Monday, April 28, 2008

Diversified Before the Fed

So today I set out to diversify my portfolio with some different options both bullish and bearish. I figured now was a good time because we have a Fed meeting tomorrow and you never know how the market will react. Market opinion seems to be that they will cut another .25% and then hold for a while.

Because the reaction could be a rally or a sell off it's good to have different positions. I added 3 more positions to my portfolio. 2 put plays and 1 call play. I bought puts WFR and VIA, down slightly on both, but less than my 2%, they offered good entry points. Looking to sell at 60 or with a break back above resistance of 70. VIA, broke a symmetrical triangle to the downside on above average volume. I would like to see it drop to 35, however on the 3 year chart it doesn't look like it has dropped past 37.50 in over a year and a half, so we'll see. A break back above 39 will signal an exit. It's hard to find bearish plays right now, however there could be some good ones setting up in POT or FSLR.

My one bullish add was on SLB. A break below 100 or if it gets up in the 112-115 range I'll sell. These are decent risk to reward ratios, my minimum is 1:4, which all meet or are better. Ideally, if we have sell off, my put plays will sell off harder and help insulate me from losses on my bullish plays, since i got in close to my exit on SLB I am hoping I won't lose much and it will hold. If we rally hopefully my puts rally up to only resistance, or even keep going down and my bullish plays rally a lot. It was tough again to see my account up during the day and then lose quite a bit at the end. My account has been treading water lately so I hope it makes some positive advance. However, now that I said that I am sure it will be a big down day and I'll get crushed. I am still very delta positive, but its hard to not be right now it seems. I was actually going to add more bullish plays, but decided to wait and see what the Fed does.

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