UPDATE: August 24, 2017
After I rolled this trade in July, it all looked well until Amazon started selling. And it still struggles to hold the ground.
As of today, the stock dropped to $941.43 and I decided to adjust my trade to keep the stock price a bit more centered in my Iron Condor. So I decided to roll the entire structure down a bit.
Again this had to be done in a few steps:
Step 1
First, I rolled my puts down and one month away:
STC 1 AMZN Nov17 970 put
BTC 1 AMZN Nov17 990 put
STO 1 AMZN Dec15 980 put
BTO 1 AMZN Dec15 960 put
@ 0.95 debit
Step 2
Then, I opened a new call spread:
STO 1 AMZN Dec15 1090 call
BTO 1 AMZN Dec15 1110 call
@ 2.33 credit
Step 3
Then, I closed the old call spread:
STC 1 AMZN Nov17 1240 call
BTC 1 AMZN Nov17 1220 call
@ 0.34 debit
Total balance of this roll was 1.04 or $104 credit.
UPDATE: July 10, 2017
As I wrote below, my last roll of AMZN was a mistake. The stock stopped falling and started rallying again. The dip was short lived but the good thing is that it has occurred. Now we had a consolidation and I think the stock will rally up again and may exceed $1,000 dollar mark.
This wasn’t a very good situation for my call spread. So I decided to adjust this trade again:
First, I closed the put side:
STC 1 AMZN Jul21 910 put
BTC 1 AMZN Jul21 930 put
@ 0.74 debit
Second, I rolled the call spread into a new, higher put spread with November expiration:
STC 1 AMZN Jul21 1000 call
BTC 1 AMZN Jul21 980 call
STO 1 AMZN Nov17 990 put
BTO 1 AMZN Nov17 970 put
@ 1.07 debit
Third, I opened a new call spread to offset the cost of the call/put conversion above:
STO 1 AMZN Nov17 1220 call
BTO 1 AMZN Nov17 1240 call
@ 1.09 credit
Why November expiration?
– I wanted to gain as much time value as possible to sell and offset the roll cost and also to give the stock time to move higher as the new put spread is at the money and at the time of opening it was actually in the money.
Why 990/970 put spread?
– Again, selling at the money puts would provide enough premium to offset the cost as much as possible. Adjusting spreads is a horrible proposition and usually not a very successful strategy. So, it is about finding a feasible balance between the cost you want to pay to roll the spread and find the opposite side to offset the cost and still stay safe and in a credit trade overall.
Why 1220/1240 call strikes?
– Here I used expected move (which was my mistake when rolling my trade 7 days ago). At the time of rolling the trade the expected move for November expiration was 121 dollars each direction. Adding the expected move to the current stock price gave me a probably trading range:
$990 stock price at the time of the trade + $121 expected move = $1,111 upper range of the stock.
To stay above that range I selected $1,220 short strike which is another $109 dollars higher than the expected trading range for November expiration. This gives me more room for the stock to rally and hopefully stay below my short call strike.
UPDATE: July 03, 2017
Amazon continues giving me a hard time trading it. It is a beast stock! After a strong rally we saw some retreat and serious selling recently when investors feared tech stocks valuation and thought the stocks are too expensive.
The chart below shows what AMZN did for the last few weeks:
This selling got so close to my 940/920 put spread at some point that I decided to roll the trade down:
STC 1 AMZN Jul21 920 put
BTC 1 AMZN Jul21 940 put
STO 1 AMZN Jul21 930 put
BTO 1 AMZN Jul21 910 put
@ 1.33 debit
Since this roll was a debit trade, I decided to open a new call spread and opened the following trade to offset the debit roll:
STO 1 AMZN Jul21 980 call
BTO 1 AMZN Jul21 1000 call
@ 4.99 credit
I expected the stock to continue sliding down or staying sideways and consolidating for a bit longer. Soon I realized that it was a mistake.
UPDATE: May 01, 2017
As AMZN continues rallying up leaving my bear call spread devastated (basically in full loss) I decided to adjust this trade once more.
Today morning, I rolled my calls and puts higher again in an attempt to improve the position:
STC 1 AMZN Jul21 935 call
BTC 1 AMZN Jul21 915 call
STO 1 AMZN Jul21 925 call
BTO 1 AMZN Jul21 945 call
@ 1.31 debit
To offset this debit I moved the put side higher too:
STC 1 AMZN Jul21 895 put
BTC 1 AMZN Jul21 915 put
STO 1 AMZN Jul21 940 put
BTO 1 AMZN Jul21 920 put
@ 2.20 credit
The over all balance of the trade was 0.89 credit (or $89 premium).
At first, the stock cooperated and it started going down a bit. But then it suddenly moved sharply higher again. And no matter what I was thinking and apologizing the trade I felt very uncomfortable with the call side leaving me behind. My short call was at $925 and the stock was trading at $954. Too much pain to keep it like that mainly when Amazon is a bullish stock as of now.
