The art of the coin flip

Since I’m just talking to myself mostly (though my co-worker is subjected to my ramblings too) I figured that I would allow a United States quarter to decide my trade.  Yes, I’m really that much of a retard.  I flipped a coin to decide to buy calls or puts, risked about 90% of my account total, and than let Bernanke do the heavy lifting.

Taking a chance with a quarter is not new, I’ve let a quarter flip decide many things for me.  The only thing new is that I didn’t use a bicentennial quarter (that’s right boogster, I retired that quarter) and instead used a quadricentennial quarter with the state of Virginia depicted on the back of it.

First, let me introduce you to the quarter that was used:

(ya, so I might need to work on reducing image sizes)

Since the quarter was ready, I needed to define the decision ahead of time, regarding heads and tails and what each would result in.  I of course had my co-worker take a picture of this, because this stuff is more entertaining when others are involved.

Post flip results… (here’s where the anticipation should be climbing)

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Alright, so the moment that you have ALL been waiting for…

Now it’s time to make the trade.  JCP was at $37.26 but lingered around $37.17 also.  At first, I was only filled for 10 options, half my intended trade:

Without more than a few moments (or hours in trading time) the other 10 were purchased also:

Bought:
JCP Feb08 $40 puts (JCPNH), 20 @ $4.30
   stock price when entered $37.26

Now the question was how long to wait.  Since Bernanke decided he should talk about how the Fed knows it might have to do something, but didn’t do anything, I knew that it was just a matter of time.  In this case, the time was about 55 minutes.  While the stock began to come down, thanks to the law of gravity, I decided to sell.

Sold:
JCP Feb08 $40 puts (JCPNH), 20 @ $4.50
Entered 1/10 @ $4.30, exited 1/10 @ $4.50
  5% profit, $360.00
  stock price when entered $37.26
  stock price when exited $36.84

Of course, I found it sort of interesting that on a small candlestick chart I could show where I entered and exited the trade:

Since making $360 in one day is enough for a retard like me, I’m going to just enjoy the rest of today from a distance.

Lindsey, if you want to borrow my quarter, I’ll be happy to lend it to you. 

Anyone have any stocks for my quarter to pick a direction on for tomorrow?