Comments for John Brasher's Covered Call Blog

Comment on Not looking so good by Shane

Shane — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:49:27 +0000

Hey John. I’ve been checking out your website and service for a while now and have been really impressed with your market knowledge, especially in terms of covered call writing. I’ve read your free PDF on Covered Call Writing and was equally impressed. My personal trading strategy is two fold, to both trade the stock(options) and accumulate stock and sell covered calls on it. I don’t profess to be super trader, but I do have my fair share of knowledge in standard chart reading as well in volume spread analysis. Essentially I just wanted to say your blog commentary on the market and covered call writing is some of the best I’ve seen. A lot of what I read on your blog follows what I’m seeing with my charts and analysis. Keep up the great work.

Comment on Don’t light fireworks just yet by John Brasher

John Brasher — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:54:26 +0000

Lee, you’re welcome. Anyone who is long a CC position now needs to keep a sharp eye on it, maybe put in a stop below Big Red.

John

Comment on Don’t light fireworks just yet by Lee Reicher

Lee Reicher — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:21:07 +0000

Thanks John! These daily commentaries are extremely enlightening and helpful, both from standpoint of learning chart interpretation skills, and figuiring out what to do right now. -Lee in Los Angeles.

Comment on Hammer keeps us hanging by Shawn

Shawn — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:37:54 +0000

Thanks for the insight, John!

Comment on Potential Upside Reversal by John Brasher

John Brasher — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:00:15 +0000

Hi Dave,
Yes, I intend to, but I will mostly be out of the office on Friday heading for the seminar.
JB

Comment on Potential Upside Reversal by Dave

Dave — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:29:55 +0000

Thanks for the analysis John. Will you send an update later today or this week when you see confirmation one way or the other?

Dave

Comment on That old 10,000 by John Brasher

John Brasher — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:21:54 +0000

Not necessarily. If the stock looks to decline further, I will close the CC end of the position and keep the put. If the stock in fact declines, I may at some point sell the now-more-valuable put for a profit. Or, if I feel the stock has found support, I will roll the put down (small profit) and get back into the stock at a lower price (lowers basis) and ride the stock back up.

If I wrote a great stock, then it wasn’t a bad trade, just bad timing. These simple kinds of adjustments are far more reliable than adding puts and calls at every turn of the stock - which also adds complication and new risk zones.
JB

Comment on Potential Upside Reversal by John Brasher

John Brasher — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:26:14 +0000

Thanks Jeff,

What you say about the low last week is true of COMPX and NDX, but the DOW and SPX showed a bit more strength. The SPX difference low-to-low was 10 points, which would equate to about 100 on the DOW. The DOW low-to-low was 238 points, however, a decent difference, indicating a bit more strength in the largest companies. In a pinch, the tech indexes seem to be weaker than industrials. Look at November 2008 for an eye-opening comparison.

I don’t think this uptrend has much farther to go, without a correction or consolidation, but another bite at the apple before then would seem possible.
JB

Comment on Potential Upside Reversal by Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:51:29 +0000

John,
You sure called it on AMZN - thanks for that one. I’m not predicting it, but to me the SPX is setting up for a perfect head-and-shoulders. What’s different this time from the last bull flags is the low, which almost matches perfectly the low on 10/2. I guess only tomorrow will tell.
Jeff

Comment on Resistance may not be Futile by John Brasher

John Brasher — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:21:12 +0000

Hi Jeff,

There are many ways to approach it, of course. But c’mon, everyone times. Even a guy who doesn’t know what a stock chart is, times. The timing may be careful, or oblivious, or anything in between. But in choosing to put on a trade in the now, we are implicitly stating that current market conditions are - at the least - acceptable to us (and vice-versa). For example, were you writing calls during the OCT/NOV 2008 slaughter? Probably not. And if not, you were timing.

I’m not always right on trade entry points, but I have found that trading with the market creates much higher-probability trades. This is nowhere truer than in a strongly uptrending market. Once I have made 3% plus on a trade, I feel no need or urge to put it back into a new trade immediately. This approach has worked like a charm.
JB