trades. We had to hit the confessional and admit that at least our timing was wrong if not our overall outlook. Now markets are surging back from those lows and Apple has hit a 3-trillion market cap on a sharp gap higher. The question is whether we are still in an “exhaustion” high or we are in a runaway bull market. That is still up for debate but we have to trade what we believe is the best risk/reward/probability mix. We don’t want to get carried away but will add back on a few bearish trades now. Bought a long put in QQQ. This is quite an aggressive trade. One that we wouldn’t have the stomach to make had we continued to hold our SPY long put and not exited near breakeven last week. In fact, we would be sitting on a big loss had we not exited. That doesn’t give us a guarantee for profit but we feel this is a “forced liquidation” day for those bearish. We did pretty well to avoid most of this pain by exiting some trades last week. Buy to open: QQQ Oct 20th (monthly) 370.00 strike put Debit: 13.35 Max risk = 13.35 or $1,335 but we will try to manage that risk down to a much lower number.

We entered into a short-term trade this morning in pre-market trading. We shorted -30 shares of QQQ as follows: Sold short 30 shares QQQ at 366.07 Buy to cover stop-loss is above at 368.56 gtc (good til canceled)

Took profits on our long stock position in Schwab (SCHW) stock as follows: Sold: SCHW all 50 shares at 55.73 per share The result is a profit of +$138.50

We are closing a couple of trades today. These were at least entered into too early and we can take smaller losses now. Sell to close:  MSFT July 21st (monthly) 330.00 strike put (ratio of 1) Buy to close: MSFT July 21st (monthly) 315.00 strike put (ratio of 2) Sell to close:  MSFT July 21st (monthly) 300.00 strike put (ratio of 1) Credit:  2.30 The result is a loss of -0.20 or -$20.00 per spread Exiting our XLV trade today as follows: Sell to close:  XLV Sep 15th (monthly) 130.00 strike put Credit: 2.40 The result is a loss of -0.60 or -$60.00 per contract

We have entered into a stock trade in Schwab (SCHW). This is a short-term trade idea. Bought 50 shares of SCHW at 52.96 Sell stop-loss below at 51.87 gtc (good til canceled) order