Sugar

I went long sugar today with an intention of staying long.  Instead, I did something I never do….I sold half of my position at a profit, and kept the other half.  That move was such a newbie mistake.  Although I had a wonderful gain in sugar, I wasn’t quite yet in a position to cover it with options.  Now, I have risk going overnight, but the risk isn’t that bad, being reduced by the profit on half of the position.  One nice thing about sugar, you can put on a huge position and not move the market very much.  Sugar and corn both share that trait.  100 contracts of sugar will move the market only a tick or so, which tells me that there’s some deep pockets in the sugar arena.  Tomorrow, I’ll either add to the position, or pitch out the rest and put on some more grain spreads.  Speaking of grain spreads, they  keep working their magic, with every spread soundly in the black.  Meanwhile, I still have that long (covered) S&P position to work out of.  At least I won’t get killed in that position.

 

I’ve watched my equity position go down, and am glad that my losses have been reduced with the jurisprudent use of options.  I love options

 

This equity market is turning out to be very interesting.  I’ve been afraid to pull the trigger in oil, as that would be gambling….and gambling is bad for one’s fortune.

 

I remember an indicator regarding Lehman a couple of months ago.  Somebody bought 16,000  $25 July  puts, and I filed that tid bit away, but never acted on it. I wanted to short Lehman, but never found a place to do it, much to my chagrin.  I like to use options as an indicator, much like someone might use the quinella board at the track to find an overlay.  I’ve done some number crunching in the past regarding options and found some interesting coorelations, none of which I will share. 

 

My sister is having back and neck problems after her wreck.  She’s resting in bed, and I’m getting to play nurse, which is something I’m really glad to do.  I’m going to go over to Pelican Alley for dinner, and will bring her a meal home.  While I’m at it, I might do some socializing, as my life has been rather solitary since Denise died.

 

John is off on an early date, going to dinner, then to the symphony in Sarasota.  I forgot to ask him what was being played, and will have to find out later how it was.  He has discovered fine liquor, and I found an empty bottle of Dom Perignon stashed on our property line.  He must have taken one of his honey’s out for a romantic stroll on the beach.  At least he does it right….in the 70’s when I went to college, we drank a lot of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about hanging out at the jetty with my redneck friends doing some fishing, and drinking some beer.  The jetty is a great spot to fish and this week, they’re catching snook, spanish mackerel, and mangrove snapper in good quantities.  There’s a lot of bait fish around, which brings good catches.  I love hanging out with my redneck fishing friends, as they don’t give a damn about anything except if you’re a stand up guy.  Our north jetty fish camp has the cheapest beer in the county, with a can of the cheapest beer going for $1.25.  Michelob is around $2.00 a can.  I don’t know how they do it, but suspect that the fish camp operators have some other deals going on.  The fish camp is right out of a Jimmy Buffet song.  I’ve seen boatloads of square grouper pull right up to the docks, and the guys offload their cargo in public.  I suspect that a lot of drugs come through our jetty every day.

 

Jeff