Even with bumps on the road and drops along the way, this stock will head higher. And I felt like I was running out of all options on adjusting this trade.
So I gave up and decided to adjust this trade once again today and convert it into a bullish trade. I basically moved the entire call side into a put side converting a bear call spread into a bull put spread.
I had to move it in the money to do so and far away in time, but I have absolutely no problem with it. I do not mind waiting on this one trade. I also want to give the stock enough time to grow and move from ITM into OTM. Here is the trade:
STC 1 AMZN Jul21 945 call
BTC 1 AMZN Jul21 925 call
STO 1 AMZN Jun15 2018 1080 put
BTO 1 AMZN Jun15 2018 1060 put
@ 0.58 credit
I believe the stock will reach 1080 level in about a year (if not earlier) so I plan on closing the trade earlier or roll it higher along with the stock.
After all these adjustments, I now have two bull put spreads:
-1 AMZN Jun15 2018 1080 put
+1 AMZN Jun15 2018 1060 put
-1 AMZN Jul21 940 put
+1 AMZN Jul21 920 put
I hope the July spread will close successfully in July and release buying power. Then I will have to wait for the next year trade and eventually rolling it higher to collect more credit.
UPDATE: Apr 28, 2017
AMZN reported earnings and it was a beat. The stock jumped from $918 to $960 overnight. But then something unimaginable happened! After market opening the next day, the stock continued sliding down the whole day and Amazon erased all overnight gains:
Originally, I planned on rolling my call and puts spread higher again but when I saw this price action I realized that there was a huge weakness in this rally. I decided to wait and do nothing. If the stock continues down next week I might be actually adjusting my put spread in lieu of the calls!
So, let’s see and stay tuned!
UPDATE: Apr 26, 2017
Time to roll again as Amazon is raging up unstoppable. Well somewhat.
For quite long period of time the stock seemed to be consolidating and attacking the $900 level, struggling to go above and stay there.
But as the new earnings approached, the stock shot up and moved high and well above the $900 level. See the chart below as the stock rushed well above 900 and reached $918 level:
This is why I decided to adjust this trade once again. I decided to move my put side closer to the money and roll the call side higher. As I am bullish on AMZN overall I am not afraid of moving puts closer to the money or even in the money. Because I am rolling both sides of a spread, this trade must be also done in two steps:
1) roll the call side higher
2) roll the put side higher
Before you place such order, you must test the trade first to make sure that all steps together will result in a credit trade. Again, here when rolling calls higher, it will be a debit trade, but moving puts up must offset this debit:
STC 1 AMZN Jul21 900 call
BTC 1 AMZN Jul21 920 call
STO 1 AMZN Jul21 915 call
BTO 1 AMZN Jul21 935 call
@ 1.38 debit
STC 1 AMZN Jul21 805 put
BTC 1 AMZN Jul21 825 put
STO 1 AMZN Jul21 915 put
BTO 1 AMZN Jul21 895 put
@ 5.92 credit
Total trade balance: 4.54 credit or $454.
UPDATE: Feb 06, 2017
As I mentioned before I am adding a call spread to this existing trade and converting it into and Iron Condor:
STO 1 AMZN Jul21 900 call
BTO 1 AMZN Jul21 920 call
@ 4.28 credit
With the previous debit and today’s credit the overall balance of the roll and conversion is 2.02 or $202 credit.
The entire trade balance is:
Original trade = $855 credit
#1 roll = -$226 debit
#2 adjustment = $428 credit
Total = $1,057 credit
UPDATE: Feb 03, 2017
Amazon literally crashed on fear of competition. However, the company managed to beat all earnings expectations. Thus I consider this huge sell off unjust and I decided to hold onto the trade and rather roll it instead of closing it:
STC 1 AMZN Feb3 805 put
BTC 1 AMZN Feb3 825 put
STO 1 AMZN Jul21 825 put
BTO 1 AMZN Jul21 805 put
@ 2.26 debit
Originally, I received a credit for this trade. I am OK to pay a debit to roll this trade. This is also because I plan on opening new call spread against this trade and convert it into an Iron Condor. I expect credit for adding the call side which would offset this debit (the same way as strangles do that).
ORIGINAL TRADE Jan 30, 2017
Amazon (AMZN) is reporting earnings on Thursday after the market and I plan on taking two trades to take advantage of the increased volatility (currently 53.85%) and sell a few contracts. We will be selling a bull put spread now and on Thursday we will be selling an Iron Condor.
Here is the first trade:
STO 1 AMZN Feb3 825 put
BTO 1 AMZN Feb3 805 put
@ 8.55 credit
We will do nothing with this trade until after the earnings report.
If the stock drops however, we will attempt to buy it back or roll it.
And here is a trade journal for this trade:
Good luck!
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