2/11 Almanac

Thursday, Feb. 11, is 8 days before February options expire, 36 the March and 64 the April.

Blue chip stocks (SPY) closed the latest regular session at $107.01, down 0.2% from the prior close.

In total, 3 billion shares were traded on the three major U.S. stock exchanges. That's about 3.2 percent less than the prior day.

Mediawatch: An all purpose sort of day. Reports tied the market action, in terms of temporal juxtaposition, to Fed Chairman Bernanke's statement on how the Fed will dismantle its active stimulus. If stocks had gone up, it would have been in response to the statement. Had they gone down, ditto. They went nowhere. Ditto. Here's the AP version of the universal stock market cause-and-effect story.

On the jump, rules, econ reports, portfolio and a good book . . .

My rules allow trades today in March iron condors and covered calls, along with butterfly, calendar and vertical spreads. I allow myself to trade unhedged call and put option purchases that expire in April or later. One economic report will be released: Jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. The report is a measure economic recovery. If new claims increase, then the economy is worsening, if a decrease, then the economy is improving. My portfolio consists of . . . February expiry: CVS, iron condor, p28/-p31/-c34/c36 ERTS, iron condor, p15/-p16/-c18/c19 MCO, covered call,  s/-c30 PALM, covered call, s/-c13 March expiry: CSCO, iron condor, p22/-p23/-c25/c26 Good trading!

Inside the 2008 presidential campaigns. "The real revelation in Game Change: Campaigns turn our politicians into lunatics." --Tina Brown, The Daily Beast

New to Private Trader? Check out the Reader's Guide. New to private trading? Here's a look at How to Become a Private Trader. Topics: S&P 500, SPDR, Spiders, Cisco Systems networking, CVS Caremark, pharmacies, drugs, Electronic Arts games, Moodys bond rating, Palm smartphone Pixi Pri.