We are long 800 shares @ 14.91 against eight February 33 calls shorted for 1.94. My apologies for botching the instructions yesterday, transposing an important detail referring to “higher” or “lower” in trying to explain when to buy eight February 36 calls. I saw no references to this error in the chat room and will therefore assume either that no one did the trade, or that there was little interest in it. Officially, however, we’ll try again, using a slightly different tactic: Bid 0.41 for eight February 35 calls, day order. ______ UPDATE (4:03 p.m. EST): In the chat room just now, I’ve recommended covering our short February 33 calls for around 2.40, since SLW will blow to at least 36.81 if and when it gets past the 35.28 midpoint pivot where it has stalled today. I will also recommend closing out the 800-share position at 36.81 (take 10 cents’ discretion), good-till-canceled, since I’d like to start fresh, allowing new traders to get aboard. Since we’ve covered the Feb 33 calls for 46 cents more than we received for shorting them, that will raise our cost basis on the stock to 15.35. To be candid, in making position adjustments with puts and calls over the last month or so, I’ve traded the stock very poorly — especially when I had you buy Jan 34 puts when SLW spiked to an all-time high at 42.34. The entry could not conceivably have been better timed, but the puts were way too far out-of-the-money to begin with, and we blew them out at the worst possible time — for a pittance when the stock made a last-gasp feint to 40 before tanking all the way down to 28.85. If we can get out at the 36.81 target, that would represent a theoretical profit of a little more than $17,000 on the position — not bad, but not nearly as well as we should have done. _______FURTHER UPDATE (Feb 10, 3:31 p.m.): We exited at 34.16 after I posted an advisory in the chat room, recording a theoretical gain of $15,048. My intention is to re-establish a long position at better prices, so stay tuned.
