Before then, the cost of the options is quite a bit lower than the value of the stock itself. . . and you won't make much money on them, regardless of what they stock does. Major announcements like the Apple Financial Call are timed to be between strike dates so as not to affect the values of options. I just don't see it.
The Apple options have always turned out to be worthless because the manipulators make sure the stock is at the strike prices of the options can't be exercised and the options become worthless. You can watch it happen in real time. Perhaps he found some suckers to buy some, but not afterhours. I think you are pulling stuff out of your navel as well. The number of shares that traded hands after hours were minuscule compared to the shares that trade during normal hours but have an outsized effect because they still have to be reported.
These small lots are sometimes traded at artificially low prices purely for the affect they will have on the market in the morning because they ARE essentially private trades and can be made outside of the market. If that manipulation can be proven, someone may go to prison. These deliberately false articles give them plausible deniability.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has been remiss in not investigating the numerous examples of the manipulation of AAPL over the past years, despite numerous instances of such "disappointing headlines" on record breaking quarters resulting in the stock going down artificially and the same persons profiting by selling stock and buying back in after the panic selling.
He’s a pretty good day trader. Uses options, called this days before the call, and shorted some 2500 contracts. he really did quite well.. Took a nice long vacation.
There's another reason I really don't believe you, Cold Heat. "Took a nice long vacation." LOL! Cold Heat, the Apple Financial Call and the release of the 3rd Financial 2015 Quarter data happened at 5PM on Tuesday of last week and you claim your friend "took a LONG vacation" since then? Sure, right! And you ask us to believe you aren't making all of this up out of whole cloth. You keep adding details that just make your story a "story" that doesn't hold water.
Take a look at the AAPL call and puts options contracts that struck on Friday July 24, 2015. Not a single one of them paid a single dime. . . In fact, as of that date, the value of those call and put options was less than 1¢. OOPS!
Perhaps your friend bought July 31st options which still have trading value. . . but then he couldn't have gone on your claimed "long vacation" on the proceeds. Double OOPS! Do you see why I simply don't believe what you are claiming?
By the way, if he is just trading options, swing changes in options are on the order of 0.01 to 1.55 per option . . . there's not a big killing to be made there even if you sell 2500 contracts. Proceeds might fund a weekend in Los Vegas for two. . . or a bus trip to Fresno, at the low end. i DO know what this is about. . . the big money is hitting it with a big swing in the stock value that continues to the strike date. That doesn't happen. . . and didn't happen.
Try knowing what YOU are talking about before you post blather to people who DO know what they are talking about. The only foot in anything is yours.
I trade them dummy...
Now I can't tell you if he sold calls or bought puts, I did not ask.
The fact is he made a pile, off of a apple short, which is saying something about him and I was impressed. Considering he is only a 20 something...
Now go pout someplace where people love you.
Again sword dude, he lives in Dubai and he sent me a card from Switzerland...so have a nice day..
LoLOLOLOLOLOLOL
You don’t have to exercise options to trade them, and since they are leveraged they make or lose more than the underlying stock, not less.
That's 250K shares there buddy....and generally if you have to keep a contract until the expiration, you already lost...
I don't use option as he does, because I'm retired and can't take the risk, but I do occasionally trade them in pairs or use them with covered calls. In that case you do keep them until expiration or just before, as a general rule you buy or sell long dated..
But I am more into stocks and I don't hold them long, I just rent them.
As a disclosure, I have never been either long or short Apple. Your head can spin in it's socket all day and every day sword man, because that is why I shared that little anecdote with you. I know how to push your buttons..
You might want to look into that..