I’d almost forgotten how fun and easy it is to trade stocks, as opposed to futures. Those who trade the former are as dumb as fence posts compared to the nasty talent that’s cruising the commodity markets 24/7.  The latter held little promise yesterday, and so, looking for opportunity, we took a hard look at Google during the weekly tutorial session. A clear-as-day corrective pattern popped up on the 15-minute chart, and so I advised bottom-fishing, provide the target was reached before the final hour. In the actual event, the stock fell nearly $5, bottoming within 37 cents of the 816.73 target. During the session, and in the chat room shortly thereafter, I advised buying May 3 (i.e., expiring this Friday) calls at the 825 strike if and when the target was hit.

Now, because someone in the room reported a fill at 1.75 , I am establishing tracking guidance with this tout.  Google rallied nearly $5 off the low, and the calls closed @ 2.40, up 50% from their intraday low of 1.60.  Ideally, half the position should have been taken off before the close.  However, because the chat-roomer who bought them didn’t realize he’d been filled until after the close, I’m treating the position as though we still hold four calls.  Accordingly, I’ll recommend selling half of them on the opening while offering a third for 2.70. The last we’ll continue to hold for as long as possible, swinging for a home run. These calls will be shedding time premium rapidly, since their remaining lifespan is shorter than a mayfly’s. However, we are compensated for the time-premium risk by Google’s ability to make them $10 in-the-money with one gigantic leap. If that or something like it happens, I’ll suggest that you take the money and run without waiting to hear from me. ______ UPDATE (10:31 a.m. EDT): The calls opened for 2.20, and we sold another for 2.70, so we hold one with a profit adjusted cost basis of -0.15.  This means the worst we can do is make $15 on the trade. Officially, we’ll exit the call now for around 7.00, taking advantage of the stock’s ballistic rally. The calls have trade as high as 7.60. Our theoretical gain on a one-day hold was $715.