TRADE CLOSE: DRI, MRNA, MCHP

Welcome back from the holiday break!  The market is pulling back some today at the open, but some of our positions are still in a great place to close for profits.  Let’s go ahead and lock in some WINS!

General closing note – Some closing bid/ask spreads are 0.10 or more.  We are buying back some of these positions to close them, so always put your order in for less than the mid-price and work your order higher.  You can often get better than the mid-price by being patient. 

TRADE CLOSE
Darden Restaurants (DRI): 167.34

TRADE ACTION: Close the put spread for a debit of around 0.33 – 0.45.  Our initial credit was 1.20.  

BTC 21 JUL 160 put
STC 21 JUL 155 put

TRADE CLOSE

Moderna (MRNA): 127.38

While MRNA hasn’t hit a 50% profit target (or higher), it did jump over $5 today, which is over a 100% average move for the stock.  We’ve been waiting for this to hit profits for some time so I’m taking the huge move today as an opportunity to take a win and close now.  

TRADE ACTION: Close the put spread for a debit of around 0.82 – 0.94.  Our initial credit was 1.33.  

BTC 21 JUL 120 put
STC 21 JUL 115 put

TRADE CLOSE

Microchip Technology (MCHP): 88.88

There is still plenty of time left on this trade if you want to hold out and try to capture more profits, but I’m going to close this out since MCHP made a new high and is pulling back.  This could be a profit-taking day on its way to higher highs, but I’m going to take another win and close this position. 

TRADE ACTION: Close the broken wing butterfly for a debit of around 0.53 – 0.63.  Our initial credit was 1.07.  

STC 18 AUG 85 put (1 contract)
BTC 18 AUG 82.5 put (2 contracts)
STC 18 AUG 75 put (1 contract)

Notes On Other Open Positions:

CF is finally heading lower today, bringing our potential profit to around 9%.  I may send out another alert if we hit 35 – 40%.  It’s another one that we’ve been dealing with since day one and it may be better to close than to keep fighting the tape.

WDC continues to be a problem as it is heading lower after we rolled our put.  I’m not going to roll the short put again because we only have 16 days left on the long put and that will work against us the closer it gets to expiration.  Given the back and forth on this stock, I’m leaning towards closing the trade tomorrow and taking a loss overall on the ticker rather than trying to reset the position.  I’ve already done more trade adjustments than I like to on any one position.  But let’s see what the rest of today and tomorrow will bring and then I’ll look to close tomorrow.