DISCLAIMER: This is a simulated educational exercise using paper trading fake money. This is not investment advice and is not intended to be copied.

TLDR

• Trades Thursday 11 May
  • SOLD -1 ENPH 19 MAY 23 167.5 CALL @1.65
  • BOUGHT (To Close) 2 YETI 12 MAY 23 38 PUT @0.03
  • BOUGHT (To Close) 1 ENPH 12 MAY 23 165 PUT @0.33
  • SOLD -1 TGT 19 MAY 23 19 MAY 23 145 PUT @1.95
• Trades Friday 12 May
  • BOUGHT (To Close) 1 ABNB 12 MAY 23 115 PUT @3.04
  • BOUGHT (To Close) 1 ABNB 12 MAY 23 112 PUT @0.95
  • BOUGHT (To Close) 1 ENPH 19 MAY 23 167.5 CALL @3.00
  • SOLD -1 ENPH 21 JUNE 23 200 CALL @29.35
• Had to take a few losses on questionable positions, but finally found good premium for ENPH

Today In Review

Combining three days into a single post! It’s been an active week in many ways.

Wednesday

Firstly Wednesday 10 May is an easy one. All premiums sucked, there was nothing super interesting happening, so I just sat on my hands and waited for more activity later in the week.

Thursday

Thursday 11 May is where things get interesting. First thing I noticed was YETI has shot up in price, so my open puts were at a very low premium. I decided to buy them back rather than invite any further risk, so I closed both positions for only a $0.03 premium each.

Next up was ENPH. I had an open call position set to expire the following day. Likewise that one was at a low premium. I decided to close that position and open one for the following week. The premiums weren’t great so I wasn’t thrilled, but between the buy and sell I netted $1.32 in premium.

Before wrapping up for the day though I noticed the AI flagging TGT at the $147.50 mark (it was trading at $159). The technicals were interesting on this one. No clear indication either way but they all seemed to lean towards the bullish side. What’s more, the premiums were fairly high. They report earnings next week, and stocks have been getting killed all week after earnings for the most part. However the $145 strike had a high premium, and TGT hasn’t been there since December. So I decided to give it a spin, and was able to collect $1.95 premium.

Friday

Friday 12 May gets even more interesting. ABNB shot down and ENPH shot up.

Firstly with ABNB – stop losses helped me out here. At this point in time I had two open puts set to expire today, one at $115 strike and one at $112 strike. ABNB was trading close to $113 the previous day and immediately started sinking. I closed both positions out, one at a loss and one at a small profit to net a total of $90 in capital gains all in.

Now with ENPH I have made it clear I’ve been unhappy with the premiums weekly. However I had neglected to look at a longer period. It was at this point I realized a month out premiums were very high. I originally was put the stock at $210 and it was currently trading at $160. I saw a 21 June / $200 strike had a $29 premium! So I immediately wrote that, collecting $29.35 premium when it went through. I’m very happy now, I’m positive on the trade if it’s taken away from me and as long as it doesn’t crash should be able to sell the stock after expiration anyway.

I did still have a 19 May position open, and ENPH started going up later in the day. I didn’t want to risk getting called right after I wrote that awesome premium for June, so I closed out that position. It cost me $3 to close the same trade I opened for $1.65 yesterday. Stings a little, but the June premium eases that pain quite a bit.

Portfolio Standings

Portfolio Value (Open) (Wednesday)	$ 99,524.00
Portfolio Value (Close) (Friday)	$ 103,852.00
Change (W-F)	4.35%
Change (Tot)	3.85%
Free Cash (Close)	$ 51,097.00
Escrowed Cash (Close)	$ 36,000.00
Equities (Close)	$ 16,755.00
Trades Made (W-F)	8

Closing Thoughts

The time premium on that ENPH call is great. I wish I realized it sooner. The market is very volatile right now but the premiums just aren’t there. I’m going to be a bit more conservative in the next weeks and treat this fake money more like it’s real.