8/23 – 3:20 p.m. New York time

I entered two positions today, earnings plays on GM and WHR. I have attempted a long-shot exit/roll on TLT at my target, so far without success.

8/23 – 3:05 p.m. New York time

I have entered an earnings play on WHR.

3/23 – 2:35 p.m. New York time

I have entered a bullish directional play on GM timed to coincide with an earnings announcement.

3/23 – 11:25 a.m. New York time

The present prospects list is GM and WHR.

Of my prospects over the weekend, I am tossing UTX because its strike prices are situated too far from the at-the-money mark, making it awkward to construct a position.

GLW and GM have high earnings surprise expectations from the Zacks earnings surprise predictor algorithm, GLW to the downside and GM to the upside. I shall analyze GM as a directional play (a bull put vertical spread) but reject GLW, since Zacks  judges its positive surprise predictions to have the greater reliability.

WHR qualifies for a a full analysis as a non-directional trade (an iron fly).

3/22 – 10 a.m. New York time

I have three prospective earnings plays on my desk for Monday: GLW, GM and UTX and WHR.. In making my final decision, I shall be assessing GLW and GM for their potential as directional trades, as opposed to my neutral iron fly structure. The bid/ask spread for a trade on GLW, UTX and WHR is wider than my standard allows, but both are within reach.

For the remainder of the week, I shall be pulling my prospects from these symbols:

As is my practice during peak earnings season, I tightened up on my screening in order to get a prospects list short enough for me to deal with by screening out all with implied volatilities below the 45th percentile of the past year, implied volatility less than double the VIX, a price below $15 and lacking weekly options for my next expiration, Nov. 3.They have not yet been screened for Zacks indicators nor for their current trend implied volatility percentiles or bid/ask spreads. They were picked from a pool of 158 large-cap symbols of companies publishing earnings.

sym	action	earnings date	meridian
AKAM	10/24	10/24	pm
ANTM	10/24	10/25	am
BA	10/24	10/25	am
BAX	10/24	10/25	am
CMG	10/24	10/24	pm
EW	10/24	10/24	pm
ILMN	10/24	10/24	pm
LUV	10/24	10/25	xm
NSC	10/24	10/25	am
T	10/24	10/24	pm
TSLA	10/24	10/25	xm
TXN	10/24	10/24	pm
V	10/24	10/25	am
WBA	10/24	10/25	am
AAL	10/25	10/26	am
ALXN	10/25	10/26	am
AMGN	10/25	10/25	pm
BSX	10/25	10/26	am
BUD	10/25	10/26	am
CELG	10/25	10/26	am
CHTR	10/25	10/26	am
CME	10/25	10/26	am
EXPE	10/25	10/26	xm
MCK	10/25	10/26	am
MO	10/25	10/26	am
NOW	10/25	10/25	pm
NXPI	10/25	10/25	pm
UPS	10/25	10/26	am
XLNX	10/25	10/25	pm
ABBV	10/26	10/27	am
ALGN	10/26	10/26	pm
BIDU	10/26	10/26	pm
GILD	10/26	10/26	pm
HIG	10/26	10/26	pm
INTC	10/26	10/26	pm
MSFT	10/26	10/26	pm
RCL	10/26	10/27	xm
SHPG	10/26	10/27	am
WDC	10/26	10/26	pm

In the [meridian] field, “am’ means before the market open, “pm” means after the market close, and “xm” means that I don’t yet know the release time.

By Tim Bovee, Portland, Oregon, October 22-23, 2017

Disclaimer

Tim Bovee, Private Trader tracks the analysis and trades of a private trader for his own accounts. Nothing in this blog constitutes a recommendation to buy or sell stocks, options or any other financial instrument. The only purpose of this blog is to provide education and entertainment.

No trader is ever 100 percent successful in his or her trades. Trading in the stock and option markets is risky and uncertain. Each trader must make trading decisions for his or her own account, and take responsibility for the consequences.

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All content on Tim Bovee, Private Trader by Timothy K. Bovee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at www.timbovee.com.