Book reviews and the Zero Dark Thirty bin Laden movie

The Bin Laden movie is coming out in a few days from the director of The Hurt Locker so wanted to add my two cents, below are my previous comments about No Easy Day. There is another decent book from the author of Black Hawk Down, its "The Finish"

if you are only able to read one book prior to seeing the movie, then No Easy Day is far supirior. The Finish focuses more on the background of Bin Laden and the Obama administration with only the final 10% of the book talking about the actual raid. Confirms what i already knew that almost anything coming out of the White House Press office is bullshit and Mark Bowden points out. so long story short its an ok read but if you are more interested in the actual raid, read the book from a guy that was actually on the raid. looking forward to seeing the movie.

just wanted to make a few comments about the book "No Easy Day" since i just finished reading it in one day. picked it up at library yesterday and finished it up today. first off, that B.S. you read and heard about the author disclosing classified or sensitive information is just that .. B.S. .. there is no classified information in the book.  i wonder if the critics and media even read it.
    having read several other book written by SEALS i was expecting the usual first half of the book to be about BUDS, their childhood, etc and then at the tail end it gets to the good stuff about some of their missions. not so on this one, gets right into it in the first chapter then backtracks to some previous missions he has been on and some of the requirements of getting selected to even get into SEAL team 6 and finishes up with a great play by play of the Osama raid by great diagrams of the target house. i remember the initial news reports in the first few days and as usual the reporters have no clue what they are talking about. bottom line its one of those books you want to read where you get started, cant put it down, and when you look up its 3 hours later. if you are also a veteran or just interested in the SEALS its a great read.

update - condoring the $AAPL position

3 oct - yesterday i closed the 750/755 call credit spreads at .07 for some chump change, in hindsight it was way out of the money but im experimenting with using the aaplpain open interest metrics into strike selections.  stock made a nice recovery yesterday and today. was able to reenter some credit spreads this morning, the Oct 710/715 credit call spreads at .60 to recondor the position. the strikes are above the recent highs in the stock, was about 85% probability of max profit at opex when i was looking at them earlier.

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27sep - was looking at condoring this position when stock was near its highs but just couldnt pull the trigger. would have been good winner during the recent pullback.. now with stock having a decent up day and near 678 im going to pull the trigger. ive been reading more of Aapl_pains postings and studying his Open interest charts , here is his chart from his website AAPL Pains site .. hard to see but the large blue spike indicates the highest call open interest at the 750 strike for Oct..his thesis is that i believe its 80% probability that stock does not go beyond the highest open interests of each put and call at opex...has had credible track record from what ive seen.. in order to get some added crumbs and since no added margin is required i sold the Oct 750/755 credit call spreads at .25 today..91%probability of max profit at opex per trademonster analysis tab..its way out there which is what i wanted...not some market timing call im trying to make just playing the percentages..mine and applepains. also give stock plenty of room to run on any hype since im long via other strategies.

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21 sep - entered into new credit put spreads yesterday. even got an unlikely fill above the "mark" of the bid ask. should be alot of bullish headlines for the next quarter for Apple and holiday season starting. keeping the short strike right below the support line at 657ish, the 50day is rising quickly and will be above the short strike in week or so.. at time of entry the spread had an 83% probability of max profit at opex.

Sell to open Oct 650/655 credit put spreads at .80 credit

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closing the trade and new setup: $FFIV credit put spread entry

20 Oct - with stock closing near 95, this credit spread expired at full profit of Oct opex. with earnings on 24th, id like to see a pullback to test the 90 level, might get lucky and still have some premium at/below the 70 level.. will also look at a cheap put fly or put calender for an earnings play.

