Weekly Recap

It is time to hit the books and look for some new hot stocks to watch this weekend so I can be prepared to rotate some positions away from technology before Christmas. It is also time to review the week that was.

The Nasdaq rocked up 1.9% yesterday and 2.9% over a very volatile week. Earnings for Apple on Monday night and Microsoft on Thursday night kept the subprime mess from bringing everyone down.

This week started out with my portfolio a little overextended after getting aggressive and buying dips on AAPL, GRMN, and PCP. Monday's AAPL earnings allowed me to lighten up AAPL and GRMN calls on Tuesday and PCP's earnings allowed me to lighten up on PCP calls on Wednesday. Good earnings was expected from AAPL and PCP and they delivered. I now have GRMN on tap for this week. Analysts are expecting a 45% year over year increase in earnings and I think they will handily beat these expectations.

So by Wednesday night, I was back in a sizable cash position looking for opportunity again. That afternoon, I had nibbled at some TIE puts, expecting TIE to disappoint with earnings in the upcoming week. Thursday and Friday saw me adding more TIE puts. In hindsight, I placed a put position too early, but there was no way of knowing that TIE's new deal with CRS was going to be announced. I do hope that TIE announces with RTI (they have in the past), because I am not crazy about holding puts going into the FED meeting this upcoming Wednesday (but I have cash on hand for this possibility).

Thursday night gave me the opportunity to place a strangle options trade on WFR. This was a trade that worked out well and a trade that I plan to employ again on other stocks in the future. This week also had me buying an NVDA dip (Dec call options) which I also added to on Friday.

The week could have ended better (I should have been up more than I was for the week, especially considering the up tape on Friday), but some finality to the TIE trade and GRMN earnings should hopefully put some normalcy into my investments.

Time to find some new ideas.