We’re offering a December 90 call short for 1.80 against a January 90 call acquired earlier for 2.34. For no fewer than four reasons, I’ve resisted the urge to exit the position on the fleeting spikes that have occurred in each of the last two days. First, I did not want to burden you with the tiresome and unreasonable task of having to trade nervously; second, because the rally target at 88.21 looked sufficiently compelling to deserve the bullish benefit of the doubt; third, because I really am eager to pay your subscription costs with this trade; and fourth, because all the correction bulls out there, including some technicians I respect, have got me just a little bit spooked. However, doubts are mounting as IBM continues to screw the pooch, and if I had followed my own discipline of keeping risk:reward in a 1:3 relationship, we’d have exited the position no worse than 85.10 on a trailing stop as IBM came down from its recent high at 85.88. (For a more detailed discussion of how this works, see “Dynamic Trailing Stop” by selecting ‘edu’ in the “All Picks By Stock” field near the top of this page.) In any event, let’s raise the stop on the January 90 call to 2.20, making it one-cancels-the-other (OCO) with our closing offer for the January 90 call. If the option trades at that price, sell it at-the-market. _______ UPDATE: We exited at the worst price of the day so far, 2.00, realizing a $34 trading loss. Please note: To have avoided getting ripped off by the market makers this morning I would need to have given you a rather elaborate set of instructions. When trading options, always keep in mind that the opening rotation in particular is rigged and dominated by guys that I, a former market maker, would not trust alone with my pet lizard.