TSLA Trading Strategies

[austinEV]

I definitely think we should be above 180 by mid March. Hopefully by a lot. This is just a play to see if we hit resistance for a small dip on the way there.

Historically, we have spent so little time under 180 I am not sure it will be the big resistance everyone is making it out to be. FOMO is getting longs off the sidelines. The M3 play is too irresistible. I have had 2 co-workers ask me if they should get in on a M3 reveal play. Ordinarily I would fear a sell-the-news cliff but not this time. The real juice will be the press and reservation numbers and dollars.

 

[stef]

I've played with options forever, but I didn't have margin account until recently. With margin account, I've discovered that I love selling puts, as that makes volatility works for me. Upside is smaller, but so is downside. Selling out of money puts ($200 strike, or like) is fun, if you're ready to buy shares: you end up either with cash, or cheap shares...

Something to look at...

Definitely something to consider in the future.
For the moment though, I decided not to mix things up, so I have different accounts for options and shares.
I am trying to create a "barrier" to avoid getting carried away too much and limit impulsive decisions, although this comes with some limitations (which I am ok with, at this point).
Play money in their own play money pot. Nothing more ... for now

 

[HiTech]

I've been a straight buy/sell investor with stocks for many years. But, I'd like to learn a bit more about all of these other types mentioned in this thread all the time (i.e. puts, calls, LEAPS, etc.). Can anyone recommend any websites that help clarify these topics and good strategies on when/how to use them?
Thanks in advance!

 

[stef]

I've been a straight buy/sell investor with stocks for many years. But, I'd like to learn a bit more about all of these other types mentioned in this thread all the time (i.e. puts, calls, LEAPS, etc.). Can anyone recommend any websites that help clarify these topics and good strategies on when/how to use them?
Thanks in advance!

I have been through your same process few months ago, and the place I have been looking the most for general background and basic strategies was http://www.optionseducation.org/en.html
There is also a nice podcast section (some audio, some video).
It seemed a reasonable place to start.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

Here's an update on my 'strategy'. I had rolled back 8 $200 Jan '17 calls into 10 $200 Sep '16 calls when the stock was around $150. Today I just sold 2 of the September calls (when TSLA was $176), hoping to buy 2 or 3 June calls for a lower strike price if we fall a little. The thought is, after the CC I'm more comfortable that the next earnings will be good, and for once decided to follow 'technicals' - $180 should be resistance, and the lows should be 'retested', right? So I'm hoping to use another dip before we break above 180 to increase leverage some more.

We'll see.

Ok, before you go with June...
I have bunch of June calls, and I've lost _tons_, and I'm desperately looking to get into longer duration calls to deleverage (once I recover a bit), so I don't depend on one or two events going right. Just my experience. June calls will lose lots of time-value by May CC, so you're having a race btw. stock and time...

Having said all of that, my timing and trust in Tesla leadership has been spectacularly bad. Since June of last year, I though Model X reveal would go fine, and then every time Tesla said they're ramping X production I've trusted them, thinking they can't botch it as bad as they did.
I had to roll off January into June, let heartbreaking number of options expire etc...
Not sure how much my experience is worth, but there it is.

 

[Periodicowner123]

With TSLA closing today at $176.70 (up $10.12 or 6.08%), where do you guys think the stock is going in regards to the rising oil prices ? I believe the stock will go up in the future but am thinking that the market might take a dip pretty soon and that might be when TSLA is a bargain buy.

Your thoughts ?

 

[Wenche]

With the large movements of the SP of TSLA recently I may set up another strangle, especially as the IVs have come down some since the ER. I started accumulating stock slowly again...VERY slowly.
What is everyone else doing?

