Crumbs, Anyone

It's that time of the month again.

No, I'm not being visited by Aunt Flo, as the euphamism would go, if indeed it were germane.

No, it's the end of the September options cycle in just a few short days. Time to see if there are any crumbs left out there just waiting to be taken. And you do have to act quickly, because before you know it those crumbs get smaller and smaller, before they disappear entirely.

I suppose that since I now try to find as many weekly options opportunities as possible, that third Friday of each month has lost a bit of its significance. Now its more or less like any other Friday.

I've never had a visit from Aunt Flo, but I can't imagine that her dropping by on a weekly basis would be very good.

In a way, I guess that's as sad as when you know that Aunt Flo won't be visiitng anymore. Fortunately, that single long hair on my chin that popped up after Flo disappeared is obscured by my full beard.

By the same token, most people I know no longer deal in euphamisms, anyway. They get right down to brass tacks, no sense beating around the bloody bush.

Hmm, now I'm not certain if the preceding itself was a euphamism for something, but no matter, I just like using uniquely British adjectives.

As I looked back at the monthly statistics for the past few years, I should have been tipped off that this wouldn't have been the kind of month to e-mail home about.

It seems that the month following what turns out to be my best options premium month of the year is a dog.

And that was this month because that was last month.

Since options premiums keep me afloat, I have a need to trade, but times like these offer the biggest dilemmas.

Holding on to so many positions that are significantly below their purchase prices, it's hard to justify trying to optimize options premiums by writng near the money contracts when their assignment would result in meanigful capital losses.

Although I always check my spreadsheets to see how much in accumulated premiums each position has captured, I still have a reluctance to take the loss, even when it is mitigated or even fully offset by those premiums.

I'm not beyond rationalizing my actions, though.

On days such as the first two trading days of this final week, you see the clock ticking away on the one hand, but you also see the possibility of that silver lining in depressed stock prices, or at the very least the lack of support in silver prices, as I own unhedged shares of an UltraShort Silver ETF.

Will there be some good news coming out of the European Union sending our markets for a nice climb? I sure wouldn't want to miss out on recouping some of those paper losses, but those crumbs, those 0.5% options premiums, do I really want to leave those on the table?

The answer to those questions are "who knows" and "not really"

The full answer to the latter question is actually "not really, but I don't want to feel like a schmuck".

But you do have to eat, you can't really let pride get in the way. As small as they may be, those crumbs can add up.

And so, in a measured reaction to a meandering day, I did get the opportunity to sell call options on JP Morgan, Freeport McMoRan, Halliburton, Williams-Sonoma and the Triple Q's.

Actually, with the exception of Williams-Sonoma, if the others do get assigned, I'll still be taking capital gains on the underlying stocks, so the risk will be determined by how wildly they may explode upward between today and Friday's close.

Opportunities potentially lost. That ends up being the performance metric, but since I don't harbor regrets, I also rarely learn lessons. You can fool me over and over again as long as those premiums add up and losses have some strategic value in reducing tax liability.

When I did add the crumbs up it was worth the risk, given the reward and the need to be able to feed Laszlo the Dog.

It's either crumbs or go back to work, not to mention the shriveled carcass of a wiener dog.

Hmmm. Weiner dog.

If anyone reading this is old enough to remember Bob Denver's character, Maynard G. Krebs, you would know my reaction to the very thought of "work".

Whatever optimism there's been in the markets during the last hour of each of the two past trading sessions it's a little frightening to thank what it's been based upon.

First, the rumor of Chinese intervention to buy Italian debt turned Monday's market on a dime.

But you know that we're really in trouble and living a life of deep delusion if we think that Chinese benevolence is going to be the remedy that saves the European Union's financial systems.

Today's good news was that there wouldn't be a Greek default.

At least not today.

The other good news was that somone had interpreted something that Angela Merkel said as being of a positive note, regarding satisfying Finland's need for Greek collateral.

When I wrote about what was wagging the dog the other day even in my wildest dreams I never would have guessed Finland.

But Finland, too, was just in search of crumbs. Whatever assets Greece actually has rights to, Finland wants it. After all, with its dying Nokia enterprise, what else does it have going for it? And besides, those reindeer need to eat, too.

So I know the feeling.

Wherever you can get those crumbs, get them.

Tomorrow? Who knows what tomorrow brings. New rumors, maybe some actual news, maybe not.

No matter. This week ends in a few days and a whole new world of opportunities comes along.

This time, I'm hoping for the whole loaf and will gladly take the crumbs, too.

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S&P's Mea Culpa

It seems as if Standard and Poors has been waiting a few years to try and figure out how to atone for its major lapses in the past.

While it was dutifully handing out Triple A ratings to the likes of Washington Mutual, CountryWide and Wachovia, Rome burned. Some of the flames may have permanently singed Angelo Mozilo's face. 

