I dodged a bullet

This is what I get for trying to trade at work where, believe it or not, I can have other things on my mind.

I intended to buy 5 SEPT 134 puts on SPY but instead I sold them. I was naked 500 shares of the SPY. Took me a few minutes to notice I made the mistake. The SPY was in the $132 range at the time. Not only can't I believe the stock wasn't put to me, but I was actually able to buy it back at a slight profit.

I have never actually had stock put to me so not sure how close to disaster I actually came but WOW. You kids pay attention now when you're placing a trade.

BTW, I have done very well the last few days on AUG SPY puts and GLD calls, although I have exited both positions now. GLD moved against me today but I had a decent profit.

Wow that's pretty crazy...you really did dodge a bullet. You really have to be careful when placing trade orders. I had a similar thing happen to me on a daytrade that was moving against me where I wanted to exit the position with a loss and ended up doubling up on it because I accidentally clicked "buy" instead of "sell" only a couple minutes before the close. I wasn't so lucky to get out unscathed the next day. Just another lesson learned from this game lol.

Yesterday was just the kind of day where I couldn't do anything wrong. I had one of my best days ever, in fact. I thought I was one smart sumbich.

Then came today. http://onlinetradersforum.com/styles...foro/clear.png

I was convinced the market was going to continue its downslide. The Japanese market was down significantly overnight. So I held onto my SPY puts and bought GLD calls. I exited both when I had lost 1/2 of what I made yesterday.

Probe, the odds of getting the stock put to you are very low.

Suppose I bought your Sep 134 Put for 8.00. I have spent $800 for the right to sell my 100 shares of SPY at 134. With the price at 126, I could exercise that put and give you my shares, but I would forfeit the premium of $800. So there's no point in doing that (134-126=8), because it would work out exactly even (plus or minus some round numbers and bid/ask spread).

Most of the putting of shares occurs during expiration week and around ex dividend days. Both scenarios sway the math a bit.