This has been an interesting periode of time, since new year. I was eager to buy the J18 leaps, but last year I bought the J17 too early, and wanted to wait to buy the J18 this year utill the price settled. Before new year you had to pay about $25 to role a J17 to J18 160 call, and i figured out that I could easily role without any cost, buying, and just waiting for the next level to come, and I would sell the J17's with gain.
I continued buying 18 leaps down the road, untill IB told my I had only 5% left of my margin. I bought back my sold puts with only 15% proft to cover, as IB remove the amount from your margin in case you have to cover. I could have bought the puts back 1 month earlier with 50% gain, but I thought they would expire wortless for the buyers.
I funded some more money, and kept buying, the stock kept falling, and I got another warning, and kept funding my account, eventually I got a margin call notice, when stock was about 141. I sent an answer message to both "the warning", and to the "margin call notice", with a receipt of a funding that I had already made, as of the day before, to my account, and a message to do not liquadate any of my stoks nor options. The answers were from the last first; From your receipt we see that fundings are on the way and we will not liquadate any of your possitions, but we will wait untill tomorrow, to see if the fundings arrive your account. They did. Reply from the warning notis 1 day later, was; We do not issue "Margin calls", .... you have ... $ available on your margin account.
Luckily it only takes 48 hour to transfer funds from Norway.
I have now funded more money, and have close to any margin, but I felt strange when IB in a way took control of my account. Any one else experienced the same or simular?
By the way, I still planning to role the J17's with gain

 

[sub]

Right now I have a few J17 calls and one sold J17 put, also have one March call that I'm getting ready to roll out to at least J17. These are in addition to shares. I'm in the whole pretty big right now with the current options, I had sold all of my shares a while back to take care of some other financial matters then got back in at a later date with new funds. Luckily I'm not in with as big of a position in my margin acct as I was before, though when added together with my wife's 401 shares/leaps we do have a pretty big position. I figure worst case is I'll have to add a little cash to roll out but I'm feeling more confident after this last week that Tesla may reach 300 this year. I wanted to go in more when we were in the 150 range but I'm tapped out right now, that was a gift to those that got in at that time IMO.

For those new to options, I spent a lot of time learning them in the past 2 years. Nothing beats trading them however, you can do it live with a small positon or with a paper money acct. I feel like I know options very well now and can put together many different types of option plays depending on what my goal and assumption of market movement is. I also spent many hours on TOS think back so I could play out options over longer periods of time quickly.

 

[Blip]

...I felt strange when IB in a way took control of my account. Any one else experienced the same or simular?..

It happened to me too.. I sold some iron condors that went wrong (SPY), and at the same time some leaps (TSLA) took a dive. I got a notice to do "something". It happened too quickly to transfer money from Norway, so I had to close the condor.

Anyway, rolling leaps from jan17 to jan18 shouldn't cost more than $10-15 last time I checked...?

 

[Wenche]

"Luckily it only takes 48 hour to transfer funds from Norway.
I have now funded more money, and have close to any margin, but I felt strange when IB in a way took control of my account."
I tried to edit my post, but edit button disappeared. I see that what I wrote could be misunderstood. What I meant is; I have now funded my account, and have close to no use of margin, only 1% or so, and feel much more confident about the situation.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

Q for market experts:

My $180 weekly covered calls are doing really poorly.
Truth is, when I sold them last Friday, I WANTED to have this problem, and I'm pretty happy to have it
Now I just need need to figure out how to handle it, buy back calls, or let assignment execute?
This is short term Q, I'm very long otherwise, so having some shares sell may be natural way to trim a bit.

 

[ZenMan]

Roll up and out.

Your weekly $180 calls are probably around $3. You call roll them out a week and probably increase the strike price by $5 and come out around neutral. Wait for a Tesla pullback, then buy back.

Q for market experts:

My $180 weekly covered calls are doing really poorly.
Truth is, when I sold them last Friday, I WANTED to have this problem, and I'm pretty happy to have it
Now I just need need to figure out how to handle it, buy back calls, or let assignment execute?
This is short term Q, I'm very long otherwise, so having some shares sell may be natural way to trim a bit.

 

[HiTech]

I have been through your same process few months ago, and the place I have been looking the most for general background and basic strategies was http://www.optionseducation.org/en.html
There is also a nice podcast section (some audio, some video).
It seemed a reasonable place to start.

@stef - Thank you. This looks pretty interesting.