Certainly it would be wrong to ascribe all of the financial woes that we've experienced to S&P's lack of actually doing what they have been renowned for, by I'm not bound by any sense of fairness.

Let's just say that they were probably more than just an idle bystander. In the world of grades, they would have received considerably less than a "Gentleman's C" for their ratings of the players that likely belonged to the same clubs as the S&P big boys.

Allegedly.

So how do you make up for the incredible oversights that allowed the financial giants to play games of leverage that overwhelmed its basic support structures?

Simple.

You just attack the basic financial structures of the United States.

Their pronouncements couldn't really come as any great news to anyone. No one feels particularly good about the national debt and the vast amounts that are held by the Chinese.

As my parents would say whenever faced with any challenged that posed potentially distasteful outcomes, "What good can come of it?"

Imagine a doctor informing a patient that they have cancer. "Oh, and by the way, your hideously ugly as well".

Well that may be true, but it didn't really have to be said.

Being in Washington, the name of the game is spin. Often, policy activists and community organizers share a common strategy, and that is to use shame as a weapon.

So the spin is that S&P's comment was to shame the leading political opponents to come to the table and work things out.

Not likely. The Supreme Court may recognize corporations to be individuals, but they still haven't proven that they are capable of rational thought or caring and that goes for the elected officials, as well.

If they did, S&P wouldn't have told us that are debt is ugly.

I especially liked the new Presidential Press Secretary's response, saying that the political process will surprise S&P.

First of all, when did the President get a 12 year old press secretary? When did Jody Powell leave? But perhaps more importantly, whatever the dysfunctional political process must evolve into, it should have nothing to do with playing to S&P.

It should be fairly obvious what needs to be done, and that is for both sides to drop their ideology and learn that both sides have legitimate ideas.

In a word? Compromise, or as that one time Country King of Comedy used to say, "Get er done".

Using rosy colored glasses, people talk of how well Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan were able to work together and wonder why it can't happen that way now.

My guess is that in 30 years people will be looking back at today's era and fondly remembering how well John Boehner and Barack Obama collaborated when it was in the nation's best interests.

It's all about lowering the bar. Who needs Triple A ratings, anyway?

We do, obviously, but S&P's warning is for the possibility of a downgrade in a couple of years. To put that into perspective, it's like worrying about whether your unborn great-great-great grandchild will have acne.

Besides, there still must be some trust fund that can be raided.

If you're an unrequited bull you got past the S&P debacle and looked at today's plunge as a gift to pick up some shares on a relatively cheap basis.

Yesterday being the first day of the new options cycle, I had cash resulting from the assignments of Visa, American Tower, Rio Tinto and American Express.

I especially liked the American Towers money.

I didn't hold shares very long, as it was never a company that was on my radar screen, although Jim Cramer used to mention it with frequency during his early Mad Money days.

But with the announcement of the planned AT&T buyout of Deutsche Telecom's T-Mobile unit all of the "Talking Heads" were in unison spouting about how bad that would be for American Towers as there would be no need for AT&T to lease as much space on those ubiquitous towers.

So of course, AMT did a drastic plunge on the news.

What a great time to buy, but just in case, I hedged and got a nice premium of $1.25 and a capital gain of $0.83 on the underlying shares that had a basis of $47.17.

Had I been greedy, I would have sold something higher than the $48 calls, because the over-riding AMT thesis wa wrong and quickly demonstrated as such.

Anyway, I felt like a little kid in a candy store. Everything looked so good yesterday and best of all, I had money in my hand.

By the time it was done, I picked up additional shares of Sallie Mae, Freeport McMoRan and British Petroleum. I bought new shares in Textron and Williams Sonoma, two of my past favorites and replaced my Rio Tinto Shares.

Best of all, with the market coming back from down 220 to down 140, all of the newly purchased shares were already in the black.

Barely, but in the black, although nowhere near enough to offset the other shares that I owned. But still....

I came close to buying Google shares again, but just couldn't pull the trigger, even though Google always seems to recover from its post-earnings blues fairly quickly. I just thought that there were some better opportunities over the next month, as that is always my time frame. What can these shares do for me during the current options cycle?

Plain and simple.

I suppose that I should be thanking Standard and Poors for creating the opportunity, but I'm still having difficulty with that concept.

If someone calls your sister a "whore" it's hard to forget that fact, even if there's some truth behind the comment.

If S&P had been a really good friend, I'm certain that a couple of really nice up days in the market could help to ease some of the bad feelings. Maybe if it took my sister out to dinner, showed her a nice time, I'd be willing to let bygones be bygones.

But let's face it, S&P hasn't been good to anyone lately.

By the way, apologies to my sister. She's not anywhere near the whore that Standard and Poors can be.