Trades Week Ending 12/5

This week - W/E 12/5

CVX Jan15 100 Call - 12/1/14 BTO 2C@3.90=795, 12/3/14 STC 2C@5.85=1155, Profit = 360, 45% return

GILD Jan15 100 Call - 12/1/14 BTO 2C@4.90=995, 12/3/14 STC 2C@5.75=1135, Profit = 140, 14% return

C Jan15 50 Call - 12/3/14 BTO 5C@1.45=740, 12/5/14 STC 5C@2.08=1025, Profit = 285, 39% return

GILD Jan15 100 Call - 12/4/14 BTO 2C@5.35=1085, 15/5/14 STC 2C@7.50=1485, Profit = 400, 36% return

Nice profits on these trades.
I am also fairly new to this forum and just getting back into this.
Would you care to share your decision making process on these trades so others can learn from it? It always helps me to see what others are looking at that I may be missing. Thanks.

Sure thing, PastorP.

The CVX play was a bounce after oil recovered from the OPEC decision. Over the holiday, OPEC said they wouldn't cut oil production causing oil prices to drop and US oil companies dropped with them. (Its worthy to note that the airlines are an inverse play with the oil price btw - check that out) Then oil rebounded Monday off its Sunday night low of $64/bbl which caused the oil stocks to recover nicely. Technicals on chart were indicating a trade before market opened, so I waited until amateur hour was over and CVX got to just above 110. I hopped into the CVX Jan15 110 Calls (sorry I had posted earlier it was the 100 calls) @ 3.90 and watched the oil situation carefully. News on Tuesday came out about Royal Dutch Shell possibly buying BP which helped my position. On Wed crude was up again (settled at $67/bbl) and I was happy to liquidate the CVX Jan15 110 calls at $5.85.

GILD is an expert stock (although Im far from an expert yet.) Gild has been popping each day during a 1-2 hr rally then selling off in the same way. They have had a lot of small nuggets of news lately, and there has been a lot of biotech M&A activity lately. (btw ACT/AGN merger news netted me 202% but that was luck). On Monday, GILD 55 min chart showed a drooping flag pattern forming. I waited until it had drooped and started to recover and late afternoon it showed a buy signal around the 100.50 mark. I bought the GILD Jan15 100 Calls at 4.9. The stock meandered up along with the markets on Tuesday, and I sold on Wed AM during amateur hour. Nice pops on tuesday's amateur hour and after lunch. Sold at 5.75 trying to get a buck, but happy with a gain over 10%. GILD got hammered on Wed afternoon (profit taking I think) and dropped all the technicals to the call entry position. Found a floor around 100 and began to recover with some strength on Thursday. Technicals indicated a trade on Thursday just before lunch. I waited for lunch and saw the strength continuing into early afternoon and bought GILD Jan15 100 calls @5.35 when the stock was about 101.80. Flag drooped in PM trading, but not enough to back up to my zero loss tolerance. Friday AM premarket and amateur hour flew from 102 to 105 by noon. Calls were 7.50 and I was very happy with that. Cashed out.

C is also an expert stock. But again, I ain't an expert at any of this so, there's that. I was actually looking at a Daily chart on this one - I saw an interesting resistance at 54 and drew the line. it had been flirting around that level all week. On the 55 min, had a nice pop on the open on Tuesday, then did it again Wed. Drooping flag on that Wed reversed around noon so I played. I figured if it closed above that 54 resistance, it would become a support. Just before 3 PM Wed I bought C Jan15 55 Calls (again I listed the wrong strike price in my first post - sorry) for 1.43. Stock was right at 55. That night ECB and China came out with positive monetary policy comments which was a plus for bank stocks.
Got lucky here because the charts pounded my position in premarket trading but recovered nicely by the open and was surging. By COB on Thursday I was ahead by about 13 cents and all indications I had was that the market would open up on Friday and I would sell on the open during amateur hour. I did just that - liquidating my position at 2.1 just after the open.

Hope this helps. If I can figure out how to get pictures into this blog I'll paste some in here next time.