 

[Svetlin]

Here's an update on my 'strategy'. I had rolled back 8 $200 Jan '17 calls into 10 $200 Sep '16 calls when the stock was around $150. Today I just sold 2 of the September calls (when TSLA was $176), hoping to buy 2 or 3 June calls for a lower strike price if we fall a little. The thought is, after the CC I'm more comfortable that the next earnings will be good, and for once decided to follow 'technicals' - $180 should be resistance, and the lows should be 'retested', right? So I'm hoping to use another dip before we break above 180 to increase leverage some more.

We'll see.

Update: With the proceeds of the 2 Sept $200 calls, I just bought 2 June $180 calls. A tiny bit of cash left. If the liftoff happens before June, this would prove to be a good move. If not, I'll have had time to accumulate a little more cash and use that on Sept or Jan options which should have gotten cheaper.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

Roll up and out.

Your weekly $180 calls are probably around $3. You call roll them out a week and probably increase the strike price by $5 and come out around neutral. Wait for a Tesla pullback, then buy back.

Yes, thanks, I was considering this, but was concerned that once through $180, TSLA would gather steam and run up to $200 in no time. Pushing out expiry date was the last thing I wanted to do I used to use this strategy quite a bit. Doing it now with TSLA, I feel is like playing with matches.
Awesome strength yesterday and today.

I bought my covered calls back: 2 calls yesterday at $3.5, and 2 this morning at $1.05.
Lost few hundred bucks trying to make only $350, but I'm very glad to have this problem - gains on sold expired/expiring puts are at least order of magnitude larger.

 

[theschnell]

What do you all think about doing a strangle with expiration at least in the 4th quarter or later? What are the odds volatility decreases post reveal? I am thinking about setting this up in a couple of weeks.

 

[Svetlin]

Back in the days of wild swings in 2013, I had a strategy to sell a little every time the stock moved up 15% or more in 5 days. It did that today ($170 to $196). To paraphrase Citizen-T (what happened to him?) - sell on the way up. I would ignore such a move if there are substantial news, but there hasn't been anything in the last 5 days. So I sold my 2 June $180 calls today. I didn't catch the top, sold at $192, but still made 57% on them in 5 days.

Now I'm going to observe for a few days and try to get more leverage out of the same amount of money on any pullback.

 

[austinEV]

Back in the days of wild swings in 2013, I had a strategy to sell a little every time the stock moved up 15% or more in 5 days. It did that today ($170 to $196). To paraphrase Citizen-T (what happened to him?) - sell on the way up. I would ignore such a move if there are substantial news, but there hasn't been anything in the last 5 days. So I sold my 2 June $180 calls today. I didn't catch the top, sold at $192, but still made 57% on them in 5 days.

Now I'm going to observe for a few days and try to get more leverage out of the same amount of money on any pullback.

Folks, we are still at historic lows. Yes it has been straight up for the last few weeks, but only after dropping to an *anomalous* low, all while good news is on the calendar for the next few months.

An odd time to sell.

 

[Svetlin]

Folks, we are still at historic lows. Yes it has been straight up for the last few weeks, but only after dropping to an *anomalous* low, all while good news is on the calendar for the next few months.

An odd time to sell.

Totally agree. I'm only selling my most short term options and only because I am greedy to get more leveraged at these historic lows. Can't afford to commit more cash, but can afford to get even more aggressive with what was the riskiest part of my holdings.

 

[Zhelko Dimic]

Folks, we are still at historic lows. Yes it has been straight up for the last few weeks, but only after dropping to an *anomalous* low, all while good news is on the calendar for the next few months.

An odd time to sell.

Today, I bought back June puts, strike $150. I sold to open $23.5, bought them back at $8.3.
This is equivalent of selling, i.e. bearish action.

But the reason is that I want flexibility - these puts were sorta shure money, but it would take months for them to expire, and I've squeezed out tasty part of them already.

I'll use freed margin to either get more aggressive (sell $200 put strikes or so), or stay out of market if TSLA starts falling. I don't think I can handle one more ride down, like one we've had.