Before I delve into the options strategies we follow and how the performed during the October cycle I would like to touch on a post that I write back in late April/early May of this year.
On 5/3 I first spoke about the old Wall Street adage “Sell in May and go awaay. As many of my loyal readers know, I mentioned it several more times over the course of the next few months.
On 5/4, when the market officially moves into the aforementioned adage, the S&P (SPY) was trading at $150.75. Today the S&P (SPY), closed at $149.67 lower -$1.08 or -0.7% since the ”sell in May” period began. Once again, the seasonally flat period between May-October proves it merit.
Okay, back to today’s market action. Whew! More than a handful of options strategists were hurt by today’s price action. Our strategies actually had a wonderful expiration period. Our Iron Condor strategyamde 7.9%, the ETF Extremes held flat (no signals), and the New SPY Diagonal LEAPS strategy finished today (after rolling our short positions into November) up $670 or 3.4% for the October expiration cycle. Today’s move certainly made its mark on the strategy, but when the S&P falls sharply, we should expect to see losses.
As I mentioned above we rolled our short positions this afternoon. We made the following trades:
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Kindest regards,
Andrew Crowder
Chief Options Strategist, Crowder Investment Research, LLC