An Apple a Day Keeps Losses Away

So, another stock reporting earnings and another stock I had options on going into them. Apple released after the bell, posting a 1.01 EPS and 6.22 Billion in revenue, simply awesome, they even raised guidance for next quarter which is unheard of for them.

So, of course the whole dilemma came up about what to do going into earnings. I decided to take the conservative approach this time. I hadn't done analysis like last time so even though I expected they would beat I didn't know if it would be good enough for expectations. I was holding 5 contracts with about 1,300 in profit. I sold 4 early in the day when the stock nearly reached my original target of 175, which proved to be almost the most I would get for them since the option never got back to where I sold which was 12.60.

Of course they beat huge and the stock is up 12 dollars in after hours. I could kick myself(which I do a little) however in the long run selling most of them will likely be in my favor because we honestly can't predict the future, they may have earned only .95 and that caused a sell off, who knows. I locked in my gains, and let 1 ride since that was basically all profit. Tomorrow according to the CBOE calculator I should have about 500 more in profit if the price holds, sure I could have 2500, but I could also have lost money. The Implied Volatility COLLAPSED from 54 down to 9! So I am lucky to even come out ahead at all, if I was holding OTM options I likely would have lost money or at most broke even.

Now options are actually underpriced and a better value. I feel like Apple could pull back here because it has had a huge run, so I may wait for a better entry point.

On to my other trades, the morning opened ugly, things gapped down then continued down for the first half hour and then started to recover. I sold out of my SLB and DRYS options as I was already way below my line. Was this smart or should I have waited? I think what matters is consistency, in this situation, I sold SLB and it ended up down further, I sold DRYS and it ended up gained a lot back and then some(still finished below 120 which was my line)

Had I kept DRYS I would have made back another 600.
Had I kept SLB I would have lost another 800.

As we can see in this situation it worked to my benefit as I am up 200 vs where I would have been had I sold at the end of the day.

I think the Nasdaq will be strong tomorrow due to Apple so I'll have to watch some positions, most I lost on likely will have recovered but I have to assume they wouldn't have. And overall I should basically be even compared to the big down day on friday, which is the first thing you need to do is not lose money.