On Friday we followed Options Tribe member Craig Wasserman’s thought processes and analysis as expiration Friday proceeded.  Craig had been watching AAPL and had become convinced that it was going to pin to 320. He reached this conclusion around 12:30 PM EDT.

Craig entered an AAPL 320  iron butterfly trade shortly after making his call on the pinning strike of AAPL. At this point on expiration Friday, with time premium evaporating so rapidly, it did not take long for the trade to appreciate. 90 minutes later, with AAPL having pinned closer to 320 and given the passage of time, Craig was able to take home a 19.5% gain. This was no accident. Craig waited  half the market day, patiently assessing his position and assuring himself that all signals pointed to the pinning strike that  he had focused on. He made sure that all of his other conditions were met as well before he exposed his capital to this trade.  And while there certainly was no assurance that his trade would be successful, by making certain that all of his conditions were met, he maximized the probability that his trade would work out well.

Incidentally, Craig also had identified the 490 strike as a pinning point for GOOG.  He entered an iron butterfly as GOOG approached 490 as well and 45 minutes later exited with a 14,2% gain.  He then determined that there were no other opportunities coming up on his radar  and decided to end his pinning trades for the day–at 2:15 PM EDT.

Craig is an unusually disciplined and studious trader. It is no wonder that he has enjoyed so much success with his expiration Friday pinning trades.  We are proud to have him as a member of the Options Tribe.

Craig will be presenting his approach to expiration week plays tomorrow afternoon at 5pm EDT. Please join us! I’ve seen his presentation and it’s going to be very informative I assure you.  If you’re interested, please register here:   http://bit.ly/mdLGo0

Seth Freudberg

Director,  SMB Options Training Program

The SMB Options Training Program is a twelve month program designed for novice and intermediate level options traders who are seeking an intensive training process to learn how to trade options spreads for monthly income. For more information on this program contact Seth Freudberg: [email protected].