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18 sep - better to be lucky than good. stock was breaking out in a.m. yesterday and i entered into the Oct 85/90 credit put spreads at .52 credit. keeping the short strike right at the bottom of the channel, 84%probability of max profit at opex. big move today. 112ish is some resistance from the 200 day.. might look to condor this position if it tags the 200day and can not break thru

update to the $AAPL diagonal entry

26 sep - will aaple now near 665 and the oct 715 short call worth about 3.40 you have a choice..to sit tight for the rest of Oct opex and collect that 3.40 or see if you can come up with another strategy for the remainder of the 24 days till opex that will make you more money than that $340. so having captured about 70% of that short call premium i bought back the short call at 3.40 and entered into a weekly 670/680 call ratio spread for 1.05..max profit is a 680 pin on friday.. on friday based on where the stock is i will look to enter another weekly ratio spread for next week.. the strategy is to get that upside exposure for a rebound and do it cheaply. i will be successfull if this weeks ratio, next weeks ratio , and the following weeks possible ratio profit in excess of that $340 i could have made by doing nothing. remember the daily / weekly move of the stock is irrelevant for the Leap since i will hold that regardless..have few more months in 2012..all of 2013..all of 2014 to do short calls and ratios...besides, gene munster said its going up

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17 sep - entered a new diagonal spread on apple today. was expecting the 2015 options to come on the board next monday and just stumbled onto them today. stock broke to a new high friday and followed thru today. there are two camps out there, the camp that swears to not buy a stock when it hits a new high because its too strong and wait for a pullback. and then theres the Buy on a new high, buy high sell higher, only way it goes up is to keep making new highs camp.. thats the camp im in. so i bought the 2015 630 call and sold the Oct 715 short call against it. total debit was $153.50.. not going to mess around with weeklies this first month, this far out i wanted to get at least $1200 in credit from the short call. earnings are usually the tuesday after opex so ideally this one expires at max profit and then sell another short call weekly that will be juiced up for earnings. will see how it looks then. remember my strategy on diagonals, the day to day, week to week movement of the stock is irrelevant and the 2015 Leap will be held regardless of what happens. trying to capture the premium of the short calls. the stock taking off from here till Oct opex is ok and not a bad problem to have, if you put these options into a profit calculator, like the analysis tab on Trademonster, even a move to 770 is still profitable. perfect scenario would off course be a pin at 715 at Oct opex. note...the quickest way to screw up a diagonal is to buy that Leap too close to At the money to try to get cute and pay less.

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$FFIV setup

11sep - watching for the following levels for a possible entry back into credit put spreads. set your alerts.. been working in the 90-105 range for few months now.. so will like to see either a breakout at say 104ish, with spreads at 90 or below... or flip side if it tests and holds the 90 level again.. price out lower credit put spreads if that happens. keep eye out for earnings date for oct too

Closing - $AAPL entry and strategy for rest of SEP

21 sep - the Sep620/625's will expire today at max profit, took profits previously at .19 for the Sep630/645's..these credit spreads paid for the bull call spread, the Sep 680/690..which i took profits too soon expecting a pullback..closed that at 6.40. nevertheless..all three were profitable

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10sep - finally got back into some $AAPL credit put spreads again today with the down 8 morning. missed a few other entries by getting no fills because of AON orders. no technical trigger to enter today except stock finally had decent intra day pullback to juice the put premiums a bit. wanted to get into a position ahead of the apple event.

Sold to open Sep630/635 credit put spreads at .52 - 88%probability of max profit
Sold to open Sep620/625 credit put spreads at .30 - 93%probability of max profit

the 50day moving average is rising quickly and will be at 635 in a few days, so i wanted to be under that level, also the old resistence becomes support level from 640ish..wanted to be under that.

Current positioning: still have those diagonals with way ITM short calls, been holding them in case of some type of selloff, will hold at least till after the apple event. if a selloff hits will look to roll up a few strikes to OCT. if not then will still roll up in Oct but will need to pay a bit to gain $10-$15 in strike levels, but will give me good levels to shoot against for Oct credit put spreads.
- picked up Sep680/690 call spread last week to position for bullish movement off of event, mentally used todays credit put spreads to pay for it.
- have a few Sep 670/660/650 cheap put flys as well

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