Wild Swings in the Market

Today I witnessed some wild swings in the options market. I’m currently holding 5 stocks that were recommended in a recent Seeking Alpha article and 2 options contracts each for 2 weed stocks. The stocks did okay. Three up and 2 down for the day, but all up overall. The options were a totally different story. I bought 2 OGI call contracts for 5/13 that were just in the money at open. As soon as the buy went through, I was down $0.05 per share. I guess I should wait for the market open before placing orders for options.

My current portfolio also includes 2 5/13 calls for ACB that I bought yesterday, and they were all over the place! I had calculated that I could tolerate a $16 loss on ACB to risk 2% of my capital. When I checked my position early in the day, I was suddenly down $100 on this position. Not only that, but I only paid $102!! Anyway, I didn’t close the position and in a couple of minutes, I was down just $50. Then, when I checked in an hour or so, I was suddenly up to $0.81 for a 172% gain. Holy cow that’s some wild swings for sure! I put in a sell order for 1 contract, but it was never filled. Within a few minutes, it was back down to a sane range. Twice during the day, it jumped to $0.85, so I think tomorrow I’ll put 1 contract up for $0.85 and see how it goes. I had no idea that options are so crazy!