GS – Goldman Sachs (Last:142.63)

We hold 32 July 195 calls with an average cost of 0.14. Our goal is to short July 200 calls against them for at least as much, but the strategy was conceived with expectations that bank stocks would lead the charge if the broad averages went bananas. Clearly that has not occurred, but there is still time for the financial sector to catch fire.  In the meantime, because we bought the calls with stingy bids, they are still worth what we paid for them. For now, do nothing further. We’ll need a rally of at least $12 to achieve our goal — a virtually riskless vertical spread that could produce of profit of as much as $16,000.  ______ UPDATE (May 2, 1:59 a.m. EDT): Goldman has looked like hell ever since we bought the calls, and it’s clear that my expectation that the stock would lead the charge if the stock market went higher was dead wrong. Accordingly, I’m going to book a $448 loss and archive this tout. In the extremely unlikely event that the bank stocks catch fire between now and July, I’ll re-publish the tout and we can proceed as originally planned.